Desert Island Music Draft Thread *** draft is over ***

[Spike]

While the Mohican controversy rages on, my next pick:

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast (1982)

The Number of the Beast is a heavy metal album released in 1982 (see 1982 in music) by Iron Maiden on EMI in the UK and originally Harvest Records/Capitol Records in the U.S. (now on Sanctuary Records/Columbia Records). IGN named it the third greatest Heavy Metal album of all time. Metal-Rules.com named this the second greatest heavy metal album of all time.[1] The album is also a part of EMI's "Albums That Shaped Rock History" series. This was the band's third studio album and debut of vocalist Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden.

Of all the songs in the album, "The Number of the Beast," "Run to the Hills" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name" remain on the set lists of nearly all of the band's concert tours, with the latter two often used to close a show. All three songs have been released as singles in various forms.

Party on.

 

[Bricklayer]

That's the thing, though; I think I may have already rejected one of Proph's selections based on the same criteria.

did that take place via PM? Just searched the whole thread and could not find the incident.

 

[VF21]

I'm up next - as Kingzrool. Do I wait for this to be settled or do I post his next picks?

 

[VF21]

FYI - as an aside, I tend to think Brick's choice should be allowed as it's an original score album that, for some reason, had one non-score song added. If the primary difference is to separate out original work from the type of compilations found on "soundtracks," then the album seems pretty clearly part of the former and not the latter.

But, as always, just my three cents.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

did that take place via PM? Just searched the whole thread and could not find the incident.

It did; she asked me for a ruling.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

FYI - as an aside, I tend to think Brick's choice should be allowed as it's an original score album that, for some reason, had one non-score song added. If the primary difference is to separate out original work from the type of compilations found on "soundtracks," then the album seems pretty clearly part of the former and not the latter.

But, as always, just my three cents.

Fair enough; I'll allow it.

 

[Bricklayer]

It did; she asked me for a ruling.

Well I can think of a number of original scores that might trip over the same issue -- if nothing else that one Enya song on every score has become ubiquitous. And not looking for an advantage. If it was illegal once on the same grounds, no huge deal.

 

[VF21]

For Kingzrool, who is away for the weekend:

Prince - Dirty Mind – 1980

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind

Dirty Mind is the third album by Prince, released October 8, 1980. According to the New Rolling Stone Album Guide, "Dirty Mind remains one of the most radical 180-degree turns in pop history." With this album, Prince makes a decisive departure from his preceding more commercial album Prince. He seems keen to distance himself from the disco-ish light soul of "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and experiments with a New Wave-influenced, rock and roll sound. This album was to set the scene emphatically for Prince's chart domination later in the 1980s. It fused black and white musical styles in a seamless fashion and showed that Prince was not afraid to push boundaries. In 2003, the album was ranked number 204 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

 

[VF21]

And with the first pick in the 17th round, Kingzrool selects:

Moby – Everything Is Wrong – 1995

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Is_Wrong

(This article is about the studio album.) Everything Is Wrong is an album released in 1995 by the artist Moby. The album was Moby’s first acclaimed electronica album, but his true success did not come about until the release of his 1999 album, Play.

...........

PM to Spike on the way.

 

[Spike]

Now for my last metal pick of the draft:

Metallica - And Justice for All (1988)

Possibly my most favoritest album of all time, but I thought it would be safe until now. An epic album. Everybody (except Slim) knows "One", but there are other great songs on this album as well, such as the title track.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Possibly my most favoritest album of all time, but I thought it would be safe until now.

I was going to pick this before round 5, but decided to drop it from my list entirely, so you lucked out if its your favoritest.

It is my favorite Metallica record, despite the fact that I consider the production to be absolutely dreadful (tinny drums, no bass guitar). In terms of composition though, this was Metallica at their peak. Sadly that peak was on the edge of a 10,000,000,000 ft. cliff which they then went over.

 

[Spike]

It is my favorite Metallica record, despite the fact that I consider the production to be absolutely dreadful (tinny drums, no bass guitar). In terms of composition though, this was Metallica at their peak. Sadly that peak was on the edge of a 10,000,000,000 ft. cliff which they then went over.

All true. I patiently await a remastered version. Oddly enough, I really can't listen to any of their work after this album (most notably the Black album, even though it was their most successful.)

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I'll never get what they were thinking and why they actually seem to be so proud of the fact that they alienated their most loyal fans.

 

[Bricklayer]

I'll never get what they were thinking and why they actually seem to be so proud of the fact that they alienated their most loyal fans.

And reached millions of new ones.

I've had this discussion before with others -- you are a purist. It bleeds through your picks. You are looking for raw first generation stuff. Ignore most later refinements as imitative and derivative. Which is all fine and good. But I have often wondered, who's being truer/more authentic? The band that plays the same stuff at 40 as they did at 20, because that's what their fans expect? Or the band that grows and changes just as we all do in the natural course of our lives? I have a deep suspicion of bands that keep on making the same album for a dozen years in a row -- to me its seems likely THEY are the true "sellouts", to whatever degree I even care about that term.

As an aside -- One was an amazing song...that also laid the groundwork for their "sellout" as their first crossover. As a second aside, one of the other albums mentioned there has been in and out of my list several times, with me never yet spurred to action precisely because I suspected that Spike would decry it as a sellout, and I could not identify another major threat.

 

[bozzwell]

And reached millions of new ones.

I've had this discussion before with others -- you are a purist. It bleeds through your picks. You are looking for raw first generation stuff. Ignore most later refinements as imitative and derivative. Which is all fine and good. But I have often wondered, who's being truer/more authentic? The band that plays the same stuff at 40 as they did at 20, because that's what their fans expect? Or the band that grows and changes just as we all do in the natural course of our lives? I have a deep suspicion of bands that keep on making the same album for a dozen years in a row -- to me its seems likely THEY are the true "sellouts", to whatever degree I even care about that term.

You don't have to be purist to be dissapointed with some bands "broadening their appeal" (selling out). Metallica has left their core fans in the dust as they rushed to mainstream, stadium/dinosaur rock stardom. OTOH, there are artists like David Bowie, whose whole career was about reinventing himself and winning over new generations of fans. Then there are hit-and-miss "sellouts", like U2, since going mainstream, they made two all time great albums (Joshua Tree and Achtiung Baby), but also published bunch of garbage. Then there are whole rock'n'roll genres that were closed circle and cannot really evolve (3 chord punk, 80's electronica, traditional blues), so any attempt to resacitate them is really just a marketing ploy to exploit new generations who may have not heard it the first time around.

My personal test of value of "new" music that heavily relies on previous productions is: does it make me want to listen to my old records or is it worth giving it another spin? If a record makes me instantly want to listen to the "original" it's not really evolved. Sometimes, bands evolve/change but still manage only to remind you of their former glory (i.e. Weezer's Red Album, good, but not great and made me want to listen to more of Blue Album and Pinkerton).

I also agree with you. PDX is a music puritan, but in totally good and cool way.

 

[Bricklayer]

In for a penny, in for a pound they say, and so I execute the second half of my soundtrack plan:

Basil Poledouris -- Conan the Barbarian (Soundtrack) (1982)

This one will win me few votes...except from those who know. A bit of a cult collector's item, there have been some great movie scores over the years, and yet there are many who consider this one right here as maybe the best. What do you do when you have a movie largely devoid of dialogue starring a giant monosyllabic barbarian with only a shaky command of the English language? You tell the tale through music. And how -- huge orchestral sections backed by a soaring choral detachment, smaller, almost delicate melodies for love and loss...if the (often fun) dialogue was entirely omitted (well except for James Earl Jones, who could make a chicken soup recipe sound exciting), the music could almost tell the story by itself. In fact so well choreographed is it to the scenes, that there are times it is almost like watching a musical. Like the LOTM soundtrack, its passionate and powerful. Unlike the LOTM soundtrack, it replaces the Celtic overtones with barbaric beats and a choir singing about bloodshed and glory. For those who know who the composer Carl Orff was, much of this achieves that same incredible high. And I could not think of any single remaining album of popular music I would prefer to have on my island than either of these soundtracks.

 

[bozzwell]

More and more records that I don't have (Prima, Jon B, LotM, Conan)... I also noticed that I don't have full version of Les Miserables, I have some compilation that includes parts of it. Gonna be a busy day for me tomorrow, since everyone here has demonstrated great taste in music, I'm gonna make me a new shopping list and hit the indipendent records stores (6 just in my neoghborhood).

