I doubt I'm going to wind up purchasing 10 new music albums this year. But what about that old barometer for the personality: The Desert Island Discs. You've done this before: You're exiled to a desert island, can only take 5 albums with you, yaddah yaddah. Here's the ground rules:
* No box sets. Double-Disc sets a la the White Album or Best of the Doors count as one choice, but "The More than Complete Led Zeppelin Box Set Containing Every Album the Band Ever Released Plus Some Unreleased Singles" Isn't a valid choice. This is about agonized trade-offs, kids. It's about the Music Junky's version of Sophie's Choice
* On a similar note, that's Five ALBUMS. Not five discs of MP3s, not five discs of mixes ripped to show how incredible your taste is. You don't have to prove anything. If you weren't already at the forefront of the gene pool, you'd be a troll on some other, inferior BBS. If you were the sort of person with deep-seated insecurities, you wouldn't answer this post; you'd just scan it and fail to leave your mark on it, and go off in your weak-willed way to something else.
* Five only. You can have an Honorable Mention addenda to showcase the ones that almost made the cut, but no fair slamming fifteen albums down and mumbling that it would have been five of these.
* If you're going to show off how cool you are by picking something so obscure that nobody else knows a damn thing about it, have the decency to append a little explanatory text. Maybe we'll want to check it out.
* Remember the phrasing of this particular gedankenexperiment: You're on a desert island, looking at decades of sand, surf, and solitude. What five albums do you know in your heart you'll never get sick of?
Start your engines. I used to have the Five Discs, Five DVDs, and Five Books written down so I could have a snappy answer for these sorts of questions, but I can't find the list. Anyhow, it's six years old, I know some of my answers must have changed.
The Desert Island Discs.
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Protagonist X
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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All right, here we go (in order):
1) Woodface by Crowded House
The finest whole album I've ever had the pleasure to hear. They brought in Neil Finn's brother for this one and it was like the Blue Jays bringing in Paul Molitor. Except that I don't think Molitor was quite as angry as Tim Finn. Regardless, there are more great songs on this disc than some bands that I dig manage to produce over a career.
2) H2O by Daryl Hall and John Oates
This was the first album I ever bought. I was around ten years of age and had some birthday money; thankfully dad let me use his record player without supervision at that point. When the track "Art of Heartbreak" was released it occurred to me for the first time ever that just possibly the greatest songs on an album inexplicably don't get released. Some of the catchiest pop ever written.
3)It's alright by URT
I was introduced to their work via Roody -- he met these guys in person and pointed me their way. (They even let me put "Deepest Knife" and "Not Just One" in one of the games I wrote.) I originally just kept playing those two aforementioned songs over and over again, but when I finally sat down to listen to the entire song I was blown away. Each track leads nicely into the next... and they certainly do know how to rock!! Great band with an enormous amount of talent. I desperately hope they get a chance to make a second disc.
4) Greatest Hits Volume II by Queen
I agonized -- deeply -- over which Queen album to include. I took the "red" one over the blue one mostly due to the fact that "Killer Queen" is one of my favorite songs. But there is just one classic right after another on this. I won't get into praising the individual memebers of the band, ah, yes I will: Freddie Mercury had the vocal chords of a god.
5) New Found Glory by New Found Glory
I've been listening to this one for just about a year straight. If you were my age and you liked pop you didn't have anything to listen to when you graduated from high school in 1992. Flannel O'Grungleangst was everywhere, you couldn't escape it. So almost a decade later this CD comes out and it's a second childhood for people like me. The high water mark of the skater pop that I presently almost exclusively listen to. Plus, I cannot find the damn thing right now, so if I am being shunted to a desert island my captors will have to go down to the mall and suffer the embarassment of buying it. Ha! HA-ha!!!
No honorable mention, but, if I were going to a desert island that could somehow support both myself and a member of the opposite sex that I would find attractive, there would have to be some way that I reconstructed "Disintegration" by the Cure from the grains of sand that comprised the environ. So far in my experiences there is a direct corrolation between how fun a girl has been in bed and how much they have enjoyed this album being played while it was going on. Not essential according to the definition of the thread, and I can't say it's one of my ten or even twenty favorite albums to listen to straight-up, but under the right circumstances it has to make an appearance.
1) Woodface by Crowded House
The finest whole album I've ever had the pleasure to hear. They brought in Neil Finn's brother for this one and it was like the Blue Jays bringing in Paul Molitor. Except that I don't think Molitor was quite as angry as Tim Finn. Regardless, there are more great songs on this disc than some bands that I dig manage to produce over a career.
2) H2O by Daryl Hall and John Oates
This was the first album I ever bought. I was around ten years of age and had some birthday money; thankfully dad let me use his record player without supervision at that point. When the track "Art of Heartbreak" was released it occurred to me for the first time ever that just possibly the greatest songs on an album inexplicably don't get released. Some of the catchiest pop ever written.
3)It's alright by URT
I was introduced to their work via Roody -- he met these guys in person and pointed me their way. (They even let me put "Deepest Knife" and "Not Just One" in one of the games I wrote.) I originally just kept playing those two aforementioned songs over and over again, but when I finally sat down to listen to the entire song I was blown away. Each track leads nicely into the next... and they certainly do know how to rock!! Great band with an enormous amount of talent. I desperately hope they get a chance to make a second disc.
4) Greatest Hits Volume II by Queen
I agonized -- deeply -- over which Queen album to include. I took the "red" one over the blue one mostly due to the fact that "Killer Queen" is one of my favorite songs. But there is just one classic right after another on this. I won't get into praising the individual memebers of the band, ah, yes I will: Freddie Mercury had the vocal chords of a god.
