Desert Island Discographies

[pcstru]

You have 8 - named artists, no room for compilations. You should say what they are. You should say something about them. You do not need an invite to play. Going off topic will not be tolerated, it will be celebrated. Bags I go last. Edited May 1, 2014 by pcstru

[pcstru]

Quite possibly : Ian Dury.

 

The nature of this would be that I get the completely unremarkable album "Strange Land" by "Box of Frogs" thrown in for free because Mr Dury did the lead vocal of the third track "Average". No, really, it's true. On the other hand I get a lot less than one of my other favourites, a Mr Francis Zappa, who's output might possibly need one of those modern container ships to ship it out to the island (hope it doesn't arrive too late to save the drowning Witch).

[tmcd35]

Wahoo! Another music thread. Quite possibly my favourite subject.

 

I take it we're posting 1 artist at a time then, 8 artists - should keep the thread going for a while.

 

Number 1: R.E.M.

If we're talking discographies then I'll always start with these guys. "Automatic For The People" is quiet simply one of, if not THE, best acoustic rock albums ever produced. Most notably the sublime "Find The River". Automatic was followed by the rock epic that was "Monster", and the band just got better with the brilliant "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" and the eerily beautiful "E-Bow The Letter". But of course being an entire discography I'm not going to be limited just their middle-era commercial peek. No, I have their earlier IRS stuff with Stipe mumbling his way through such classics as "Radio Free Europe", "Rockville", and "Wendell Gee". And the modern classics like "Hollow Man" from "Accelerate" or "Uberlin" from "Collapse Into Now". God, and I haven't even mentioned the non-album deep cuts like "Photograph" or "Staring Down The Barrel of the Middle Distance".

 

R.E.M. are a band I can easily listen to on repeat for the rest of eternity. Do I even need to choose another 7 artists?

[pcstru]

Do I even need to choose another 7 artists?

I fear if you didn't, you would only be letting yourself down.

[Danp]

There are two musts for me, something by The Doors, ideally the 2000 album 'The Best of The Doors' but that is a compilation, if not allowed then 'LA Woman' and also something from Jimi Hendrix, 'Electric Ladyland' probably but I would need to give it some more thought if that would be my final choice.

 

The Doors and Jimi Hendrix both have a style of music that I can listen to over and over again and each time I hear something different in a song, something new. I have listened to both for over 30 years now, my dad used to play them to me from the day I was born and it's stuck with me ever since. Doesn't matter if I am stuck at work at my desk, in the car in a traffic jam or bombing down the motorway, cleaning the house, working at the allotment both artists' music works for me.

 

Just thinking about it now I can straight away think of times where I have been listening to their music. 2001, my first car was a Nova with 2 x 12" subs in the boot, I drove down to the coast for a small holiday and had 'Riders on a Storm' playing, the bass was going right through my body and at the same time there was a huge thunder and lighting storm outside, perfect.

 

2012, sat in traffic on the Peripherique in Paris and one of the radio stations started playing The Doors - 'Alabama Song', I was on the way to Jim Morrison's grave at the time.

[witch]

Genesis - Seconds Out (had to be said )

[Earthling]

So, is this the classic Radio 4 (?) Desert Island? Eight tracks, not albums.....yes?

 

 

Let me think about this.

[pcstru]

Come on folks, roll up, roll up! There surely must have been music made AFTER the 1980's and who knows, even before the 60's!

[tmcd35]

@Earhling. No this is a b*st*rdisation of the Radio 4 desert island discs following on from the Genesis threads. Instead of 8 tracks. We want 8 artists whose complete discographies are indespensable.

[localzuk]

First one for me would be "Tool". 10,000 days as an album being at the top of the list of their works. The "Song for Marie (Part 1 & Part 2)" tracks are truly spine chilling to me. Written about Maynard's mother who passed away after many years suffering with illness. His anger at a God, who she devoutly followed, that allowed her to suffer is strong in the song. Its an evolution from the earlier song "Judith" by A Perfect Circle, where his anger is directed at his mother. He has grown and changed, and now he misses his mother and can't understand how she could have been allowed to suffer like that.

