https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasterpieceIt can have both meanings.
Pink Floyd have at least 5 masterpieces, like DS!
I believe that a masterpiece in music, can have weak moments, that push the narrative and help it work as a whole.(depending on the nature of the recording, if it is a concept album, for example) Pink Floyd's The Wall is a masterpiece, despite the fact that some individual songs are weak(er) and don't work out of context. The same goes to Dark side of the moon. Who can intentionally chose to listen only to "On the run"? Animals on the other hand has no skippers, but with 3 songs (pigs on the wig 1&2 are hardly songs) it is hard to fail, or is it? Same for Wish you were here which has 4 songs. And I would also include Piper at the gates of dawn as their 5th masterpiece, despite the fact that the non - Syd songs are not that great.
But I believe that any album that MK has put out under his name could have been introduced as a DS album, up until SL. (Yes even TRD with a different approach, like the treatment he gave to the live version of Hill farmer's blues) . It would of course be a marketing trick, cashing on the DS name. But after 20 years since the break up of DS, I think his fan base is still huge, and he doesn't need to rely on such trickery. And I don't think it would work in any case. For some reason (probably because he started in 1977 and not in the 60ies) he has not gained status in the younger generation, who knows Eric Clapton because of his Cream and Derek and the dominoes days, even if they don't follow his last 20 years output.
Thanks JF for the stones page! Fans and the writer, really nail the 3 first ones! Together with my secret favorite"Satanic majesties request" are the essential RS albums. Still not a 10, though. And about the Beatles, we had this discussion, but it is strange that Srgt Pepper gets to be the best album ever in polls, when in the separate song rating, at least 3 songs would be far below 10. And my favorite white album has a horrid piece called revolution 9, which would certainly spoil the result. And if you play some songs alne they just don't sound like 10s. But as a whole they all get 10s! Despite the fact that this is not a concept album. Sequencing the album with so many diverse music styles is very important after all. Abbey road on the other hand is not working the same way, but could be a near 10, if it wasn't for OG.
The easier , to me, artist to give a 10 is Dylan. Blonde on blonde is just perfect. John Wesley Harding , a close second. Highway 61, as well. Blood on the tracks, too. Not one skipper.
All in all, I would give a ten, even if an album has a weaker song, but certainly not a skipper or a filler. And I would consider it a masterpiece, as well. The first four DS albums are exactly the case. And there are at least 500 albums that qualify.