5) New Found Glory by New Found Glory
I've been listening to this one for just about a year straight. If you were my age and you liked pop you didn't have anything to listen to when you graduated from high school in 1992. Flannel O'Grungleangst was everywhere, you couldn't escape it. So almost a decade later this CD comes out and it's a second childhood for people like me. The high water mark of the skater pop that I presently almost exclusively listen to. Plus, I cannot find the damn thing right now, so if I am being shunted to a desert island my captors will have to go down to the mall and suffer the embarassment of buying it. Ha! HA-ha!!!
No honorable mention, but, if I were going to a desert island that could somehow support both myself and a member of the opposite sex that I would find attractive, there would have to be some way that I reconstructed "Disintegration" by the Cure from the grains of sand that comprised the environ. So far in my experiences there is a direct corrolation between how fun a girl has been in bed and how much they have enjoyed this album being played while it was going on. Not essential according to the definition of the thread, and I can't say it's one of my ten or even twenty favorite albums to listen to straight-up, but under the right circumstances it has to make an appearance.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ben
Mine.
In no particular order:
Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti - This is probably the pinnacle of Rock and Roll. Nothing better before or since, likely never will be.
Rush: Permanent Waves - Musical geniuses at the top of their game, both songwriting-wise and instrument-playing-wise.
Beethoven: #9 - The single angriest, most ass-kicking piece of music ever written.
Rage: Renegades - The funkiest metal album of all time. Or the metalliest funk album of all time. Yay, Rage.
John Williams: Star Wars - I'm a sucker for score, and this is probably the finest one there is.
Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti - This is probably the pinnacle of Rock and Roll. Nothing better before or since, likely never will be.
Rush: Permanent Waves - Musical geniuses at the top of their game, both songwriting-wise and instrument-playing-wise.
Beethoven: #9 - The single angriest, most ass-kicking piece of music ever written.
Rage: Renegades - The funkiest metal album of all time. Or the metalliest funk album of all time. Yay, Rage.
John Williams: Star Wars - I'm a sucker for score, and this is probably the finest one there is.
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Eric
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Granted, it would be hard to pick five favorite groups/performers, but still, picking "best of albums" seems too obvious, so, except for runners-up I didn't do that. Well, my one "best of" is a bit more than that. Anyway, I will now demonstrate my age:
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
The best rock album of all time, in other words, everything that's wrong with rock n roll in all its loud, nasty, rough glory. Sadly, it doesn't include the classic "No One is Innocent." I mean, how can you top replacing your departed lead singer with a famous train robber on the lam? Then there was Johnny Rotten's appearance on American Bandstand, when his lip synching became more and more perfunctory, and finally he just stopped moving his lips and stood there while his recording sang, looking bored, then started to run around ripping up the stage scenery.
To the Bone (UK version) -- Kinks
My fav group must have recorded 500 songs by now. Even their endless compilation albums don't relect the diversity. You Really Got Me has got to be the greatest rock song ever -- punk and heavy metal both, but years before anyone else did it. When you listen to it you have to remember its 38 years old -- this was 1964 Daddy-O! On the other hand they recorded gorgeous stuff like Waterloo Sunset with its ethereal chorus. This 1990s semi-live revisiting of their oeuvre is unusual in that it has a fairly balanced selection of the old and the newer, many considerably reimagined. And, I'm cheating here, because if its me listening I can still hear the original studio versions as well in my head.
Ramones -- Ramones
I could've picked any of their first few albums as they are all essentially the same -- a couple dozen frantic short minute songs. Rock music stripped right down to its essence. Why make a song 6 minutes long when you can play a minute and a half song four times? Joey and Dee Dee both dead! Shit. I actually saw the Ramones at one of their final concerts, in Rochester. A friend got tickets. The *Best* tickets, he assured me. So, we were ushered in to our "seats." The floor right in front of the stage. Bunch of kids standing around. We're the oldest guys there except one geezer resembling Santa Claus (and the Ramones themselves). So I finally realized -- what the fuck - you've got us the "best seats" in the damn mosh pit! I put my back up against the wall and clung to it like a barnacle. They called it a farewell tour. I figured it was the usual joke, they'd be reforming to tour when they were in their eighties. Damn!
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band --Beatles
OK, yeah, I know. Booooring. And probably Revolver and Rubber Soul are my two favorite Beatles albums, but, see, if I really were on a desert island I'd want to hear this again because it was such a revelation when it came out. It opened so many eyes, so many doors. The cover of Time magazine! It just seemed cool; for rock to be taken as *important*. I guess when you're a teenager acceptance seems important. Although, a lot of Beatles stuff is who-knows-what? Not exactly rock, not exactly anything but what the Beatles did. In a way, "legitimatizing" rock was a bad thing. Groups like the Sex Pistols had to make it illegitimate again. But it did open up the record industry to a lot of good music and gave groups a license to experiment, until corporate think totally took over. The Beatles are half dead too, now. Man, I am getting old.
The Doors -- Doors
I don't like it when Morrison's lyrics devolve into actual poetry, but what a sound. "People are Strange" was my theme song growing up. Some of the later stuff, I didn't *get* until years after. Morrison came on Ed Sullivan, I think it was, strolling along with a microphone past, a set populated by honking horn players, crooning "C'mon now touch me, Babe...". I thought, what is this shit! At a certain age everything is dead serious. I didn't see till later he was taking the piss. (Oddity -- "Hello, I Love You" is basically the same "song" as "You Really Got Me" )
OTHERS:
(I just realized - you didn't say 15 others!!!)
