So Tony and I had a thread going about a month ago (before I moved to a temporary place where I had no internet and can only check this on weekends) about cohesive albums that got me thinking. I'm young and pretty mutch stopped listening to rock/pop music after highschool untill recently (when I got my empeg). I was just frustrated with listening to the same CD's over and over again (but that's not the point here).

Anyway, I have not had enough exposure to the classic albums and would like to know what albums I am worse off for not having in my collection. I really listen to just about any style, whether it is popular or not so feel free to include anything that you consider a "must have".

Well, let me put it this way: these are the albums I consider an essential part of my collection:

• Holst: The Planets Suite - Berliner Philharmoniker cond. by Herbert von Karajan (Polydor)
• Mike Oldfield - Crises (Virgin Records / Caroline Music)
• Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd Music / CBS)
• Quench - Se-Quench-Ial (Sirius Music / Colossal Records)
• Way Out West - Way Out West (Deconstruction / BMG Entertainment)
  

As an exercise, I found all but Quench on CDNOW. That, I wish you luck for. :-)

Have fun,

Paul

Well, my question is how obscure do you want the suggestions? Do I have to mention Pink Floyd's DSOM, the Beatles' Sergent Peppers, Led Zeppelin IV, or The Doors? Or, to move up through the decades, Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses, Beastie Boys License to Ill, R.E.M.'s Document, the Smiths' Meat is Murder, or pretty much any album by The Police, all go without saying as being great albums. If you like hard rock, NIN's Pretty Hate Machine, Rage Against The Machine's self-titled album, Korn's Got The Life, or Nirvana's Nevermind are all very popular albums. Or Garbage's first album, Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes, or Radiohead's OK Computer.

I mean, I like all those albums, and they are all very popular...and very obvious, and you probably already know if you need these albums or not. Are you looking for the more obscure albums, the ones that everyone and their mother doesn't know about, or are you looking for more examples of the more mainstream popular albums?

Ah, I've always wanted to play this game on the BBS...

"The Desert Island Ten".

For those who don't know this game... You imagine that you're going to spend the rest of your life like Tom Hanks in "Castaway". You've got a CD player and a lifetime's supply of batteries, but only ten albums to listen to. (I know this would never happen, but it's a mind-exercise, so just shut up and play the game.) Which ten would you bring?

My list keeps changing, of course, new albums sometimes make the list. I haven't thought about it hard recently. So this is the off-the-top-of-my-head list at the moment (I reserve the right to drop in here and change my mind at any time):

Ones that will never, ever, ever get knocked off the list, in no particular order:

1. Rush- Moving Pictures
2. Peter Gabriel- So
3. Pink Floyd- The Dark Side of the Moon
4. Tori Amos- Little Earthquakes
5. Dire Straits- Brothers in Arms

The remainder of the list, shuffles occasionally:

6. They Might be Giants- Mink Car (a very recent addition, might I add)
7. Queen- A Night at the Opera
8. Paula Cole- Harbinger

Holy sh*t, I'm running out of room, and there's only one Rush album on the list...

9. Rush- Hemispheres
10. Rush- Power Windows

Aw, crap, the list is done and there's no room for Steve Morse, Pat Metheny, Eric Johnson, B-52's, U2... Grrr...

Okay, not on my Desert Island Ten, but only because it's a short list and it's gotta stop somewhere:

U2- Joshua Tree and/or Unforgettable Fire
The Police- Synchronicity
They Might Be Giants- Flood
Yes- Big Generator
Steve Morse- High Tension Wires and/or Southern Steel
Eric Johnson- Ah Via Musicom
The B-52's- Good Stuff and/or Cosmic Thing
Sheryl Crow- The Globe Sessions
Sting- The Soul Cages
...

See? It's a fun game. I briefly agonized over some of the albums that didn't make the cut... Who's next?

1) The best of Hendrix
2) The best of Lynyrd Skynyrd
3) The best of CCR
4) The best of STP (when it comes out)
5) The best of Pearl Jam (when it comes out)
6) The best of Alice in Chains (when it comes out)
7) Audio Book- How to escape from desert islands, for dummies

That's all I need right now. Thinking up 10 takes too damn long, especially since I think in terms of songs, not albums. The new generation makes their own albums.

Too many options? Not enough?

6) The best of Alice in Chains (when it comes out)

I think this covers that request.

Ten cds what a horrible thought aftergetting used to empeg where you can have a thousand and ten.

To answer the earlier question, I am looking for the obvious albums I have somehow missed and would be shunned if you guys knew I didn't have (although I'm not going to tell you which ones they are as I realized them!). As an example, I have one Pink Floyed album, and it isn't DSOM (although at this moment I have realized my error and will soon be visiting the store).

