If you could only keep 5 record albums, what would they be?
I am looking at my collection this evening and trying to determine my favorites. If I had to narrow it down to 5 it would be: Dan Fogelberg...The Netherlands; Roy Clark...Yesterday When I Was Young; James Taylor...Flag; Talking Heads...77; and last but not at all least, Commodores...Greatest Hits. All oldies but goodies that I still enjoy listening to as much as when I bought them many years ago.
Complete Works of Debussy (new DG version) Beethoven String Quartets (Tackacs) Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard Glen Gould Goldberg Variations (1955 version) Bach Mass in B minor (2012 Herreweghe)
Obviously, five is a ridiculously small, arbitrary number, but I'll play along. And if more titles demand to be listed, I'll post again. Here are five that come to mind today, some well-known, some less so:
Dark Side of the Moon
Brahms Piano Concerto No 2; Gina Bachauer, paino; Chesky
Records
John Coltrane- A Love Supreme Aretha Franklin- Lady Soul Derek And the Dominoes- Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs Rolling Stones- Let It Bleed Marvin Gaye- What's Going On
Honorable Mentions: Janis Joplin- Cheap Thrills Live /Dead, the 1969 one with one with Turn on Your Love Light and Dark Star
Dan Fogelberg,"netherlands",and/or "twin sons of different mothers",with Tim Wiesberg. Elton John,"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" REO Speedwagon,"YouGet What You Play For" Keiko Matsui,"White Owl"(only on CD) Above and Beyond,"Acoustic II" (Thanks to my daughter Callie)
1. The Everly Brothers, A Date With...when I listen to this album I can see/hear The Beatles, Beach Boys, Eagles...the Everlys crossed country, folk, blues and rock and gave us...country rock.
2. Miles Davis, You’re under Arrest
3. Cream, Wheels of Fire
4. Django Reinhardt, Nuage. I have it on CD. Not sure if it’s on vinyl. But, can’t live without Django!
5. Beethoven’s 9th. Or maybe A Clockwork Orange would sooth the urge? I’d try to slip in a copy of Mozart’s Eine Keine...just eine! Also slip in some Rahsaan. Definitely Monk.
The way I see it, a record album was originally a cardboard book with paper sleeves and a bunch of 78s in it. A "record" was just a single 78. So as far as I'm concerned, an album can be a boxed set!
Not in any particular order and I'd die if I had to give up hundreds of LP's :) ELO, A New World Order Steely Dan, The Royal Scam Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti Elton John, Honky Chateau Dire Straits, Dire Straits
Of course my wife would be joining me on the island also so I took the liberty of choosing five for her. The Beatles, Sgt Pepper Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here Crosby Stills Nash Young, So Far Fluke, Six Wheels On My Wagon Moody Blues, Days of Future Past
Assuming I have my hifi wherever I'm taking these LPs:Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" MOFI 45RPMR.E.M. "Fables of the Reconstruction" (Thanks Rabco)James Taylor "JT" MOFIFagen "The Nightfly" MOFI One StepRadiohead "OK Computer" British Import
5 records is very difficult to pick when you have more than 3000 cd/sacd/dvd-a/Music Blu-Ray. Here’s a shot at it:
1.- Dark Side of The moon - Pink Floyd (Album that was on the Billboad 100 for the longest time) 2.- Rumors - Fleetwood Mack (One of the top 5 best selling album of all times) 3.- Eagles greatest hits (Also one of the top 5 best selling album of all times) 4.- Breakfast in America - Supertramp 5.- Good Bye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John.
It it was very difficult :(:(:( I had to leave out:
1.- Hotel California - Eagles 2.- We Can’t Dance - Genesis 3.- Led Zeppelin IV 4.- Billy Joel Greatest Hits 1 & 2 5.- Songs in The Key of Life - Steavie Wonder 6.- Captain Fantastic - Elton John 7.- Brothers in arms - Dire Stray 8.- The Wall - Pink Floyd 9.- Here at Last - Bee Gees 10.- Gratitude - Esrth, Wind and Fire 11.- Commodores Live 12.- Sgt Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles 13.- The White Album - The Beatles ... wow it is really very difficult
It occured to me that I am going to be very depressed with only five albums to choose from so I am revising my list accordingly:
Beck "Sea Change" MFSL LP Aimee Mann "Lost in Space" MFSL LP Radiohead "OK Computer" British Import LP Sinatra "Only the Lonely" MFSL LP Gary Karr "Adagio d'Albinoni" Firebird Super Analogue Disc Bonus Hidden Under My Shirt: Nick Drake "Pink Moon" Universal Reissue LP
Only 5? Wow - that's tough! Talking Vinyl LPs: 1. (As per wife) MFSL Original Master Recording - Neil Diamond "Hot August Night" Live at the Greek 2. MFSL Original Master Recording - Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" 3. MFSL Original Master Recording - Al Stewart "Year of the Cat" 4. Original A&M Records - Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass "Whipped Cream & Other Delights" 5. A toss up between Reference Recordings - Tafelmusik "Popular Masterworks of Baroque" and Don Williams "Cafe Carolina"
@jhills.....+1 here. Your whole list is check, check, double check. Are we all the same age on this forum? I'm on board with 90% of all music listed and that could grow as I audition more. I'm a "boomer" and feel that I have been so fortunate to have bridged what I consider the best 7 decades of music known to mankind !!!
Well, what this proves is just how diverse music taste can be! With that it also helps identify unknown selections that I must listen to, thanks to bdp24, larryi and others. I don’t think I can answer this honestly, even if I try by genre.