 

Other songs, such as Vicarious, look at human nature and behaviour, and how we repress our inner feelings and desires with our outlet being through others (be they real, or in films and songs) for them. It is about how that repression of inner feelings and behaviours is eventually going to bubble to the surface and cause real damage.

 

I could go into detail about more songs, such as The Pot covering hypocrisy over drugs laws, and unjust courts in the USA, but I'd just say everyone should listen to the album instead.

 

Their other albums are all similarly meaningful and dark. Very enjoyable. Listen to them all!!

 

EDIT: I'm going to alter this to "Maynard James Keenan", so I'd get A Perfect Circle & Puscifer as well! Rev 22:20 is a superb and catchy tune.

Edited May 2, 2014 by localzuk

[pcstru]

So, is this the classic Radio 4 (?) Desert Island? Eight tracks, not albums.....yes?

It's the entire output of an individual or group. We even throw in weird stuff they might have recorded with other people.

 

Unlike desert island discs though, everything is washed away in the end and rather than be left with a final choice of one of the eight, there is only a sad, damp, 45rpm single with Peter Paul and Mary singing puff the magic dragon. There is no escape from it either.

[tmcd35]

Unlike desert island discs though, everything is washed away in the end and rather than be left with a final choice of one of the eight, there is only a sad, damp, 45rpm single with Peter Paul and Mary singing puff the magic dragon. There is no escape from it either.

 

Thank god for that! For a moment there I thought the label said Bucks Fizz.

Edited May 2, 2014 by tmcd35

[sonofsanta]

I'm going to chip in with Radiohead for sheer variety and the density of the later albums - always something to discover.

 

The Bends is one of the great indie pop albums of all times, full of British idiosyncracies and perspectives, contrasting mundane horrors with cheerful tunes, and has possibly the greatest final track any album has ever had the grace to possess with Street Spirit.

 

OK Computer is rightly recognised as one of the greatest albums ever and cleverer words than mine have been said about it all over the internet.

 

Kid A and Amnesiac were both ahead of their time and completely different in nature to work that had gone before, full of complex melodies and harmonies and dissonance, the perfect encapsulation of modern confusion and an expression at how lost we all are as individuals in our global society, powerless and insignificant and so utterly caught up in the currents.

 

In Rainbows is - via the evolution of Hail to the Thief - the culmination of everything that has gone before, a melding of OK Computer's and Amnesiac's styles, a fusion of two seemingly disparate and incompatible styles - the structured rock song and the apparent chaos of electronica.

 

And if all that isn't enough, OK Computer and In Rainbows combine to create a single super album, two albums designed to complement each other across ten years of musical and personal development, with hidden interplay between tracks separated by three other albums, full of constant hints and references to the number ten - the albums split by ten years, each with ten letter titles, the latter released on 10/10...

 

And I'd also like to take the collected works of the White Stripes because I'd need cheering up after all that Radiohead

[Disaster]

Gypsy Punks - Underdog World Strike by Gogol Bordello, or And Out Come The Wolves... by Rancid.

 

There's going to be alot of crap in this thread!

[Andrew_C]

there is only a sad, damp, 45rpm single with Peter Paul and Mary singing puff the magic dragon. There is no escape from it either.

I'd not be TOO sad at that; it would remind me of my childhood. And a band who early on were striving to raise awareness of the plight of the American dispossessed. The poor, the blacks, and the kids being sent to Vietnam to die. And drugs too, although I've heard Peter denying that Puff was anything of the sort.

[Nibiru]

#1 - John Wetton.

 

Superb voice and some decent riffs on the bass guitar. Asia is his best known group - still touring 32 years after Heat of the Moment was a mega smash hit in the summer of 82.

 

Plus the bonus of the Phenomena track Did It All For Love.