Although I have a great deal of "best of" albums already, in my minde these don't count as classics because they always (ok, there really are a few exceptions) lack the cohesieveness that the origional albums have.

Believe it or not, I actually have a "Desert Island" playlist on my Empeg (although through this discussion the fight may get a little tougher to see who stays)!

For my part right now here is my list (in no order)
Moving Pictures - Rush
Hold Your Fire - Rush
Roll The Bones - Rush
2112 - Rush
Big Horizon - David Wilcox
Caedmon's Call - Caedmon's Call
Graceland - Paul Simon
Ah Via Musicom - Eric Johnson
Ten - Pearl Jam
Ten Summoners Tales* - Sting

*Note (Soul Cages is on its way in the mail due to our earlier discussion so TSS may soon be off the list if its as good as you say).

This was pretty hard to narrow down to only 10 but here is my list of must haves.

1. Eric Clapton - Unplugged
2. Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Trouble Is
3. James Taylor - JT
4. Pearl Jam - Ten
5. Rush - Moving Pictures
6. Alice In Chains - Unplugged
7. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
8. Genesis - Invisible Touch
9. Toad The Wet Sprocket - Acoustic Dance Party
10. Steppenwolf - Steppenwolf

Okay, nearly all of these can't really count as a "classic" but anyway... In no particular order:

Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Air - Moon Safari
Radiohead - OK Computer
Morcheeba - Who Can You Trust
Morcheeba - Big Calm
The Cranberries - Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
The Cardigans - Gran Turismo
Portishead - Dummy
Placebo - Without You I'm Nothing

I did have "Simon and Garfunkel - The Definitive Simon and Garfunkel" at the end but since I'm not allowed greatest hits albums I've replaced it

- Trevor

FerretBoy:
OK Cool then, I hope my previous list helped then. I would consider all of those to be must haves if you like the genre they are in at all. Though I would say, given your 10 desert island list, our tastes are pretty different.

yz33d:
> Audio Book- How to escape from desert islands, for dummies

ROTFL, very funny.

Ok, we are playing the 10 favorite desert island game now? My list is somewhat different if that is the criteria:

Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
Les Miserables - The Musical - London Cast
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
Led Zeppelin - II (cause I have played IV to death over the years)
System of a Down - Self Titled
Rammstein - Sehsucht
Sneaker Pimps - Becoming X
Monster Magnet - Powertrip
Garbage - Garbage

Edit: Since compilations are officially banned by Tony, I will add Garbage's self-titled first album to the list.

What is the official criteria for double albums in this game; count as one or two?

Blank ones to use as signaling mirrors.

Heh. An interesting exercise. *Much* harder than the $500K 5-car garage. You have to decide whether a selected song (say Magic Carpet Ride) biases toward pulling a whole album (say, Steppenwolf The Second) into the list (it didn't). I felt like my decision process was biased toward more recent material, so I succumbed to the urge to expand to the "Bomb Shelter 20" (more room down there) and it seemed like that made more room for older favorites (but it was still biased toward the new).

Desert Island 10

Chumbawamba - Tubthumper (1997)
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball (1995)
Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love (1967)
John Prine - The Missing Years (1991)
Keith Jarrett Quartet - My Song (1977)
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (1969)
Richard and Linda Thompson - Pour Down Like Silver (1975)
School of Fish - School of Fish (1991)
Steve Earle - El Corazon (1997)
Youssou N'Dour - Eyes Open (1992)


Bomb Shelter 20

B-52s - Cosmic Thing (1989)
Bill Evans - The Paris Concert Edition 1 (1984)
Buffalo Springfield - Again (1967)
Butterfield Blues Band - The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967)
Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark (1974)
Living Colour - Time's Up (1986)
Peter Gabriel - So (1986)
Sam Phillips - Martinis and Bikinis (1994)
Who - Who's Next (1970)
Youssou N'Dour - JOKO (2000)

I started to put in Al Green's Greatest Hits, but then I decided that "greatest hits" was kind of cheating, desert island-wise, don't you think? If not, I'd have to decide what to do with Al, Etta James Greatest, and Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks....

Jim

(so, how's San Antonio, I wonder?)

Okay here goes my Desert Island Ten. Not sure what the rules are on compilations/greatest hits collections, so I'll avoid those (it would make things easier though!)

Most of these (as might be expected) appear on other peoples' lists. I will avoid my tendency to fill it up with 10 Pink Floyd albums, and try to remember that on a desert island, I'm going to want some variety.

1. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon
2. Rush - Moving Pictures
3. Tori Amos - Under the Pink
4. U2 - Achtung Baby
5. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (how can this not be on anyone's list?!?)
6. Pearl Jam - Ten
7. 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden
8. The Gathering - Mandylion
9. The Cranberries - Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
10. Morphine - Cure for Pain

If given another 10 for the "Bomb Shelter 20" I would add on:

11. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes (very difficult to keep off the top 10)
12. Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
13. Pink Floyd - Meddle
14. U2 - The Joshua Tree
15. Rush - Roll The Bones
16. Tool - undertow
17. Suzane Vega - Songs in Red and Gray
18. Nightingale - I
19. Portishead - Dummy
20. 311 - Music

As thinfourth2 pointed out, being an Empeg owner makes this an extremely difficult exercise!!! There are albums I simply couldn't live without that couldn't make the cut here!

I listen to so many types of music that a general top ten list is rather difficult to create (it depends on where you are etc, think Rob Gordon from High Fidelity).

So here are a list of albums that sound good in my car (In no specific order)

Infected Mushroom - Classical Mushroom
The Egg - Travelator
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
Splashdown - Blueshift
Emerson Lake & Palmer - Tarkus
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Jean Michel Jarre - Metamorphoses
Da Damn Phreak Noize Phunk - Electric Crate Digger
Underworld - Everything, Everything (Live)
Various Artists - Dementertainment
Orbital - The Middle Of Nowhere
Metallica - Metallica (The Black Album)
The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
The Prodigy - Experience
The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation
Gary Numan - Pure
System of a Down - Toxicity
Nirvana - Unplugged In New York
Various Artists - Sound of the Hoover Volume 1
Eat Static - B - World

So that's 20 not 10, and there are at least another 20 or so on my must have list, but that's for another day. So the final choice of 10 will be made on the way to the desert island...

Just don't ask for the top 10 songs, OK... =)

Hey ynot_, What is this one:

Nightingale - I

I couldn't find any information on it at all. Considering I own 16 of the 20 albums you have on your list (and am probably going to get Mandylion based on your recommendation because it sounds pretty good), it would probably pay for me to find this one too.

Keep 'em coming guys and gals, I've checked out several albums aleady. I wish Amazon and others would have more clips of songs though, I hate buying albums on recommendations alone 'cause you never know.

Nightingale is a solo project from Dan Swanö, who obtained most of his fame with the Swedish death medal band Edge of Sanity. It's metal-inspired, but really varies from classic rock to goth rock and just has a few metal-esque moments. No real death metal sound to be found on his three albums. Dan plays all the instruments.

Here's a discography with some short reviews of the albums.

"I" was the third album released, but was a "prequel" in that it occurs chronologically before the first two albums "The Breathing Shadow" and "The Closing Chronicles."

Amazon does, in fact, list "I", that's actually where I purchased it from. Not sure if they actually sell it now or just have it listed for used copies. Try here. Hopefully that link works. They also at one time carried The Closing Chronicles. The Breathing Shadow is harder to find, but it's available (along with the other two) through Black Mark Records' site. There is another Nightingale album called "Alive Again" which will be released in the future, though an exact date isn't announced yet.

If you are really interested I can float you a couple MP3's to give them a listen first. Somehow I doubt you'll find them on the P2P networks.

Desert Island 10:

1. Depeche Mode - Violator
2. Depeche Mode - Ultra
3. Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation
4. Prodigy - Fat of the Land
5. Weezer - Weezer
6. The Smiths - Best of
7. Morrissey - Best of
8. Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion
9. Pennywise - About Time
10. The Sabri Brothers - Greatest

then I decided that "greatest hits" was kind of cheating, desert island-wise, don't you think?

Yes, yes yes! I forgot to mention that rule. Greatest hits albums are cheating, those who have listed them must go back and revise their lists immediately.

I knew that after reading others' lists, that I would see deficiencies in mine. Paul Simon's Graceland is one that should have been in my Bomb Shelter 20.

Youssou N'Dour - Eyes Open (1992)

I think I should get this one, considering how much I liked his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on So and the following tour. /me heads over to the Amazon.com wish list...

Anyway, I think it's cool seeing what people have in common on their lists. Moving Pictures is pretty much a given, that doesn't surprise me. Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, too. But I'm surprised to see Little Earthquakes pop up as often as it has, I didn't think it was as widely-appreciated as that. And it warms the cockles of my heart to see Cosmic Thing on your list, Jim.

1. Depeche Mode - Violator

I agonized over that one, it didn't make my cut, but it was close.

_Ynot: Curious as to why Little Earthquakes takes second billing to Under The Pink on your list? I mean, they're both good albums, but I would have never even considered Pink on my list. Unless I was somehow allowed to cheat and steal a couple of tunes off of Pink and put them onto Earthquakes.

> Nightingale is a solo project from Dan Swanö...

Thanks yn0t, I will check it out.