My Aim is True -- Elvis Costello (Terrific, quirky songwriting)
New York Dolls - New York Dolls (This group was a powerhouse even if though the guys did pose in dresses)
Greatest Hits -- Hank Williams (Generally I hate this kind of music but when Hank sings I believe him)
Greatest Hits -- Fred Astaire (See explanation for Hank Williams)
John Lennon -(Lennon's first solo album - (brilliant minimalism)
All Things Must Pass - George Harrison (brilliantly monumental)
Between the Buttons - Rolling Stones (I prefer their earlier stuff)
Live Bootleg tape of the Richard Thompson acoustic solo show I saw at Red Creek in Rochester, around 1990, which my ex-wife made off with
D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces -- D. L.. Menard (I would miss not having some Cajun muisic).
Velvet Underground Live (vol 1 & 2 - originally 1 double album)- Velvet Underground (Can you believe Nico died by falling off a bike rather than a drug overdose? Or was that someone else? Not that she's on this album. )
Greatest Hits - Credence Clearwater Revival (A little travelling music please)
Lola vs Powerman and the Money Go-Round - Kinks (the album that came out when I was most into the music and even got to see them at the Fillmore East, in the Big City of New York where real people actually said stuff like "Cool it, man", so this is my nostalgia album - well, OK so this is all nostalgia.)
The New Too Much Junkie Business-- Johnny Thunders (Live, raucous and riotous. Not so polished as the studio stuff but you get to hear Johnny cursing out his sax player and squealing white-girl backup group - C'mon you bitches, sing!)
Blondie - Blondie (Ok pop, but the very best pop)
Eric
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
The best rock album of all time, in other words, everything that's wrong with rock n roll in all its loud, nasty, rough glory. Sadly, it doesn't include the classic "No One is Innocent." I mean, how can you top replacing your departed lead singer with a famous train robber on the lam? Then there was Johnny Rotten's appearance on American Bandstand, when his lip synching became more and more perfunctory, and finally he just stopped moving his lips and stood there while his recording sang, looking bored, then started to run around ripping up the stage scenery.
To the Bone (UK version) -- Kinks
My fav group must have recorded 500 songs by now. Even their endless compilation albums don't relect the diversity. You Really Got Me has got to be the greatest rock song ever -- punk and heavy metal both, but years before anyone else did it. When you listen to it you have to remember its 38 years old -- this was 1964 Daddy-O! On the other hand they recorded gorgeous stuff like Waterloo Sunset with its ethereal chorus. This 1990s semi-live revisiting of their oeuvre is unusual in that it has a fairly balanced selection of the old and the newer, many considerably reimagined. And, I'm cheating here, because if its me listening I can still hear the original studio versions as well in my head.
Ramones -- Ramones
I could've picked any of their first few albums as they are all essentially the same -- a couple dozen frantic short minute songs. Rock music stripped right down to its essence. Why make a song 6 minutes long when you can play a minute and a half song four times? Joey and Dee Dee both dead! Shit. I actually saw the Ramones at one of their final concerts, in Rochester. A friend got tickets. The *Best* tickets, he assured me. So, we were ushered in to our "seats." The floor right in front of the stage. Bunch of kids standing around. We're the oldest guys there except one geezer resembling Santa Claus (and the Ramones themselves). So I finally realized -- what the fuck - you've got us the "best seats" in the damn mosh pit! I put my back up against the wall and clung to it like a barnacle. They called it a farewell tour. I figured it was the usual joke, they'd be reforming to tour when they were in their eighties. Damn!
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band --Beatles
OK, yeah, I know. Booooring. And probably Revolver and Rubber Soul are my two favorite Beatles albums, but, see, if I really were on a desert island I'd want to hear this again because it was such a revelation when it came out. It opened so many eyes, so many doors. The cover of Time magazine! It just seemed cool; for rock to be taken as *important*. I guess when you're a teenager acceptance seems important. Although, a lot of Beatles stuff is who-knows-what? Not exactly rock, not exactly anything but what the Beatles did. In a way, "legitimatizing" rock was a bad thing. Groups like the Sex Pistols had to make it illegitimate again. But it did open up the record industry to a lot of good music and gave groups a license to experiment, until corporate think totally took over. The Beatles are half dead too, now. Man, I am getting old.
The Doors -- Doors
I don't like it when Morrison's lyrics devolve into actual poetry, but what a sound. "People are Strange" was my theme song growing up. Some of the later stuff, I didn't *get* until years after. Morrison came on Ed Sullivan, I think it was, strolling along with a microphone past, a set populated by honking horn players, crooning "C'mon now touch me, Babe...". I thought, what is this shit! At a certain age everything is dead serious. I didn't see till later he was taking the piss. (Oddity -- "Hello, I Love You" is basically the same "song" as "You Really Got Me" )
OTHERS:
(I just realized - you didn't say 15 others!!!)
My Aim is True -- Elvis Costello (Terrific, quirky songwriting)
New York Dolls - New York Dolls (This group was a powerhouse even if though the guys did pose in dresses)
Greatest Hits -- Hank Williams (Generally I hate this kind of music but when Hank sings I believe him)
Greatest Hits -- Fred Astaire (See explanation for Hank Williams)
John Lennon -(Lennon's first solo album - (brilliant minimalism)
All Things Must Pass - George Harrison (brilliantly monumental)
Between the Buttons - Rolling Stones (I prefer their earlier stuff)
Live Bootleg tape of the Richard Thompson acoustic solo show I saw at Red Creek in Rochester, around 1990, which my ex-wife made off with
D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces -- D. L.. Menard (I would miss not having some Cajun muisic).