[sted]

The beautiful south. Fair amount of variety there been expanding my cd collection recently with their stuff (and its actual cds as its cheaper to buy the cds from amazon and get free digital download than get the digital download in most cases ive found )

 

definately need queen in there as well and probably something from the 80's Sheffield bands (abc/heaven17 / human league)

[pcstru]

Frank Zappa. A huge collection with stuff I have avoided listening to as it's ... too difficult. So I'll have plenty of new stuff to experience.

 

(and yes I did mention him before - it's my age dont-cha-know).

[localzuk]

Mike Oldfield - a large discography, with quite a wide variation of styles. Most of it evokes quite vivid imagery when you close your eyes and just listen. Music of the Spheres is a beautiful album, for example.

[cobra427col]

toss up between Oldfield, Vangelis and Jarre. Stuff it... can I fight for all three!

[tmcd35]

My number 2 - The Finn Brothers

 

New Zealand pop royalty Neil and Tim Finn. Best known over here for Neils stellar band Crowded House with tracks like "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Weather With You", like most great artists (aside from the hard to beat "Together Alone" album) their best work lays outside what was popular over here. In their early days, from about 1975, they were Split Enz. The Enz (as their fans effectionatly refer to them) brought us such greats as "Stuff and Nonsense" and "Message To My Girl".

 

The Enz split in '83 when Tim went on to forge a solo career and Neil formed Crowded House. Tim's solo career is well worth checking out for such highlights as "No Thunder, No Fire, No Rain" and "Hit The Ground Running". Neil too has had a good solo career between Crowded House, Finn Brothers and Pajama Club projects (busy man) but the best he has ever produced musically is - his son, Liam. Over the past two solo albums Liam has, in my estimation, surpassed his father as a singer-song writer. Liam's earlier band, Betchadupa, is also worth checking out in a young, punk, Green Day kind of way.

 

As a bonus the first of the two 7 Worlds Collide collectives gives us tracks from Pearl Jam ("Parting Ways") and Johnny Marr ("Down On The Corner"). The second collective gave us the beautiful "Learn To Crawl" by Radiohead's Ed O'Brian.

 

Edit: almost forgot. New music still being produced after all these years. Neil has a new album out now, and Liam's is released on Tuesday.

Edited May 2, 2014 by tmcd35

[Earthling]

My number 2 - The Finn Brothers

 

 

Homepage | Cambridge Corn Exchange

 

Got an e-mail from The Cornex about this earlier this week. Might be too late, but not too far from you, I guess.

 

Still compiling my list.

[tmcd35]

Lol, Thanks @Earthling. I have my ticket Looking forward to it. God this week has dragged!

[Earthling]

Lol, Thanks @Earthling. I have my ticket Looking forward to it. God this week has dragged!

 

If I didn't have my MoT on Saturday, I'd see you there.

 

While I'm here, is anyone else going to the Cambridge Folk Festival this year?

[jinnantonnixx]

The zeitgeist changes of course, and I've included two tracks by the same artists, but there you go.

 

1. Exodus Damage - John Vanderslice.

2. Continuation - John Vanderslice. Based on Lars Von Trier's film Element of Crime an intriguing track about two detectives tracking each other, while the body count still increases even 'now that the killer's dead'. A fabulous track. In fact the whole album Pixel Revolt is a masterpiece. It's a difficult album to get into, but full of strong songs; breaking free from mundane life through the allegory of a lost rabbit ("Angela"), depression ("Dead Slate Pacific"), a soldier's first (and possibly last) tour of duty ("Plymouth Rock"), self-medication ("CRC7173, Affectionately"). A stunning album.

3. Dancing with St. Peter - Sign of Four. A classic rock track.

4. Lion's Teeth - The Mountain Goats - john Darnielle's semi biographical account of being on the receiving end of drunken physical abuse. Saw him in Bristol just before Christmas at St. George's. Brilliant.

5. Dog on Wheels - Belle & Sebastian. Again, not a huge B&S fan, but like this track for no real reason.

6. New Year's Kiss - Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Lo-fi account of the morning after the night before. Superb songwriting.

7. Imitosis - Andrew Bird. Love this track.

8. Lines in the Suit - Spoon. Good simple rock song.

Edited May 2, 2014 by jinnantonnixx