August 27, 2007
My Top Five Albums
- Alive Not Dead archive
I’m feeling like making lists today… I’ll pull a “High Fidelity” and put out a ‘Top Five’ As you can tell below, my new musical tastes pretty much stopped in the late 90’s… I’m sure that I’ll new bands to the list from this milleneum (The White Stripes is a leading contender), but I don’t think they’re time-tested yet.
My Favorite FIVE Albums:
1. The Joshua Tree, U2 (1987)
This is my favorite and, in my humble opinion, the best album ever put together. From the first song (“Where the Streets Have No Name”) to the very end, it presents a broad, ambitious canvas of America. Listening to the album is like transporting yourself through the desolate towns of the midwest and into Death Valley… It’s contemplative, yearning, stirring, angry… everything that a young, exploding rock band becoming THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD should be.
Favorite songs: With or Without You (below), Bullet the Blue Sky
Trivia: I camped out overnight in near-freezing weather during junior year of high school to get tickets for U2’s Zooropa tour… I never got to go to the concert, though, because I decided to give my tickets away to a friend so that I could attend Berkeley summer classes. :-P Never got to see them in concert until two years ago for the Vertigo tour…
2. The White Album, The Beatles (1968)
The album is an odd mix of nonsense songs, cutting edge, psycho, and serene. The first time you listen to it and you’d think that the Beatles just randomly tossed in 30 songs on an album, but after repeat listenings it just makes sense. They are 30 completely listenable songs and eventually each is an interesting idea in it’s own right as well as being a cohesive whole.
Favorite songs: Blackbird, Julia, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Helter Skelter (below)… too many to list here!
3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (1967)
As time goes on, I listen less and less to the earlier Beatles stuff and more to the later albums. Nonetheless, Sgt. Peppers is Rolling Stone’s #1 album of all-time .. it really marks the departure point between the “pop” beatles to the “rock” beatles. It also, historically marks the departure of “rock” from it’s rock&roll roots into it’s own genre – well, this and The Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” which is equally psychedelic. Finally, it’s the first really successful “concept” album… you’ll know most of the songs on the album, but the album is best played in whole…
Favorite songs: A Day in the Life (below) – freakin’ stunning song…
4. Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins
Yes, Billy Corgan is probably more than a little screw-loose, but he’s crazy like a fox and this is the paramount work of art from the best band of the 90’s… Smashing Pumpkins is a mixture of young, earnest hope, angst, mind-expansion and more… Despite the excess of drugs, the inner-band drama, etc… they were remarkably consistent in putting out great art…
Favorite Songs: Disarm (the best Pumpkins song), Cherub Rock (one of the best rock anthems of all time) (below)
5. Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes (1982)
From Wikipedia: Violent Femmes released their eponymous debut album, Violent Femmes, in 1982. The album has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed cult albums, in spite of having never achieved massive fame, and went platinum about ten years after it was released.
Strange – during high school this was THE soundtrack for our lives amongst my friends and I. It’s adolescent, simplistic melodies, and highly catchy. This album remains the only album that I can sing from beginning to end by memory… (I think)
Favorite songs: Kiss Off (below), Add it Up, Blister in the Sun
Okay… that last one is obviously not the official video
In any case, that’s pretty much my music tastes – I guess this list consists of mostly REALLY old stuff, but it takes TIME for stuff to prove themselves to be worthy…
Are any of these albums on your list? What’s your TOP FIVE?