Velvet Underground Live (vol 1 & 2 - originally 1 double album)- Velvet Underground (Can you believe Nico died by falling off a bike rather than a drug overdose? Or was that someone else? Not that she's on this album. )
Greatest Hits - Credence Clearwater Revival (A little travelling music please)
Lola vs Powerman and the Money Go-Round - Kinks (the album that came out when I was most into the music and even got to see them at the Fillmore East, in the Big City of New York where real people actually said stuff like "Cool it, man", so this is my nostalgia album - well, OK so this is all nostalgia.)
The New Too Much Junkie Business-- Johnny Thunders (Live, raucous and riotous. Not so polished as the studio stuff but you get to hear Johnny cursing out his sax player and squealing white-girl backup group - C'mon you bitches, sing!)
Blondie - Blondie (Ok pop, but the very best pop)
Eric
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gsdgsd
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Rolling Stones "Exile on Main St." -- I could probably stand to take this, "Sticky Fingers", "Let it Bleed" and "Beggar's Banquet" for four of my choices, but in the interests of diversity, I'll take my favorite. This is the only CD I've worn out.
Uncle Tupelo "No Depression" -- I've pretty much burned out on the whole alt-country thing now, but UT and its various spawn all get played to death in Chez D'Avis. Country and Replacements-style rock never came together so well.
Liz Phair "Exile in Guyville" -- Any of Phair's albums would be fine for the pop fix, but this is the first I heard, AND it has the most songs -- so it's almost like bringing an extra album onto the island. I win! Except this gives me two "Exile" albums. So much for diversity.
The Old 97's "Too Far to Care -- This is one of those albums that's sorta specifically tied into a girl for me, so I can't be objective. It's great! Buy it! Buy all their stuff!
John Coltrane "Blue Train" -- Because sometimes you need the jazz.
I'd probably second-guess myself from the moment I arrived on the island, of course. No punk here ... if I could sneakily slip one CD down my pants before heading to the island, I'd bring along Black Flag "Damaged", Unsane's singles comp, or Drive Like Jehu's "Yank Crime".
Greg
Uncle Tupelo "No Depression" -- I've pretty much burned out on the whole alt-country thing now, but UT and its various spawn all get played to death in Chez D'Avis. Country and Replacements-style rock never came together so well.
Liz Phair "Exile in Guyville" -- Any of Phair's albums would be fine for the pop fix, but this is the first I heard, AND it has the most songs -- so it's almost like bringing an extra album onto the island. I win! Except this gives me two "Exile" albums. So much for diversity.
The Old 97's "Too Far to Care -- This is one of those albums that's sorta specifically tied into a girl for me, so I can't be objective. It's great! Buy it! Buy all their stuff!
John Coltrane "Blue Train" -- Because sometimes you need the jazz.
I'd probably second-guess myself from the moment I arrived on the island, of course. No punk here ... if I could sneakily slip one CD down my pants before heading to the island, I'd bring along Black Flag "Damaged", Unsane's singles comp, or Drive Like Jehu's "Yank Crime".
Greg
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Protagonist X
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- Location: A fortified bunker deep beneath the Arizona desert surface.
Wow. Some really intriguing picks here.
I once heard that the quickest litmus test of the personality is to look through a guy's wallet (or a woman's purse), but I've always held that it's only true if you can't take a gander round their living space to scan the titles on the bookshelf and (even more telling in our era) what's in the CD rack.
A friend I knew had this case of forty CDs -- 38 rap albums (mostly gangsta, natch), and two Rage Against the Machine (one of which was a live bootleg I'd never seen before). I'd never thought of Joe as a shallow guy before in so many words, but after seeing the CD collection, I could never look at him the way I did before.
Anyway, the five I'd pick if you asked me right this minute, subject to immediate change in nanoseconds:
1.) Portishead -- PNYC: roseland nyc live
My big question on this slot would be which Portishead album to choose. This one has many of their best off both studio albums, but the clincher is the balls-to-the-walls hardass version of Sour Times -- my jaw hit the floor when I heard it the first time. I couldn't believe it was the same band. I only wish it came in an industrial strength 11-minute version with the third verse of the original. Or more, maybe. An unusually strong live album from a band composed mainly of studio rats happiest in front of a mixing console.
2.) J.S. Bach -- Bach's Greatest Hits, volume one
Not that highbrow of a choice, Baroque purists and snobs are free to sneer. They can fuck themselves, this one's brilliant.
Orchestrations of some of the least obscure Bach songs (the ones we all can hum along to even if we weren't so great in that G.E. Musicology course), mostly recorded by the Philadelphia orchestra in the mid 60s. I've heard some of these pieces played the way they were originally intended, on an organ by a single harried organist, and I would posr that this way is so much better. You can hear each individual intricate soaring voice of the 8+ part harmony swelling and cascading; trying the same thing with one poor keyboardist is like asking a single actor to simultaneously play all the roles in Hamlet.
I will freely admit that this choice is purely sentimental as well: one of my earliest memories is being three years old at the new house and listening to this album, but on vinyl. And, as Neal Stephenson noted in Cryptonomicon and other works, geeks tend to have a thing for Bach, similar to the fascination with M.C. Escher or Da Vinci sketches.
