| Desert Island Discs | | Date Created: Jan 18, 2005, 03:37 PM |
 Here's a fun game of sorts to play if you're reeeeally into music.(Or, do a movie/DVD version.) It seems quite simple: select the 10 records (ahem: CDs) you would take if you were to spend the rest of your life on a deserted island... (No Gilligan jokes here.) Thanks to the iPod, you can now carry 10,000 songs in the same space a cassette tape used to take, so the entire hypothetical has changed. Ah- what the hell, it's still fun.
There really aren't many rules, but I have a few guidelines that help define the picks: no "Greatest Hits" (too easy - it's cheating somehow), no box sets (unless you count each disc among your total of 10), and no bowing to jeering or peer-pressure.
My original list for this blog had 23 discs, so the editing was slow and deliberate. These are not necessarily what I consider to be the greatest or the best of all-time. However, each of the selections do what music does best: hold an emotional impact or special marker for a specific place in my life.
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 The list is strangely void of recent releases, perhaps because I believe music has a more profound impact on you at a younger age. So, I would gamble most lists would include the music from each individual's life when they were mid-teens through early twenties. So, as much as I love some recent releases, they haven't passed the test of time.
If you think this sounds fun, make your own top-10 and enter it in the "Comments" column. If you want a cinematic version of making the perfect music list or the secrets to a good mixtape, you must see High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, and based on the book by Nick Hornby. (Also nearly a movie of my life story...) |
While my list changes hourly and/or daily, here's a shot for now (with rights to change upon a whim. Or, as Dubya sez 'at the whim of a hat.')
To hear free snippets of each of these discs, click on the link for the exclusive iTunes iMix made specifically for this blog.
In no particular order: |
 1.) Big Star: #1 Record/Radio City
This is kind of cheating, but the two albums were issued on CD only as a single-disc duo. Big Star came out of Memphis in the early/mid-70s to a huge blast of... indifference. The records went out of print for years and became urban legends. It's power pop music with equal parts joy and sorrow, and sounds just as fresh now as it did then. Influenced many of the most successful artists of the 80s and 90s (and several on the remainder of this list...)
2.) Beatles: Revolver
You could pick nearly any of their albums, so it's almost like shutting your eyes and throwing a dart. This is a great mid-period album for the band, mixing much of what made them great: the energy of their early records, brilliant melodies and lyrics, and the beginnings of experimentation and artistry that would eventually lead to Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. (The Beatles have not yet licensed their records to iTunes, and do not appear on the iMix.) |
 3.) Gerald Collier: Gerald Collier
About as obscure as the list gets. This is a great album from track one to the finish, and fits perfectly if you're heartbroken or depressed. One friend said he couldn't listen to it because it made him want to slit his wrists. So why do I love it so?
4.) Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
Starting his career as an acoustic troubador, this was Dylan's electric, rock-n-roll coming-out party and one of the greatest albums ever. This would be the racing equivalent of Dale Jr. leaving NASCAR and then showing up a year later in an IRL car, Imagine the pissed-off fans and you can imagine the shock to Dylan's followers at the time.
5.) Counting Crows: August and Everything After
I'm not even sure I'd buy any of their other discs since, but this debut, produced by T-Bone Burnette, is as eloquent and emotional as any pop record in the last decade. "when everybody loves me/I won't ever be lonely..." A superb live band and reminds me deeply of my late friend Brenda...
6.) R.E.M.: Murmur
Defined the "college radio" sound for years and years. This was their first full-length album - more than 20 years old now. A dense, multi-layered sound with nearly indescipherable lyrics. I recall lying on the floor listening with headphones over and over and over: "what the hell did he say?" |
7.) The Replacements: Hootenanny
This record is like an intelligent, drunken chainsaw. Recorded in some god-awful basement in Minneapolis, this is about as rock-n-roll as it gets. My jaw is still on the ground when I think of the first time I saw them play live...
8.) Richard and Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights
Recorded during their divorce, this record is like the audio equivalent of raw, exposed nerves being strummed like a guitar. Almost feels as if you're sitting in a therapy session with a couple tearing apart.
9.) Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bullocks
Ah yes, good ol' 1977 seems like yesterday. The anger and fury seem slightly less dangerous today, but "God Save the Queen" still rattles the windows. What will be the next big thing to rattle the cage of "adults" like this did? No, not Ashlee or Janet's boob. It's a long list: Sinatra, Elvis, Beatles, punk rock and then rap. But, even rap is several decades old as an art form. What's next? What's next? |
 10.) Whiskeytown: Stranger's Almanac
The most recent album on the list. This represents the best of what is alternately called "Americana/No Depression/Country Rock/blah blah blah. I prefer to call it "y'all-ternative," and Ryan Adams sings and soars through some beautiful songs from start to stop.
Sigh. That's it. I'd love to add 20 more, but 10 is the list. With only 10 selections, there remain huge holes: no jazz, no Stax R&B, no heavy metal, no Prince, no U2, etc, etc... but that's the fun. Now - off ya go! Make that list!
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The initial findings have been reported by Seymour Hersh, who has a long history of brilliant reporting and major scoops. He is also the author of a series of books, including the recent "CHAIN OF COMMAND" about the administration's approval of prisoner torture at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.
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