Thanks awhittington for resurfacing this topic, I’m sure I’ll find some new albums to add to my collection.
If, indeed, I was put in the position of only being allowed to keep 5 record albums, I would think that most all of the contributors collections would be adequately satisfying. I suspect that the limitation of recorded music would encourage me to make my own music, and, depending on whether the limitation effected others, could quite possibly lead me to engage in more participatory forms of enjoying music.
I'm not so sure that the last seven decades have been "the best ever." They have certainly been unique in that recorded music has been available, so you don't have to make it yourself or wait for a concert. Frankly, I enjoy live music, or even better, playing it myself more than listening to my stereo.
The Beatles - White Album The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue Nilsson - Nilsson Sings Newman 10cc - Original Soundtrack
Sounds like we have a lot of old hippies with good ears among us who do remember the 60's. I would be ok with most picks...but I would need at least one Ray Charles album and a Roy Orbison would help.
Coming at this topic from a different direction, there are some albums I have to possess just for one song; it’s a bonus if the entire album is good. Here are some of those songs:
- "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys. On their Pet Sounds album, a pretty good one ;-) . There is a video on You Tube of a music teacher sitting at a piano, breaking down the structure and composition of this majestic Brian Wilson song. Watch it and have your musical consciousness raised!
- "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted", written by William Weatherspoon, Paul Riser, and James Dean, sung by Jimmy Ruffin. A really, really great song, with a glorious chord progression and melody (and superb bass part by James Jamerson). Available on any Jimmy Ruffin Greatest Hits/Best Of album, or Motown V/A collection.
- "No Time To Cry" by Iris Dement. The wife of an old friend, knowing of my record collection, asked me for an album recommendation. She’s a professional therapist/counselor with her own clinic, is pretty smart and sophisticated, and a good dancer. I had just discovered and fallen in love with Iris, and told the wife to get her My Life album. When I heard back from the friend, he told me the wife found the album severely melancholy. For me, it’s like what the old Bluesmen said about their music: To sing about what they did helped soothe the pain. "No Time To Cry" is as heartbreakingly-beautiful as Pop music (non-Classical) can be. The entire album is fantastic, but not for those with a distain for Hillbilly music.
There are many other albums I have solely for one song (there are far more excellent musicians than songwriters), but that’s enough outta me.
Was going to mention that no one has mentioned the whole collection of Roy Orbison. @Fayetteville just did. What a set of pipes that guy had. If just one album, "a night in black and white" would be it. His back ups are Springsteen, Elvis Costello, KD Lange, Jackson Brown, and others. Filmed live and on YouTube.
Cudos to bdp24 for bringing up Dave Edmunds/Rockpile.
I know a lot of folks look to their systems to bring them back in time to experience the performance as it was being recorded and most of these lists reflect this fact. So I thought I'd make a list where the production shines and transports you someplace else.
ABC-The Lexicon of Love produced by Trevor Horn Pulp-Different Class, Chris Thomas Ultravox-Rage In Eden, Connie Plank Kraftwerk-Computer World, Ralf Hütter Joy Division-Closer, Martin Hannett
I suffer tremendously from paralysis of analysis, so it would take me weeks/months to whittle down to 5 records to keep. That said, I'm going to change my rules for replying, so I can not waste too much time thinking about it.
If the house was burning down and I have time to grab 5 albums TODAY, I would pull the following from my record shelves:
Pete Townshend - "White City - A Novel" The Tubes - "What do you Want From Live" Supertramp - "Brother Where You Bound?" dada - "Puzzle" The Jayhawks - "Hollywood Town Hall"
and if my wife could carry 5 more of my records through the burning house, I would give her:
World Party - "Goodbye Jumbo" The Who - "Who's Next" Elvis Costello - "Spike" Robben Ford - "Robben Ford and the Blue Line" Rush - "Hemispheres"
If I wasn't in a hurry and had more time to think I might............ ;~)
@baffler65, the ABC Lexicon Of Love album has SUCH incredible production! My fave from that era of English Synth-Pop.
For those who nominated Roy Orbison, there have been a couple of audiophile reissues of his Monument recordings (first by Classic Records), and the sound of them is absolutely incredible! They almost sound like a direct-to-disk LP they are so alive and immediate. His recording engineer Bill Porter was one of the all-time greats.
A Hard Day’s Night (Beatles, UK Stereo) Pet Sounds (Beach Boys, 90’s stereo mix) The Inner Mounting Flame (Mahavishnu Orchestra) Goldberg Variations (Bach/Glenn Gould, 1981 ) Late Quartets (Beethoven/Guarneri Quartet)
1. A Clockwork Orange- It's got some good synthesizer music (I normally don't seek it out, but if we are on a spaceship, tumbling through the cosmos, it might come in handy when the martians get us). And of course it's got Ludvig's 9th!
2. John and Yokos 2 Virgins- put the cover over one of the windows. that'll scare most of the martians. Might be better NOT to play the album, never know what it might attract.
3. Blood Seat and Tears
4. Motown- Temptations or Miracles. Something to take me back to the days of being a kid, grinding on the pretty girls.
1. Charles Mingus - The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady 2. Dizzy Gillespie - The New Continent 3. Oliver Nelson - Jazzhattan Suite 4. Baden Powell - Canto On Guitar 5 - OK, I’m going with Rubber Soul for my Beatles selection
I know it won’t be very popular. And you could argue the US version or UK, I guess.
I can't even get my head round the concept of just 5 albums, I usually play more than that in one evening. What would I do with the rest of the year? Talk to the wife? Makes me ill just contemplating it!
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