3.) Wojciech Kilar -- Soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula
I saw the movie nearly ten years ago -- it would have been Friday the 13th of November, 1992. It's the movie that tuned me into a film major.
I'll just pause here while everyone finishes laughing. Yes, oither student filmmakers discovered their love of the cinema watching Cinema Paradisio, Midnight Cowboy, or Lawrence of Arabia. Me, I happened to hit the epiphany watching a movie with the Keanu Factor. I'll defend this visually aggressive work some other time: the soundtrack is without flaw and nearly without peer.
All original music. Shamelessly ripped off for the trailers of other movies more often than Orff's Carmina Burana. It hits quiet moments, swells of rage, compelling vortexes of obsession... whatever mood you're in, your piece is here. The weakest cut on this baby is the Annie Lennox song on the last track. Which I never listen to; it's so incongruous after the sonic bliss of the actual Soundtrack.
4.) P J Harvey -- To Bring You My Love
I will scare the shit out of every monkey/toucan/lizard/whatever on the island as I crank "Meet Ze Monsta" up to Eleven and rock out all alone, shouting my anguish and defiance over the empty waves and sand dunes. Oh yeah.
5.) The Beatles -- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Again a sentimental choice: my little sister gave me this for Christmas, 1993, and that Christmas was the only time I've ever gotten out of the U.S. -- big trip by the extended family to England. I played it on a discman so nonstop I thought the scanning laser would bore scorch marks into the CD surface. I remember all the places I was when various tracks played; put on "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and I can close my eyes and imagine the greens and greys of the road to Stonehenge, the precise shade of the top hat the doorman wore at the hotel on De Vere Gardens, these weird Victorian-Era brass pumping things off the beaten path by the north end of the Serpentine in Kensington Park, the interior of a taxi going from Holborn to the British Museum. These are just the first ones that spring to mind as I listen to track four, understand.
It's a great album, it can stand on its own merits. But if I was imprisioned -- desert island, aseptic mental asylum, Hell, whatever -- if I could have something like this to trigger strong, strong memories, I don't think that They could ever have me all-the-way confined.
I'll spare you the near misses and instant regrets over the ones I didn't choose. The reason for putting such strict rules on it is because most of the things I mentioned above are ways I've tried to weasel out of the limitations in the past. I am a WEAK, WEAK MAN.
Real quickly, the missing spaces I notice the most, looking back on this: Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition;" The Cure's "Staring at the Sea;" Pearl Jam's "Ten," "Vs.," and "Vitalogy;" the soundtracks to Trainspotting, Brazil, The Prisoner (the cult TV show from the 60s) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (I hate anime soundtracks as a rule; Evangelion breaks more rules than this), and certain spoken word albums: Bill Hicks, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman.
Further thought: looking at my list and around my room I'm amazed at all the "best-of" collections and soundtracks, the compilations like Cupid's Revenge (Punk love songs. It's great, really). They're all good, but I feel immensely shallow in comparison to the actual albums that others chose. Sad, sad, sad.
I once heard that the quickest litmus test of the personality is to look through a guy's wallet (or a woman's purse), but I've always held that it's only true if you can't take a gander round their living space to scan the titles on the bookshelf and (even more telling in our era) what's in the CD rack.
A friend I knew had this case of forty CDs -- 38 rap albums (mostly gangsta, natch), and two Rage Against the Machine (one of which was a live bootleg I'd never seen before). I'd never thought of Joe as a shallow guy before in so many words, but after seeing the CD collection, I could never look at him the way I did before.
Anyway, the five I'd pick if you asked me right this minute, subject to immediate change in nanoseconds:
1.) Portishead -- PNYC: roseland nyc live
My big question on this slot would be which Portishead album to choose. This one has many of their best off both studio albums, but the clincher is the balls-to-the-walls hardass version of Sour Times -- my jaw hit the floor when I heard it the first time. I couldn't believe it was the same band. I only wish it came in an industrial strength 11-minute version with the third verse of the original. Or more, maybe. An unusually strong live album from a band composed mainly of studio rats happiest in front of a mixing console.
2.) J.S. Bach -- Bach's Greatest Hits, volume one
Not that highbrow of a choice, Baroque purists and snobs are free to sneer. They can fuck themselves, this one's brilliant.
Orchestrations of some of the least obscure Bach songs (the ones we all can hum along to even if we weren't so great in that G.E. Musicology course), mostly recorded by the Philadelphia orchestra in the mid 60s. I've heard some of these pieces played the way they were originally intended, on an organ by a single harried organist, and I would posr that this way is so much better. You can hear each individual intricate soaring voice of the 8+ part harmony swelling and cascading; trying the same thing with one poor keyboardist is like asking a single actor to simultaneously play all the roles in Hamlet.
I will freely admit that this choice is purely sentimental as well: one of my earliest memories is being three years old at the new house and listening to this album, but on vinyl. And, as Neal Stephenson noted in Cryptonomicon and other works, geeks tend to have a thing for Bach, similar to the fascination with M.C. Escher or Da Vinci sketches.
3.) Wojciech Kilar -- Soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula
I saw the movie nearly ten years ago -- it would have been Friday the 13th of November, 1992. It's the movie that tuned me into a film major.
I'll just pause here while everyone finishes laughing. Yes, oither student filmmakers discovered their love of the cinema watching Cinema Paradisio, Midnight Cowboy, or Lawrence of Arabia. Me, I happened to hit the epiphany watching a movie with the Keanu Factor. I'll defend this visually aggressive work some other time: the soundtrack is without flaw and nearly without peer.
