My favourite albums
Submitted by kenji on Tue, 02/01/2005 - 06:21
Tags:
- Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy- Elton John
- Art of Amalia- Amalia Rodrigues
- Born to Run- Bruce Springsteen
- Le Pas du Chat Noir- Anouar Brahem
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
- My Way (The Best of)- Frank Sinatra
- The Queen is Dead- Smiths
- O.K.Computer- Radiohead
- L'Histoire de Melody Nelson- Serge Gainsbourg
- Tumbleweed Connection- Elton John
- Com Que Voz- Amalia Rodrigues
- Horses- Patti Smith
- Rattus Norvegicus- The Stranglers
- Ys- Joanna Newsom
- Darkness on the Edge of Town- Bruce Springsteen
- The Wall- Pink Floyd
- White Blood Cells- White Stripes
- Songs of Leonard Cohen- Leonard Cohen
- Elis and Tom- Elis Regina
- Akku- Raushan Orazbaeva
- Everything must Go- Manic Street Preachers
- Fado: Garras dos Sentidos- Misia
- Through the Windowpane- Guillemots
- Illinoise- Sufjan Stevens
- 2nd Symphony- Sibelius
- Concierto de Aranjuez- Rodrigo
- Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini- Rachmaninov
- Vltava (Ma Vlast)- Smetana
- La Boheme- Puccini
- Great C Major Symphony- Schubert
- 7th Symphony- Beethoven
- La Traviata- Verdi
- Violin Concerto- Sibelius
- 6th Symphony- Beethoven
- The Marriage of Figaro- Mozart
- Carmen- Bizet
- Karelia Suite- Sibelius
- 3rd Piano Concerto- Rachmaninov
- The Protecting Veil- Tavener
- 1st Symphony- Mahler
Author Comments:
Give Amalia's wonderful Portuguese fado music a try- and don't be deterred by my liking for early Elton John. Spot the one from Kazakhstan!
Have you heard Miles Davis' interpretation of Concierto de Aranjuez off Sketches of Spain? Good fun.
no, but i have been tempted to get it! Surely it can't top Rodrigo's? Thanks for the suggestion.
Nice to see Ys on this list. I am enjoying that album immensely and feel it could be the best of the decade so far.
Looking at the rock albums here, I'd recommend the following without hesitation:
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea-Neutral Milk Hotel (1998)
Pink Moon-Nick Drake (1972)
Five Leaves Left-Nick Drake (1969)
Forever Changes-Love (1967)
Song Cycle-VanDyke Parks (1968)
Letting Off the Happiness-Bright Eyes (1998)
and, with some hesitation:
Geek the Girl-Lisa Germano (1994)
Blue-Joni Mitchell (1971)
Spirit of Eden-Talk Talk (1988)
Desertshore-Nico (1971)
Astral Weeks-Van Morrison (1968)
Thanks for the recommendations. Some of them i've been sampling recently on amazon, cos they crop up in recommendations for me and lists there. eg Bright Eyes, Nick Drake, Aeroplane over the Sea, so no doubt you're on the right lines. I like Forever Changes which i got a while back as it had been in the top 100 in a book of top 1000 albums (among others). Nick Drake may take a while for me to take to. I bought Astral Weeks years ago but wasn't too keen. Joni Mitchell i know a bit. I got Ys cos of rave reviews in some papers here and one at amazon (uk). As i said on your page my wife hates it, so i have to be careful! She loves Grace by Jeff Buckley at the moment. Sufjan Stevens i discovered at amazon. Have you heard Anouar Brahem?
I've never heard of Anouar Brahem until seeing him here. What's he/she sound like? How's the name pronounced?
Regarding Astral Weeks: I recommend listening to it 10 times within a 3 week span. If you do this, it should come around for you. I currently have it ranked #4 on my greatest albums of all time list and to this day I've never seen anybody who I recommended it to listen to it 10-15 times in a short time span and not end up falling in love with it during that span. Your wife should do it to! If she loves Grace she oughtta be able to cope with Astral Weeks. Van Morrison, as well as Tim Buckley (Jeff's father) were big influences on Jeff Buckley.
Anouar Brahem; well i guess his name sounds as it looks. I've only discovered hom recently. He's a Tunisian oud (stringed instrument) player, a sort of soft but deeply beautiful jazz, usually albums with a couple of other musicians, eg Le Pas du Chat Noir with (French) piano and accordeon. Astrakan Café sounds a bit more exotic, with clarinet and bendir/darbouka. I like all the albums of his i've heard. He did music for some films including Silences of the Palace (Tunisia), but i wasn't aware of that when i last watched it.
Anyway, give Le Pas du Chat Noir a try, and look him up on the net (wikipedia etc).
Then there's Akku by Raushan Orazbaeva from Kazakhstan, but that may be more of an acquired taste. She plays a shamanic spoon-shaped wooden stringed instrument a bit like a cello. I find it quite evocative. Women have only recently been playing it. Of course, as Borat would tell you, they have to stay in their cages!
By the way, the reason I recommend listening to Astral Weeks over a limited time span is because listeners tend to gradually forget albums as they increase time away from them. By listening to it like this, your perseverance and dedication will naturally bring about a desire to want to hear it more, and then cause you to see its greatness. If done with large intervals in between you're allowing time to swallow the accumulation of realizations that lead up to this.
Well, thanks for the advice; it's a shame that i got rid of Astral Weeks then. I've tended to be more patient watching films than i am with music and books (perhaps cos i've become more attuned to films). My wife is starting to come round to Ys!