*Note (Soul Cages is on its way in the mail due to our earlier discussion so TSS may soon be off the list if its as good as you say).

Important things to note about Soul Cages: It does not grab you immediately with pop hooks. It must be taken in as a whole, and must be listened to multiple times before it can be appreciated. For instance, there is a melodic theme in one of the earliest songs on the album, and the resolution to that theme doesn't happen until near the very end of that album when the theme is reprised. Only when you listen to the album in its entirety do you get the full effect. So before you begin to immediately compare it to TST, give it a few complete listens. It's quite a different album from TST and comes from a different "place".

Also, on first listen, the album seems very depressing. A major theme in the album is death, coping with the loss of a loved one. But after a few listens, you start to hear an undercurrent of joyousness to it (is that a word?). It's gloomy on the surface, but warm and happy underneath. It's hard to explain, and I'm not sure you'll get the same interpretation anyway. I'm just saying give it a chance to grow on you.

Some of the best albums in the world require a growing period. The things that make them so that they're not necessarily immediately accessible are also the things that make them stand up to repeated listenings. The albums I didn't necessarily like at first are often the ones that keep surprising me after the hundredth listen.

> Greatest hits albums are cheating, those who have listed them must go back and revise their lists immediately.

Done. Damn, there goes Yz33d's list right out the window.

> Moving Pictures is pretty much a given, that doesn't surprise me.

Surprised me. I know we had a lot of Rush fans here, but I am surprised by both the quantity and the rabidness. (don't mean that in a bad way)

>Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, too. But I'm surprised to see Little Earthquakes pop up as often as it has, I didn't think it was as widely-appreciated as that.

The surprised me too. Tori pettered out pretty quickly IMHO, but the first albums are great and I am glad to see it being recognized. If I had gone to twenty albums, some Floyd and Beatles would have made it on (certainly Meddle and Revolver respectively). If you had asked me ten years agol, those two artists would have been my entire list.

Well most people would consider Little Earthquakes to be a better album than Under the Pink, I'm just not one of them. I consider both indispensible to my collection, which is why both make my top 20, but head to head, I would have to grudgingly leave Little Earthquakes behind.

I think in pure artistic value, the albums probably tie, but it should be noted that I'm slightly cheating by choosing UTP, because my copy is the 2-CD version with "More Pink: The B Sides." So I'm getting ten or eleven other great Tori songs in there, including three of my all time favorites, "Sister Janet," "Sugar," and her rendition of "Little Drummer Boy."

Also, one thing to keep in mind here is that albums on a "Desert Island Ten" aren't just there for how much you think of the album artistically, they're also there because of what memories that album brings back, or what moods you want to evoke with the albums. UTP was released during one of the happiest times in my life, and I associate it with a lot of memories of being with good friends and having good times.

But in general, if I ranked all the songs on the two albums 1 to 12 and compared them, I think I'd end up with a tie. The B-Sides really made my decision easy, but whether you allow the B-Sides disc on the desert island is another story.

Tori pettered out pretty quickly IMHO, but the first albums are great and I am glad to see it being recognized.

Actually, I don't think she petered at all, I think Choirgirl and Venus are fantastic, and I actually agonized over whether my list would have Choirgirl or Earthquakes.

Technically, I think Choirgirl is a better album, but there something about the songs on Earthquakes that flows a little better as a collection. And by leaving Choirgirl off my list, it means I don't get "Spark" on my desert island, so it was a painful cut to make.

albums on a "Desert Island Ten" aren't just there for how much you think of the album artistically, they're also there because of what memories that album brings back, or what moods you want to evoke with the albums.

Agreed. I think Earthquakes has a stronger hold on me for the exact same reasons that Pink does for you.

Anyone see "High Fidelity" with John Cusack? There's a scene where he's at a crossroads in his life, and he deals with it by reorganizing his record collection. A friend comes to his apartment to discover the boxes of albums strewn about the living room, and asks him how he's reorganizing them... Alphabetically? Chronologically? No... Autobiographically.

whether you allow the B-Sides disc on the desert island is another story.

Yes, it's allowed as long as it's not a greatest hits collection. There are plenty of double-album sets that I would expect to be in people's Desert Island Ten.

Interesting. I think I'd reach for Boys for Pele before From the Choirgirl Hotel.

Actually To Venus and Back would be next. With Choirgirl, I think I'd just be bringing it along for Spark, Cruel, Jackie's Strength, and Black Dove.

I agree with ninti in that Tori's first two albums are more cohesive and album-like, whereas the follow-ups (starting with Boys for Pele) started to become singles that happened to be on the same album. I think the albums went downhill, though the quality of the individual songs may have stayed consistent.

Also, adding a band and more instruments and production to the mix probably turned some people off.