All original music. Shamelessly ripped off for the trailers of other movies more often than Orff's Carmina Burana. It hits quiet moments, swells of rage, compelling vortexes of obsession... whatever mood you're in, your piece is here. The weakest cut on this baby is the Annie Lennox song on the last track. Which I never listen to; it's so incongruous after the sonic bliss of the actual Soundtrack.
4.) P J Harvey -- To Bring You My Love
I will scare the shit out of every monkey/toucan/lizard/whatever on the island as I crank "Meet Ze Monsta" up to Eleven and rock out all alone, shouting my anguish and defiance over the empty waves and sand dunes. Oh yeah.
5.) The Beatles -- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Again a sentimental choice: my little sister gave me this for Christmas, 1993, and that Christmas was the only time I've ever gotten out of the U.S. -- big trip by the extended family to England. I played it on a discman so nonstop I thought the scanning laser would bore scorch marks into the CD surface. I remember all the places I was when various tracks played; put on "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and I can close my eyes and imagine the greens and greys of the road to Stonehenge, the precise shade of the top hat the doorman wore at the hotel on De Vere Gardens, these weird Victorian-Era brass pumping things off the beaten path by the north end of the Serpentine in Kensington Park, the interior of a taxi going from Holborn to the British Museum. These are just the first ones that spring to mind as I listen to track four, understand.
It's a great album, it can stand on its own merits. But if I was imprisioned -- desert island, aseptic mental asylum, Hell, whatever -- if I could have something like this to trigger strong, strong memories, I don't think that They could ever have me all-the-way confined.
I'll spare you the near misses and instant regrets over the ones I didn't choose. The reason for putting such strict rules on it is because most of the things I mentioned above are ways I've tried to weasel out of the limitations in the past. I am a WEAK, WEAK MAN.
Real quickly, the missing spaces I notice the most, looking back on this: Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition;" The Cure's "Staring at the Sea;" Pearl Jam's "Ten," "Vs.," and "Vitalogy;" the soundtracks to Trainspotting, Brazil, The Prisoner (the cult TV show from the 60s) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (I hate anime soundtracks as a rule; Evangelion breaks more rules than this), and certain spoken word albums: Bill Hicks, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman.
Further thought: looking at my list and around my room I'm amazed at all the "best-of" collections and soundtracks, the compilations like Cupid's Revenge (Punk love songs. It's great, really). They're all good, but I feel immensely shallow in comparison to the actual albums that others chose. Sad, sad, sad.
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loafergirl
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Wow, this is a tough pick, as I am a music junky....
#1 Mike Doughty - Skittish
Mike Doughty is the former lead singer of Soul Coughing, and has written a good deal of the bands songs, Skittish is his solo album that he rerecorded and released after finding out that the tracks were leaked onto MP3 sites. It's got the same bad ass lyrics and signiture guitar, but it's a lot more toned down. Condensed is a better word... it holds the main ingredient in the strength of the Soul Coughing songs.
#2 Everclear - So Much For The Afterglow
I cannot got tired of this album either. It holds enough bitterness and resentment to power years of survival. Not the hopeless and depressing kind, the kind that wants you to get up and make something happen.
#3 REM - Green
Oh, the agony in only choosing 1 REM album. And it's a hard struggle between this and Reckoning, but to keep variety, there can be only one. This album is one of the few REM albums where the songs don't sound so uniform. From the solid rock sounds of Orange Crush, to the beautiful melodic vocals of Hairshirt, it's like a Best Of, without being a Best Of.
#4 Until The End of The World Motion Picture Soundtrack
I stole this album from my brother and have listened to it for YEARS before I ever saw the movie. Most of it is pretty depressing, but it includes not only REM, U2, both of which I adore, but inumerable other big and smaller names in a mix if phenominal talent.
#5 Whatever Ella Fitzgerald album has To Keep My Love Alive, Everything I've Got, Paper Moon, and Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered.
She's been around long enough that there has to be an album meeting those specifications somewhere. It's very difficult to say this, but there are no living female artists I can choose without regret, but if there be an Ella album with just those four songs, it would be worth for the rest of the album to be full of crap.
Honorable Mention:
Billy Joel - Innocent Man
Oh I'm sure I will long for this album some day while laying on a make shift hammock on the shore drinking coconut milk, but the others were just too important.
U2 - Joshua Tree
Another I'll think of while staring at a sunset or while sitting in my grass hut during a rainstorm that will turn into hurricane and send my multi-plyer (which is what has helped me make my Gilligans Island like paradise) and myself out into the ocean and 80 MPH to be eaten by sharks, but again, the others take the cake.
ANd I'm sorry Jonsey, but Beaver just doesn't belong on a deserted Island. =)
-LG
#1 Mike Doughty - Skittish
Mike Doughty is the former lead singer of Soul Coughing, and has written a good deal of the bands songs, Skittish is his solo album that he rerecorded and released after finding out that the tracks were leaked onto MP3 sites. It's got the same bad ass lyrics and signiture guitar, but it's a lot more toned down. Condensed is a better word... it holds the main ingredient in the strength of the Soul Coughing songs.
#2 Everclear - So Much For The Afterglow
I cannot got tired of this album either. It holds enough bitterness and resentment to power years of survival. Not the hopeless and depressing kind, the kind that wants you to get up and make something happen.
