While I couldn't say best, my top 3 favourite albums are:
1. Disintegration - The Cure. Absolute masterpiece. Sadness in its most refined, beautiful hour. Not to mention the title track, which is a song I could listen to forever.
2. Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog. Tribute to one of my all time favourite singers, Andrew Wood. Unlike Disintegration, which wallows in its sorrow, Temple begins in mourning and follows all the way through to rediscovered happiness, creativity and picks you back up by its finale.
3. Saturnalia - The Gutter Twins. Mark Lanegan, Greg Dulli, together. What more can be said. It's dark, it's mysterious, it's sexy as hell - in a weird way.