Saturday, May 9, 2009

Desert Island Discs

I've been working on a list of ten desert-island discs. This list has been in flux for the last two decades, or so. If I found myself on a desert island that had CD or MP3 capabilities (but no way of escape), here are probably the discs I'd bring with me. You'll notice that they're all rock, but I'm hoping the powers that be who allow me to bring 10 CDs to a desert island will let me bring 10 CDs in different genres (i.e. Classical, soundtracks, etc.). In no particular order:

1. The Bends - Radiohead. I know other people like OK Computer more, but I absolutely love the soundscape of this record. It really feels like its own world.

Fave line: "She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing."

2. Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys. I love the cleverness of the lyrics, and it makes me want to jump around. There is not a song on this album that I do not adore vigorously. They're second album is also amazing.

Fave line: "You can pour your heart out around 3 o'clock, when the 2 for 1's undone the writer's block."

Honorable mention: "I see your frown and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun."

3. With Teeth - Nine Inch Nails. I had a really hard time with this one. I wanted to choose a NIN album and I know Pretty Hate Machine so well, I can sing it to myself, I don't even need to hear it anymore. This album is newer and a little less known to me. But I figure I'll want a couple of lesser-known CDs in with my old favorites. It's a sometimes angry record and it came out when I was particularly pissed off.

Fave line: "I just made you up to hurt myself. And it worked. Yes it did. There is no you, there is only me."

4. So Much for the Afterglow - Everclear. This is the soundtrack to the wildest year of my life. It was also the mental soundtrack to my first novel. If I wanted to get back into writing it after a while away, I'd listen to the first couple of songs and be right back there in the thick of it.

Fave line: "They can't hurt you unless you let them."

Honorable mention: "She's perfect in that F&@$d up way that all the magazines seem to want to glorify these days."

5. Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack - Various. A great collection of songs by fantastic artists including Craig Wedren (of Shudder to Think), Grant Lee Buffalo, and Thom Yorke.

Fave line: "We'll take the whole shebang--all or nothing, any day. Ecstasy's the birthright of our gang. We'll take the whole shebang. Free your heart of guilt and shame. Come and take what's yours: the whole shebang."

6. Pony Express Record - Shudder to Think. Keeps you off balance the whole time. Unexpected time shifts and turns of phrase make this a record that keeps you guessing. One of the two albums on this list I heard about because of my ex-boyfriend, Ed.

Fave line: "The Truth, it wears sharp clothes, and ooh, you cannot undress it."

7. Punk in Drublic - NOFX. This is the other record from the Ed years. This is a really tight collection of songs. Brilliantly played and sometimes hilariously funny.

Fave line: "Got a face like Charles Bronson. Straight outta Green Bay, Wisconsin."

8. One Fierce Beer Coaster - The Bloodhound Gang. One of the funniest albums ever recorded, and what makes it even awesomer is that the musicianship is really tight.

Fave line: "Life's short, but hard. Like a body-building elf."

9. Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy - Mindless Self Indulgence. This album is pure energy. Another pissed off record that came into my life--via my now roommate--when I was really angry at stuff. I remember listening to this and saying, "Oh yeah, this record gets where I'm at right now."

Fave line: "I could've been someone instead of falling flat upon my ass."

Honorable mention: "I'm a badass. Tell me I'm a badass."

10. A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay. I know there are people out there who have no love for Coldplay. I don't care what y'all say, this album is beautiful. When I first heard it--around the beginning of 2002--I was still in grad school, but starting research on my dissertation. I was also getting very heavily into Harry Potter. It was a unique time. I felt on the verge of something spectacular, and this album perfectly captured that "butterflies" feeling that I seemed to experience all the time. 

Fave line: "Questions of science, science and progress, did not speak as loud as my heart."


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