#3 REM - Green
Oh, the agony in only choosing 1 REM album. And it's a hard struggle between this and Reckoning, but to keep variety, there can be only one. This album is one of the few REM albums where the songs don't sound so uniform. From the solid rock sounds of Orange Crush, to the beautiful melodic vocals of Hairshirt, it's like a Best Of, without being a Best Of.
#4 Until The End of The World Motion Picture Soundtrack
I stole this album from my brother and have listened to it for YEARS before I ever saw the movie. Most of it is pretty depressing, but it includes not only REM, U2, both of which I adore, but inumerable other big and smaller names in a mix if phenominal talent.
#5 Whatever Ella Fitzgerald album has To Keep My Love Alive, Everything I've Got, Paper Moon, and Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered.
She's been around long enough that there has to be an album meeting those specifications somewhere. It's very difficult to say this, but there are no living female artists I can choose without regret, but if there be an Ella album with just those four songs, it would be worth for the rest of the album to be full of crap.
Honorable Mention:
Billy Joel - Innocent Man
Oh I'm sure I will long for this album some day while laying on a make shift hammock on the shore drinking coconut milk, but the others were just too important.
U2 - Joshua Tree
Another I'll think of while staring at a sunset or while sitting in my grass hut during a rainstorm that will turn into hurricane and send my multi-plyer (which is what has helped me make my Gilligans Island like paradise) and myself out into the ocean and 80 MPH to be eaten by sharks, but again, the others take the cake.
ANd I'm sorry Jonsey, but Beaver just doesn't belong on a deserted Island. =)
-LG
1, 2, 5!
3 sir...
3!
3 sir...
3!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Guest
He's done two that I know of. The one I've got is "The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels," and it's good, strange, very Alan-Moore-ish stuff. It's from a live performance he did, as is the one I don't have, "The Birth Caul." Supposedly he was at work on others, including one called "Disco Qabbalah," but I've never seen a copy of any others.Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Also: Alan Moore did a spoken word album?!?!?! I had no idea.
Bear in mind that since Alan Moore decided he was a practicing magician (the thaumaturgy and goetica type, not the sort with rabbits out of the hat and the cups-and-balls trick), his interest in the occult is the big theme running through a lot of his stuff. The albums are all appaerntly no exception; the live performances these were recorded at are billed by Moore as rituals of some sort. He says all these things with a straight face, and I know he's a hell of a lot smarter than I am, but I keep wondering if he's (a) gone crazy, (b) pulling our legs in some elaborate tribute to Andy Kaufman-style hijinks, or (c) some combination of the above.
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bruce
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Five, huh?
Well, let's see.
1) TOm Waits, _Small Change_. Utter fucking brilliance. Sure, there are plenty of other Waits albums that are also fantastic, but I need a little variety on my island, and _SC_ is probably the one I keep coming back to more often than any of the rest.
2) Cowboy Junkies, _Pale Sun, Crescent Moon_. _The Trinity Sessions_ might edge this one. One of those two. With regret that I have to leave _The Caution Horses_ behind.
3) Patti Smith, _Horses_. I've never heard another album that went from the id directly to the tape like that. _Gung Ho_ is musically a lot more sophisticated and has some great stuff, but, man, "Birdland"? Wow.
4) Trout Fishing In America, _Over The Limit_. TFIA rocks, and I need something silly to balance the grimness of the first three records here.
5) Johnny Cash, _American Recordings_. The first of the American disks. The Man in Black at his grimmest and most charming. Plus a Tom Waits song. Too bad his cover of "The Mercy Seat" doesn't make it until American 3.
Honorable mention, and could easily replace 4 or 5:
Nick Cave: _Murder Ballads_ or _Henry's Dream_. Joni Mitchell: _Blue_ or _Hejira_. The Pogues: _If I Should Fall From Grace With God_ or _Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash_. Fred Eaglesmith: _Lipstick, Lies, and Gasoline_ or _Ralph's Last Show_. The Dead: _American Beauty_ or _Workingman's Dead_ or _Europe '72_.
And then there are the singles. Millions of those. Sid Vicious doing "My Way". Shane McGowan doing "My Way". Frank Sinatra doing "My Way". Joan Baez doing "Diamonds and Rust". Judas Priest doing "Diamonds and Rust." Leonard Cohen doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." Joan Baez doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." Tori Amos doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." The Cowboy Junkies doing "Dead Flowers." Cry Cry Cry doing "The Kid" or "Cold Missouri Waters." Richard Shindell doing "Transit." Arlo doing "City of New Orleans." Bauhaus doing "Ziggy Stardust."
I'd better hope I don't get stranded on a desert island, huh?
Bruce
1) TOm Waits, _Small Change_. Utter fucking brilliance. Sure, there are plenty of other Waits albums that are also fantastic, but I need a little variety on my island, and _SC_ is probably the one I keep coming back to more often than any of the rest.
2) Cowboy Junkies, _Pale Sun, Crescent Moon_. _The Trinity Sessions_ might edge this one. One of those two. With regret that I have to leave _The Caution Horses_ behind.
3) Patti Smith, _Horses_. I've never heard another album that went from the id directly to the tape like that. _Gung Ho_ is musically a lot more sophisticated and has some great stuff, but, man, "Birdland"? Wow.
4) Trout Fishing In America, _Over The Limit_. TFIA rocks, and I need something silly to balance the grimness of the first three records here.
5) Johnny Cash, _American Recordings_. The first of the American disks. The Man in Black at his grimmest and most charming. Plus a Tom Waits song. Too bad his cover of "The Mercy Seat" doesn't make it until American 3.
