10 Albums I'd Take to a Deserted Island* (so far, on my musical journey)
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Thu, 11/13/2003 - 05:45
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- Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen wails about despair and isolation and does it with some of the most lively music ever recorded. I love it from the rockin' "Thunder Road" to the amazing title track to the beautiful closing epic "Jungleland."
- Who's Next - The Who - Pure, unadulterated rock, consistently great thanks to the amazing musical skill of the members of the Who (and the songwriting helps too). Passionate tunes where Daltrey talks about his generation are juxtaposed with sweet ballads like "Gettin' in Tune" and the hilarious song "My Wife."
- The White Album - Beatles - Amazing how many different kinds of songs this album covers. The soft, melancholy "Julia"; the sweet ballad "Blackbird"; the... er, bluesy "Yer Blues"; the moaning, plaintive "While My Guitar Gently Weeps; the fun love song "I Will"; the hard rock "Helter Skelter"; the Beach Boys parody "Back in the USSR"; and the just plain weird "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey." Even with such an eclectic variety, the Beatles succeed on nearly every track.
- Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan - I love Blood on the Tracks, but for my hypothetical desert island, I'll want more Dylan for my precious selections, and this is a double-album where the man is in top form with the brilliant songwriting and the emotional wailing.
- London Calling - The Clash - Like The White Album, this is a double-album (now a single CD) that manages to mesh so many different genres of rock, while, in the lyrics, generally sticking to social commentary that ranges from bitter to merely tongue-in-cheek satirical.
- Something / Anything? - Todd Rundgren - Jeez, what is it with me and double albums? This is another great one where the immensely talented Rundgren produces the album, writes and arranges every song, does every vocal, and plays every instrument (at least until the last quarter of the double-album). From the soft ballads like "I Saw the Light" to zanier songs like "Wolfman Jack" and "I Went to the Mirror" to the hilarious rock opera parody, "Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots", I love it all.
- Tupelo Honey - Van Morrison - I knew I needed a Van Morrison album, and this was a hard-won battle for Tupelo Honey. I reserve the right to change my mind, but really, Tupelo Honey contains all the great elements of Van Morrison's music. It contains mystic, woodsy tunes ("Old Old Woodstock"); it contains beautiful love songs ("Tupelo Honey"); and it contains jazzy numbers ("Wild Night" and "Moonshine Whiskey"). The result is a nice balance between the cerebral stuff, the passionate stuff, and the just plain fun stuff, and it makes for a great album.
- Automatic for the People - REM - With beautifully complex lyrics that Stipe sings broodingly against the backdrop of the exquisitely wonderful music, REM have created an amazing album that consistently hits all the right notes - whether they're taking the government down a few notches in "Ignoreland" or simply writing a ballad about skinny dipping in "Nightswimming."
- The Queen Is Dead - Smiths - My favorite '80s album (so far) takes us on a journey through both mournful tracks and really bizarre ones. The only album to every contain both the lyrics "It's so easy to laugh / It's so easy to hate / It takes strength to be gentle and kind" and the lyrics "Some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers"; at least, I hope it's the only album.
- a Rolling Stones album - but which one? It would probably be between Sticky Fingers or Exile on Main Street, but Beggars Banquet could possibly usurp my selection too (I like Let It Bleed but not as much as the others).
Author Comments:
* - assuming the deserted island also contained a boom box and power generator.
Some of you may know that I'm on a bit of a quest to discover great music. I'm far from adequately acquainted with the broad spectrum of rock, but for my progress thus far, here are 10 albums I really love, in no particular order. I have excluded albums by Weird Al, TMBG, BNL, Dave Matthews Band, and Ben Folds Five because they're not really part of my journey. Also, I have limited the list to one album per artist, so we get some variety.
After writing this list, I noticed two common threads in most of the music I love. Those threads are:
1. eclecticness - if an album contains many different kinds of songs and they all manage to work, I'll love it
2. weirdness - I think this one is pretty self-explanatory
I would definitely take The Queen is Dead, and I'd probably take Automatic for the People and Blonde on Blonde. So yay.
I'd take Astral Weeks over Tupelo Honey, and I'd never take a Stones album. :]
Astral Weeks is true poetry. I appreciate the album's artistry, but it's not as appealing to these ears as some of Van Morrison's other work.
I love the Stones. Not a fan, I take it?
Well, I do love the title track of Tupelo Honey, but why the album over, say, Moondance?
Not a Stones fan at all. I can stomach a few tracks like "She's So Cold," "Beast of Burden," "Get Off My Cloud" (or whatever the title is). And I love love love "Gimme Shelter." But that's really as far as I go.
Moondance is a great album that I enjoy quite a bit. It was a close call for the Van Morrison slot. I think I just like Tupelo Honey more than you. I love the title track, and I also really love "Wild Night", "Moonshine Whiskey", "You're My Woman", and, quite frankly, all the songs on the CD.
One thing may give Tupelo Honey an advantage. If I'm not mistaken, Tupelo Honey has been remastered and Moondance has not. As I own the CD versions of these albums, Tupelo Honey may sound better to me partially because of the remastering.
Who's Next and London Calling would play so well at night, cranked up, as you danced wildly on the beach and felt momentarily that maybe you really could be content living your life out alone on a deserted island...
How's that?
Johnny Waco
Ah yeah. Maybe I could come up with some tribal dances set to "Getting in Tune"...
A friend the other day explained why he wasn't a big fan of Baba O'Riley. Before the final drum pounding, he claims the song sounds too much like a Russian folk tune. A silly reason to dislike the tune, I concluded.
Although, to be honest, every time I now hear that piece, I see little Russian men in tall furry hats doing some energetic, leg-blurring dance inside my little mind...
Not a tribal dance, exactly, but still folky.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs