I would go with

1. The Crane Wife- The Decemberists
favorites: Summersong, Crane Wife 1,2,3, Yankee Bayonet
2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco
favorites: Heavy Metal Drummer, Kamera, Jesus, etc.
3. Sgt. Peppers – The Beatles
favorites: ALL of them
4. The Joshua Tree – U2
Favorites: With or Without You, Where The Streets Have no Name
5. Harvest – Neil Young
favorites: The Needle and The Damage Done, Heart of Gold, Old Man

1. Harvest – Neil Young
Quite possibly one of the best albums ever written. The only song I don’t care for especially is “Man needs a Maid”, but it’s still an ok effort. The rest of the songs are straight gold (Good pick Rhys).
2. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine
If I’m stuck on a deserted island, I’m gonna be pretty pissed off. This is my pissed off music.
3. Hysteria – Muse
Many people have claimed that this is not Muse’s best album, but it’s my favorite. Great.
4. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie
In my opinion, this is the epitome of David Bowie, a fantastic showing from one of the century’s greatest artists/performers. I couldn’t live without my daily dose of Bowie.
5. Moving Pictues – Rush
After all the shit that’s gone down, you really think I would stand to lose my cred by not taking a Rush album (even though it’s fantastc)? Yea, right.

1. Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek – Reflection Eternal

2. Bob Marley – Legend

3. Sublime – 40 oz to Freedom

4. The Beatles – (White Album)

5. Wave Twisters – Q-Bert & Invisibl Skratch Piklz

xanthan, I hope you got Octagonecologyst instrumental album. That disc made me appreciate the Dan the Automator a whole lot more.

There’s a lot of albums that I could listen to over and over, but off the top of my head . . .

1. Metallica- The Black Album
2. AC/DC- Back in Black
3. Sage Francis- Personal Journals
4. Atmosphere- Godlovesugly
5. Eric Johnson- Ah Via Musicom

(1) Beethoven Syms. 5 & 7, Carlos Kleiber, Vienna Philharmonic (1975)
Toss up for me between B’s 5th and 9th for his best symphony… If I take the 9th, however, you only get that. If I take the 5th, I can take this great recording by Kleiber which pairs it with the wonderful 7th.

(2) Sviatoslav Richter- Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 23 (Appassionata)
My favorite pianist. My favorite classical piece (the Brahms). And my favorite Beethoven piano sonata. Hard to pick so few pieces… or to pick another Beethoven over getting a pairing with another great composer. But I love this recording.

(3) Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Yea yea yea… it’s the Starbucks jazz album. But it is amazing, and it also gives me a three for one on getting my three favorite jazz musicians—Miles, Trane, and Bill Evans—all on one album. Trane’s A Love Supreme is strong competition, but the presence of all these great musicians on this legendary recording makes it the choice. I’m also tempted to take Bitches Brew since it is a double album.

(4) Radiohead, OK Computer
My favorite album by my favorite band. Every song at one point was my favorite song on the album. The amazing peak in Lucky; the vocal harmonies in Let Down; PARANOID ANDROID! A masterpiece. Suck it Radiohead haters!

(5) Beatles, The White Album
I probably like Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s better as albums, but I’ll take the White Album because it is a double album. It’s also tough to pick another rock album over something that would mix up the types of music I have on my island… like MF Doom’s Vaudeville Villain. I would have a tough time never hearing the Beatles again though.

1. Who’s Next – IMHO the best Rock and Roll Album hands down. Won’t Get Fooled Again is my favorite Rock and Roll song ever, and My Wife is just funny. However, Baba O’ Reilly, Behind Blue Eyes, Getting in Tune and Mobile are also classics.

2. Any recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. He beats that thing black and blue.

3. Beethoven’s 9th. The Chorus in the 4th movement still gives me chills, even though I know its coming.

4. Get Your Ya Ya’s Out – The Rolling Stones. Do live albums count as compilations?

5. 10 – Pearl Jam. If I had to pick only one grunge album. Does anyone else besides me give huge kudos to Kurt Cobain for ending the 80’s?

That is MY five, but I have to say that I really would have like to take Van Halen (self titled first album), Back in Black, the White Album, Physical Graffiti, and some Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Ray Charles, and I am just beginning to get into Jazz too, but apparently my bag wasn’t big enough.

and a cd/or record player

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

John Coltrane – My Favorite Things. Everyone says Giant Steps is his best and I agree, but I love MFT because it was his debut as a soprano saxophonist, an instrument that is really underrated and underappreciated. As a wee musician I started out on tenor sax and switched to soprano, in part because I wanted to emulate Coltrane. The album only has four tracks, but three of them are over 9 minutes long. The title track is my favorite but also the version of Summertime from Porgy and Bess, aces.

Any recording of The Nutcracker. I loved the ballet since the first time I saw it, and I’ve loved the music since we played a very simplified version of the suite in seventh grade band.

Any recording of the opera Carmen. Another that’s really fun to play as well as wonderful to listen to.

I have a CD that is comprised solely of Vivaldi’s bassoon concertos. I hated Vivaldi growing up because the only times we ever played his work or anytime I heard it in concert, it was The Seasons. God what an overdone piece of music. So when my bassoon instructor handed me the CD and said “listen to this” I forgave Vivaldi for his sins. So yeah I’d take this on the desert island with me.

I also have a CD that has a mishmash of compositions from George Gershwin. I bought it for Rhapsody in Blue, my absolute favorite piece of all time. There’s other good stuff on there too: Rumba (aka Cuban Overture), An American in Paris, and Walking the Dog. So that CD comes too.

I like too much music to narrow it down to 10, much less 5! But anyhoo, here are my fave 5 fo this mo’nin’.

1. The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead

Strangeways probably has some better songs, but TQID has Morrissey and Marr consistently at their best. Faves: Seriously, all of it.

2. The Clash, London Calling

This is a perfect island to be stranded with, cuz it has something for every mood. Favorites: All the Joe songs. ;-)

3. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin

The greatest cover band of all time at their raw, smoking best. Fave: How Many More Times (duh).

4. Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions…

The album that changed it all, really. Favorites: BLack Steel in the Hour of Chaos, She Watch Channel Zero, Night of the Living Baseheads…. OK, pretty much the whole record.

5. Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico

The album that launched a thousand bands! Favorites: Venus in Furs, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Heroin

Ask me tomorrow for 5 totally different answers. :-)

Gillian Welch: Revival
Iron & Wine: the Creek Drank the Cradle
the Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
the Police: Zenyatta Mondatta
Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy

1. The Pixies – Surfer Rosa: I wouldn’t want to go the rest of my life without hearing the beginning bass line on “Bone Machine” or “River Euphrates.”
2. Tom Waits – Rain Dogs: Got to have at least one TW album and this one just beats out Heart of Saturday Night, Mule Variations and Frank’s Wild Years. “Gun Street Girl” and “Tango til They’re Sore” are the sweet spot.
3. This is Jazz – Duke Ellington: Its against the rules but it really is the best of the best from one of America’s best composers.
4. Gillian Welch – Revelator: Another album that’s first among equals with Hell Among the Yearlings and Revival. The title track makes me homesick if I’m not in California.
5. Jurrassic 5 – Power in Numbers: Still one of the best hip-hop albums ever.

Just misses: Bad Religion – Stranger than Fiction, Miles Davis and Bill Laswell – Panthelessa, The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic, Modest Mouse- The Moon, The Sun and Antartica, The Clash – London Calling, Portishead – Dummy and Sleatter-Kinney – The Woods.

THinking about TMBG upthread made me realize that song for song, They Might be Giants is one of my favorite bands, yet they just don’t have that one knockout album that would go on to a desert island list. Some bands just aren’t “album bands.”

1. The Who- Who’s Next

2. Maurice Ravel- Bolero

3. Built to Spill- Perfect from now on

4. Pink Floyd- Meddle

5. The Notwist- Shrink

Between these five albums, I’ve got my jazz, psychedelic, guitar solo, fusion, epic building classical, and most other needs covered. I could go to sleep to “Echoes”, and wake up to “Your Signs” (the Notwist). Honorable mentions: Pearl Jam- Ten, NIN- Pretty Hate Machine, Supergrass- Life on Other Planets, Bob Marley- Best of, Neil Young- Rust Never Sleeps

Aw, shit. So hard. But I’ll try, with three favorite songs from each:

1) The Beatles, Abbey Road (“Something,” “Oh! Darling,” “Carry That Weight”)
2) Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (“Margaret vs. Pauline,” “Hold On, Hold On,” “Dirty Knife”)
3) Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison (“Cocaine Blues,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Greystone Chapel”)
4) R.E.M., Automatic for the People (“Find the River,” “Man on the Moon,” “Try Not to Breathe”)
5) The Clash, London Calling (“London Calling,” “Lost in the Supermarket,” “Spanish Bombs”)

this is such a difficult exercise

forgot…

flaming lips- the soft bulletin
elliot smith- either/or
alice in chains- jar of flies
tricky- maxinque
the cure- disintegration

Sublime-40 0z. to Freedom
Bob Marley-Exodus
Tool-Lateralus
Tool-Opiate
Andre Nickatina-Conversation with a devil

Of course, now I feel the need to list a bunch of bands/musicians I really wish I could’ve included in my list, but couldn’t because ONLY FIVE ARGH:

- Sleater-Kinney
- Joni Mitchell
- The New Pornographers
- The Arcade Fire
- The Cure
- Kate Bush
- PJ Harvey
- Nirvana
- Kristin Hersh/Throwing Muses
- Emm Gryner
- Public Enemy
- The various guises of Bob Mould

I could go on…

I realize that the idea is to pick 5 albums to listen to over and over, but for me where I am has something to do with the music I want to listen too over and over. For instance: 5 albums to drive cross country to; 5 albums for being in prison, etc.

Anyways my five for desert island.
1. Beck – Mutations – some slow jams from one of my favs

2. Pixies – Come on Pilgrim – just beating out Doolittle

3. The Who – Quadrophenia – Just to be different from the Who’s Next crowd

4. The Fall – Early Fall – okay its a collection of singles, but it was the first Fall I got and I fell in love. Just ahead of This Nation’s Saving Grace

5. Belle & Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strao – just beating out some Delgados… maybe “Hate”.

Tool, Metallica or Rush might make it onto the list for driving, prison or space. Not an island though. And of course there are probably tons more I would put on the list if I thought about it too long.

And the down side to this thread: now there are tons of albums I want to listen to, but the only time I get a chance to listen to music is while working – and there’s a game right in the middle of the day today! D’oh!

When posed with this sort of thing, I try to tailor the selections for the situation,
so bringing albums to a desert island kind of implies I’ll have music, and not
much else (except my AirTight amp, ProAcs, etc) [/audiophileGeekdom], so I’ll
bring contemplative things instead of party music.

1. Television – Marquee Moon
     Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd invented the guitar music you wank on today.

2. The Who – Quadrophenia
     Ganster rap circa 1973. Pete wrote great songs for a long time before you youngins
     came to know them as car ads. Written from four points of view, this will help you
     from being lonely if youre alone on said island.

3. Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
     Can break your heart even if the one you love is only the 2500 feet away as ordered
     by the restraining order; but if youre on an island, and she’s in Tangier, you’ll need
     you some of this.

4. Tom Waits – Raindogs
    We’ll need something to scare the natives/neighbors (though Bone Machine may
    be better suited).

5. Patti Smith – Gone Again
    Patti’s finest (and that’s saying alot). Want to talk about loss? She loses hubby
    Fred “sonic” Smith, artist/ex-lover Robert Mapplethorpe, and original bandmate
    Richard Sohl before returning with her tour de force. You think it’s gonna be sad?
    Wrong. It’s as spiritual and uplifting as something so surrounded by death can be.
    Bonus: Includes a cover of Dylan’s “Wicked Messenger.”

Honorable mentions:

Clash – Sandinista and London Calling
Coltrane- Love Supreme
Laurie Anderson – Mr Heartbreak
New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
Dexter Gordon – One Flight Up
Bevis Frond – North Circular
Feelies – It’s Only Life
Dumptruck – For the Country
Grateful Dead – Dick Picks 5 (12/26/79 Oakland)
Jerry Garcia Band – Keene College/After Midnight
Public Enemy – Apocalypse 91
NWA – SOoCompton
Nuetral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

In closing—you’ll think I’m an old fart (true) that doesnt listen to contemporary music
(not true), it’s just I need a long time to process just how great newer bands are
and I tend to measure them against these benchmarks (which granted came during
my formative years). Proof: I didnt see any of youz blasting out of Tueday’s grim
Giants performance to get over to the Hemlock to see the Bay Area’s best band:
The Wooden Shijps. (I’m still old though).

NP: Godspeed You Black Emperor – Yanqui (sp?)
    
    

but any fans of The Microphones’ The Glow Pt. 2?

Not in any particular order these are just the order in which I could single them out in.

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
Just an amazing album. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is one of the greatest songs ever, even if it is 20 minutes long.

The Beatles – The Beatles
Volume of songs is a factor here. But still, great album has everything from acoustics (Julia, Mother Nature’s Son) to rockers (Helter Skelter) to odd pieces (Revolution 9, Honey Pie).

Led Zeppelin I, II, IV, Houses of the Holy, or Physical Graffitti – Led Zeppelin
Thinking about this the whole thread. I have no clue which to pick. I has amazing covers and a real bluesy tinge to it. II has some of the greatest rock songs ever, Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker. IV also has some of the greatest rock songs, the whole album is almost a great rock song. Houses, same and also No Quarter FTW. Physical Graffiti, may have to journey through some riff raff to get to the good stuff, but again, great songs. it would just have to depend on the time.

Snakes and Arrows – Rush
::Prepares for flame war:: Probably one of the newest records in this thread, but I have just loved it ever since I got it. Great songs like classic Rush, instrumentals, and some really good slow songs too.

Abbey Road – The Beatles
I had to do it. Two Beatles records. But this album is just amazing also. The first side with it’s clean cut rockers (Come Together and I Want You), the second side with it’s medley, and George Harrison’s emergence as if not the best writer among the three, definitely on par with them.

Honorable Mentions: Tommy- The Who, the rest of the Led Zeppelin albums, the rest of The Beatles albums, Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd, Animals – Pink Floyd, Are You experienced – Jimi Hendrix, I could go on and on.

1) If you’re on a desert island, you’re going to be alternately far too busy or far too tired to worry about frivolities like music. At least until any conceivable power source would have run out of fuel or broken down for want of maintenance.

2) Since an island large enough to live on is almost always too big or too convoluted to allow you to see all parts of it at once, playing music is a dumb idea. Strangers could arrive with hostile intent, sound from speakers could attract them and wearing headphones could lead to taking a bullet.

3) Also a bad idea to attract potential non-human predators to your camp. Doesn’t apply to hunting though; you never hunt within site of your camp. Food waste, especially meat attracts carnivorous predators,scavengers and pests. Also, if you’re sick or injured, you want to have the hope of a clear shot without having to trek into the bush.

4) Tom Hanks went nuts because he lacked mental discipline not because he forgot to pack some CDs.

5) Mary Ann.

I just want to say I feel I know you all a little better for your participation
in this thread.

Johnny Cash: Love God Murder
Everybodyfields: Nothing Is Okay
Bob Marley: Exodus
Common: Like Water for Chocolate
Led Zep: IV

did my shoes come off in the plane crash?

Dre: 2001
AC/DC: Back in Black
John Lennon: Double Fantasy, despite the Yoko vocals.
Pulp Fiction: Music of
Rick James: Street Songs

I’ve been waiting for someone to mention them so I could agree.

-brand new – the devil and god are raging inside me
-thrice – the illusion of safety
-park – building a better _
-bright eyes – lifted: or etc etc
-the format – dog problems