 

[Bricklayer]

More and more records that I don't have (Prima, Jon B, LotM, Conan)... I also noticed that I don't have full version of Les Miserables, I have some compilation that includes parts of it. Gonna be a busy day for me tomorrow, since everyone here has demonstrated great taste in music, I'm gonna make me a new shopping list and hit the indipendent records stores (6 just in my neoghborhood).

If you are truly going to do that, be careful of versions on the two soundtracks. There is an inferior yr 2000 version of LOTM done by the Royal Scottish Orchestra. It was not the original score. And there is a shorter 12 track version of the CTB soundtrack that was released for some reason there. The original version is 16 tracks long.

6 indie stores just in your neighborhood? Wow. You're lucky. I thought those things were dying out.

 

[bozzwell]

If you are truly going to do that, be careful of versions on the two soundtracks. There is an inferior 2000 version of LOTM done by the Scottish Orchestra. It was not the original score. And there is a shorter 12 track version of the CTB soundtrack that was released fro some reason there. The original version is 16 tracks long.

6 indie stores just in your neighborhood? Wow. You're lucky. I thought those things were dying out.

Thanks for the advice. I'd really hate to end up with crappy version.

As for record stores, again, I have you and VF21 to thank for that. Remember 2 years ago when I was thinking of moving with a job to the Bay Area? Yours and VF21's advice in particular helped me do a proper assesment, not move to CA, but move to Chicago (to the city from suburbs). Now I am 2 blocks from the craziest record store in the World (all the records they have I barely even heard of). That store is under D here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8...Village,+Chicago,+IL&fb=1&view=map&cd=1&hl=en

Just in case you're ever in Chicago and looking for really, really hard to find records...

 

[Bricklayer]

Thanks for the advice. I'd really hate to end up with crappy version.

As for record stores, again, I have you and VF21 to thank for that. Remember 2 years ago when I was thinking of moving with a job to the Bay Area? Yours and VF21's advice in particular helped me do a proper assesment, not move to CA, but move to Chicago (to the city from suburbs). Now I am 2 blocks from the craziest record store in the World (all the records they have I barely even heard of). That store is under D here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8...Village,+Chicago,+IL&fb=1&view=map&cd=1&hl=en

Just in case you're ever in Chicago and looking for really, really hard to find records...

Well after finding out you own 364,574 albums, of COURSE you could not move. You would have needed an entire fleet of trucks just to bring along the record collection.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I've had this discussion before with others -- you are a purist. It bleeds through your picks. You are looking for raw first generation stuff. Ignore most later refinements as imitative and derivative.

I think you misread me as a purist. But I don't really want to argue about that other than to say if that were true I'd be picking nothing but Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash.

On Metallica: If you ask me, Justice showed an amazing growth from Kill 'em All. It definitely was no longer a pure thrash record. They grew immeasruably on Ride and Puppets and Justice was perhaps the culmination of a formula they created if you go by the types of songs they put on each album and their specific track ordering. They then took a radical departure - that's fine on its own - but then they turn around and spit in the face of their fans in their words and actions, whether it be interviews where they laugh about "selling out" (every night... hahaha) or suing their fans for trading music - which is what put them on the map in the 80s.

The thing about the Black album which makes it so cringe worthy to me is it signified the jumping off point from Metallica being innovative to chasing the next big thing. On the Black album they were chasing radio and video air play - pretty amusing coming from a band that spent years giving interviews about how they didn't need any of that. When they made the video for One they talked about how they wouldn't want to make a silly video of backstage tour antics - it had to be something meaningful. Cue up Nothing Else Matters. On Load and Re-Load they seemed to be chasing after other markets - you can call that "growth" if you will, but I consider it being a whore for the record industry. They have a new upcoming album which they promise will be more like Master of Puppets - what can you take from that, to me its certifiable proof that they gave up music as art long ago and its all about chasing the most sales.

 

[bozzwell]

Well after finding out you own 364,574 albums, of COURSE you could not move. You would have needed an entire fleet of trucks just to bring along the record collection.

I know you're only kidding, but imagine my surprise when I discovered that in America, you have moving boxes for collectibles (comic books, records, toys). Extra strong and shaped to fit snugly. If it weren't for that (and someone else paying for it), I'd still be in England.

That was in 2000. Movers (Allied United I think, I strongly recommend them) came to my house in London, packed everything and made a list room by room. 6 weeks later everything was in its place and all I had to do is sign for it. Not a single record was damaged.