Honorable mention, and could easily replace 4 or 5:
Nick Cave: _Murder Ballads_ or _Henry's Dream_. Joni Mitchell: _Blue_ or _Hejira_. The Pogues: _If I Should Fall From Grace With God_ or _Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash_. Fred Eaglesmith: _Lipstick, Lies, and Gasoline_ or _Ralph's Last Show_. The Dead: _American Beauty_ or _Workingman's Dead_ or _Europe '72_.
And then there are the singles. Millions of those. Sid Vicious doing "My Way". Shane McGowan doing "My Way". Frank Sinatra doing "My Way". Joan Baez doing "Diamonds and Rust". Judas Priest doing "Diamonds and Rust." Leonard Cohen doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." Joan Baez doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." Tori Amos doing "Famous Blue Raincoat." The Cowboy Junkies doing "Dead Flowers." Cry Cry Cry doing "The Kid" or "Cold Missouri Waters." Richard Shindell doing "Transit." Arlo doing "City of New Orleans." Bauhaus doing "Ziggy Stardust."
I'd better hope I don't get stranded on a desert island, huh?
Bruce
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Singles? We be tawkin' singles at some point? I'LL BE SHIMMER AS FAWK!!!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Protagonist X
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This is exactly what I was hoping for:
* A glimpse into the souls of the other people here, and
* New ideas on what to listen to.
Usually the former is more fascinating than the latter. I for one would never have pegged ICJ as a Hall & Oates fan.
Other random thoughts:
-- If I had to go to the desert island and the only choices I had were someone else's discs, I'd probably pick Loafergirl's, and I think I could live with Greg's or Bruce's. And I haven't seen anyone here yet who didn't have at least one or two albums that I'd like to have.
-- I want to see more of these. There's a post from Blue a while back that read
-- As a subset of the, is there a way to somehow "stickify" this thread? Is it worth stickification? Are other people gripped by the same curiousity I am?
* A glimpse into the souls of the other people here, and
* New ideas on what to listen to.
Usually the former is more fascinating than the latter. I for one would never have pegged ICJ as a Hall & Oates fan.
Other random thoughts:
-- If I had to go to the desert island and the only choices I had were someone else's discs, I'd probably pick Loafergirl's, and I think I could live with Greg's or Bruce's. And I haven't seen anyone here yet who didn't have at least one or two albums that I'd like to have.
-- I want to see more of these. There's a post from Blue a while back that read
Now I'm REALLY curious. What are Blue and Jack Straw listening to? What's on Lex's playlist?If I started talking about music in this forum...
You guys would all think that I was speaking some kind of foreign language.
-- As a subset of the, is there a way to somehow "stickify" this thread? Is it worth stickification? Are other people gripped by the same curiousity I am?
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Protagonist X
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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That's just from my mild neurosis about such things. Top XX lists of games, movies, books and so forth. Attempting to organize them in little lists provides some sort of satisfaction over experiencing them. I guess it was articulated in that movie High Fidelity, but I've never really tried to find out just why I personally do things like that.Protagonist X wrote:Clearly, the man has put more thought into his choices than I have, if he can actually rank the damn things. Heavy.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Guest
If I were forced to pick from someone else's choices I, too, would pick Loafergirl's because that could possibily imply that, hey, you're stranded on a desert island... with Loafergirl!Protagonist X wrote:-- If I had to go to the desert island and the only choices I had were someone else's discs, I'd probably pick Loafergirl's, and I think I could live with Greg's or Bruce's.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Aw... blast! I wrote the above message. (I wasn't logged in at my parents' house, evidently.) I went from being the smooth pimp handing out the box of flirties to the awkward could-be stalker who doesn't know the software that well in the space of about 10 seconds.
Damn you, phpBB!!!
Damn you, phpBB!!!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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loafergirl
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Roody_Yogurt
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Here are my choices-
Material Issue- Material Issue
Belle & Sebastian- Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like A Peasant
Dogbowl - Flan
Replacements - Tim
Beulah - When Your Heartstrings Break
Honorable Mention:
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - Queen Elvis
Handsome Family - In The Air
Old 97s - Hitchhike to Rhome
Material Issue- Material Issue
Belle & Sebastian- Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like A Peasant
Dogbowl - Flan
Replacements - Tim
Beulah - When Your Heartstrings Break
Honorable Mention:
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - Queen Elvis
Handsome Family - In The Air
Old 97s - Hitchhike to Rhome
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Worm
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Cluster fucks! I really don't have huge explainations to justify my choices. I'll try.
Monster Magnet: Super Judge ... you know when the air brushes through the trees in autumn knocking down four leaves which dance around you in such perfect motions you suspect they are spirits trying to talk to you? That is what this album is to me.
Mister Bungle: Mister Bungle ... it is just a power packed dyno thrusters go voltron sword slash.
Soul Coughing: El Oso ... uhh it is good.
They Might be Giants: Flood ... I love catchy happy shit.
The Seatbelts: Cowboy Bebop ... it is also good
Honorable mention: The Pillows: Furi Kuri music.
Monster Magnet: Super Judge ... you know when the air brushes through the trees in autumn knocking down four leaves which dance around you in such perfect motions you suspect they are spirits trying to talk to you? That is what this album is to me.
Mister Bungle: Mister Bungle ... it is just a power packed dyno thrusters go voltron sword slash.
Soul Coughing: El Oso ... uhh it is good.
They Might be Giants: Flood ... I love catchy happy shit.
The Seatbelts: Cowboy Bebop ... it is also good
Honorable mention: The Pillows: Furi Kuri music.
Good point Bobby!