I’m typically not very excited when I am given a hypothetical question along the lines of ‘If you were on a desert island what five things would you want with you?’ My answer is always something along the lines of ‘A Coast Guard ‘copter, fuel for it, a book on how to fly a ‘copter, enough food and water for two months, and Elsa Benitez.’
So the hypothetical you are about to read about, one that I assigned myself, is a bit unnatural. It does come as the result of some very deep pondering that I have been engaged in lately in regard to a list I am making of my all-time favorite songs.
Here is how it goes. You have been convicted by a police state for a crime that doesn’t matter since you didnt commit it. Before they strand you on a desert island without a Coast Guard helicopter, a strange quirk in the legal system forces you into the following situation: You have at your disposal a digital library of all music and the means to burn it onto a CD. You only have one CD. You must fill it with your favorite songs, in a format that can be played on the original Sony Discman that is in a bag next to your lone CD‑R. [That means you can’t stuff the CD with mp3s, bozo]. You cannot have more than one song by an artist, or else you will be flayed by superintelligent marmosets and then dipped in salt. What songs do you put on the CD?
Here is what I would put on.
Plush [Acoustic] — Stone Temple Pilots — 3:54
Down to the Waterline — Dire Straits — 3:56
Tin Pan Alley [AKA The Roughest Place in Town] — Stevie Ray Vaughan — 9:08
Dangerous Mood — Joe Cocker and B.B. King — 4:54
Fool in the Rain — Led Zeppelin — 6:12
Ziggy Stardust — David Bowie — 3:13
Nothing Else Matters [Acoustic] — Metallica — 6:23
For Martha — Smashing Pumpkins — 8:17
I Burn — Toadies — 3:31
The Soft Collision — Machines of Loving Grace — 4:50
Specialist — Interpol — 6:34
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? — Creedence Clearwater Revival — 2:39
Bohemian Rhapsody — Queen — 5:59
Total Run Time — 69:20
Ok this is a difficult one for me and I will probably pick the more popular songs from some artists because I’m crazy like that. Also please note I’m going with 12 songs, but I don’t think they’ll fit on to a standard CD‑R (Sue me I don’t have my playlist handy).
1.) Sanatarium — Metallica
2.) Countdown to Extinction — Megadeth
3.) 33 — Smashing Pumpkins
4.) 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Syphony i.e. Ode to joy
5.) Bohemian Rhapsody — Queen
6.) My own Prison (Acoustic)- Creed
7.) While my Guitar Gently Weeps — Beatles
8.) Dream On — Aerosmith
9.) Big Empty — Stone Temple Pilots
10.) Humans Being — Van Halen
11.) Hells Bells (live) — ACDC
12.) Stairway to Heaven — Led Zeppelin
perhaps its been stewing around in my subconscious since then. i bet yours didn’t have superintelligent marmosets though.
yeah for me that one offers too much variety.
Still here they are:
The Smashing Pumpkins — Adore
David Bowie — The Singles
Nine Inch Nails — The Downward Spiral
The Shins — Oh, Inverted World
Led Zeppelin — In Through the Out Door.
but its not as mellow. my list needed something mellow. i suppose i could have left the shins off and put on coltrane instead.
i think coltrane is plenty mellow.
must be nice to live in a world where your opinions are inarguable.
Exactly eighty minutes of unalloyed majesty:
01 Leonard Cohen — Suzanne
02 Miles Davis — Generique
03 The Shaggs — My Pal Foot Foot
04 The Velvet Underground — Sister Ray
05 Neu! — Negativland
06 The Microphones — Ice
07 The Magnetic Fields — Two Characters in Search of a Country Song
08 The Carter Family — Can the Circle Be Unbroken
09 Joy Division — Decades
10 Elgar — Cello Concerto, Op. 85: I Adagio (Jacqueline du Pre’s performance only)
11 Sam Cooke — A Change is Gonna Come
12 Neil Young — Down By The River
13 The Modern Lovers — I’m Straight
14 Gang of Four — At Home He’s A Tourist
PS I’d go with Adriana Lima over Elsa Benitez any day of the week.
I did something similar May 17th, 2003.
“I Just Wanted You To Know” — Mark Chestnut
“X‑Static” — Foo Fighters
“Mr. Tambourine Man” — Bob Dylan
“Moving On” — Sixpence None The Richer
“Muzzle” — Smashing Pumpkins
“Adia” — Sarah McLachlan
“Fallin’ Again” — Alabama
“Shoulda Been A Cowboy” — Toby Keith
“Fishing In The Dark” — Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Opening Theme of Angel — Darling Violetta
I’ve also heard the whole 5 album version as well;
1.) Metallica — …and Justice for All
2.) Smashing Pumkins — Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
3.) Led Zeppelin — IV
4.) ACDC — Live
5.) Megadeth — Coutdown to Extinction.
Please–Chutes Too Narrow is incontrovertibly superior to Oh, Inverted World.
Hah, the best Coltrane is decidedly unmellow, I’d argue. (Conversely, critics in his day thought it sounded “angry.” He explained it was b/c he was trying so many things at once.) Your best bet there would be to stick with the king, the man who birthed cool in 1949: Mr Miles Davis. If you stray from Miles, at least avoid blue-eyed jazzmen, if you know what I mean.
Well, that doesn’t address what I said: “the best Coltrane” was what I was talking about. So: Love Supreme, Blue Train, and Giant Steps. Those are inarguably his three masterpieces and inarguably unmellow. And anyone who contends otherwise is inarguably ignorant of Coltrane’s music.
Ah, see I would argue that the Album offers fewer choices whilst it gives more music. I even seen it with constraints, no compilation CD’s (movie soundtrack, greatest hits, etc), no double disk sets, no anthologies. I think it brings an extra bit of merit, because some albums have really great songs, but it is a rare album that is really good from begginning to end, and be something that you could list to for the rest of your natural life.