That's a reason 1,000,203 why I love this country.

 

[Spike]

I think you misread me as a purist. But I don't really want to argue about that other than to say if that were true I'd be picking nothing but Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash.

On Metallica: If you ask me, Justice showed an amazing growth from Kill 'em All. It definitely was no longer a pure thrash record. They grew immeasruably on Ride and Puppets and Justice was perhaps the culmination of a formula they created if you go by the types of songs they put on each album and their specific track ordering. They then took a radical departure - that's fine on its own - but then they turn around and spit in the face of their fans in their words and actions, whether it be interviews where they laugh about "selling out" (every night... hahaha) or suing their fans for trading music - which is what put them on the map in the 80s.

The thing about the Black album which makes it so cringe worthy to me is it signified the jumping off point from Metallica being innovative to chasing the next big thing. On the Black album they were chasing radio and video air play - pretty amusing coming from a band that spent years giving interviews about how they didn't need any of that. When they made the video for One they talked about how they wouldn't want to make a silly video of backstage tour antics - it had to be something meaningful. Cue up Nothing Else Matters. On Load and Re-Load they seemed to be chasing after other markets - you can call that "growth" if you will, but I consider it being a whore for the record industry. They have a new upcoming album which they promise will be more like Master of Puppets - what can you take from that, to me its certifiable proof that they gave up music as art long ago and its all about chasing the most sales.

I'm not sure what else I can add to that. Sums up my feelings as well. It wasn't so much that the Black album was a departure from their work ( I do like "Fuel", for example) but that Black, and future albums, didn't seem as creative or innovative as before. I feel the same way about Megadeth after RIP, and to a lesser extent, Countdown to Extinction. But anyway, I digress.

BTW, Brick, feel free to throw that album out there. Regardless of how I feel about it, that doesn't mean others aren't allowed to like it. I think it's good in its own right, but not really my cup of tea. (How's that for vague pronoun references, Ms. Miranda?)

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

If bozzwell says he has this album, well... I'm not going to accuse him of lying, since he seems a trustworthy sort, and there's certainly no reason to lie about something so meaningless, but I'll definitely be in "raised eyebrows" mode... Whether that's a raised eyebrow of awe or a raised eyebrow of skepticism will be an exercise left to the reader.

My next pick is...

Hikaru Utada - Distance - 2001

While she's failed to catch on with American audiences, Hikki is a top-selling star worldwide, and a megastar in Japan. Distance is her second-most successful album, selling a mere five and a half million copies worldwide, and being certified 4x platinum by Japan's version of the RIAA. The first week it came out, it sold over three million copies. Four hit singles, that spent a combined 61 weeks at #1 in Japan, from November 1999 to February 2001.

Why do I love this album? Because I think her voice is sensational. I love her voice so much, that I bought this Japanese-only album despite not speaking a word of Japanese. Also, two of the #1 hit singles on this album were produced by the famed Flyte Time production duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, with another one produced by Darkchild, so the beats are tight, too.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Hikaru Utada - Distance - 2001

That takes my "never heard of" list to three. The only Japanese artists/bands I know are of the retro/pop variety.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Hikki is a pop artist.

 

[Bricklayer]

I love Hikaru!

er...Hikki...

 

[Bricklayer]

er...having just listened to samples on Itunes -- no I don't.

They don't have that particular album on there though. Does have a voice equal to any of the more well known pop princesses though. Just always find them wasted on synthesized artifical pop beats and whatnot. Which is more a critique of the genre than our dear Hikki.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Hikki is a pop artist.

The "retro" was a key qualifier, there. Using a hyphen probably would have been more accurate, but I'm trying not to show all my cards to the other oddballs since I've got one such album that keeps jumping on and off of my list.

 

[D-Mass]

Jack Johnson - Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

This is not the album most people would pick as their favorite Jack Johnson album, but it is definitely my favorite. I went to school with Jack Johnson at UCSB and his future wife was a friend of mine in the teacher education program there (she was a very talented math teacher, by the way...). I met him at a few parties before he made it big and he was always a really cool guy. He went to UCSB for film studies and was actually pretty accomplished with his camera work for surfing videos. This was his first album and it features a lot of the music he played around town during college. It brings back a lot of memories for me...the song Bubble Toes (about his wife) has a lot of references to the dining halls and dormitories that we all lived in.