Is There Just One Single Album That Does It For You, Completely? Just One.
If you somehow got stuck in a situation (lol) and had to spend the rest of your life completely by yourself, all alone, on a desert island ... and, as part of your situation you only got to choose one album to spend the entire rest of your life with.
Let’s say, some weird circumstance, and you also had at your complete disposal the system of your dreams, that you had assembled thru the years. And thank goodness you were a prepper and you thought ahead to install a solar power system, so power would never be a problem either.
Kind of like Tom Hanks on that island, except instead of a just a soccer ball, you had your dream stereo setup and one album only.
One album and that’s it. Got to pick one. Not necesssarily your all time favorite album, just one you could live with for the rest of your life.
Is there any album that just completely does it for ya, on that level?
I’ll kick things off by sharing mine: Steely Dan, Aja
I can’t even come close to picking only 1 album; even 10 would be impossible.
I listen to 3 major genres, and quite a few subgenres within each genre. And within each genre and subgenre, there is music that I rate just as highly as in any other choice in the other genres and subgenres.
Jazz - post-bop, fusion, chamber-jazz, avant-garde
I guess if someone were holding a gun to my head, and forced me to name 1, it would be Yes - Close to the Edge (since it was such a game changer in my listening history).
But seriously, there are many albums by Magma, Thinking Plague, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, PFM, Banco, Anglagard, within prog. Mahavishnu Orchestra, John Coltrane, Allan Holdsworth, Anthony Braxton, Return to Forever, Miles, Oregon, within jazz. And Elliott Carter, Alban Berg, Charles Wuorinen, Bruno Maderna, Joan Tower, Stefan Wolpe, within classical, that I consider the equal of any other recording I would chose.
The soundtrack to the movie "Phenomenon". It was on rotation in my car's CD changer for almost 10 years. When Jewel starts channeling Janis Joplin halfway through 'Have A Little Faith In Me' is just a remarkable exercise in vocal skills. And the Clapton, the Van Morrison, the Aaron Neville. Just an amazing collection.
I actually had an experience relative to this question. In 1972 I was a radioman in the Navy and sent to Diego Garcia in 1972. It is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 27 miles long in a horseshoe shape and no wider than half a mike at any point as well as being close to the equator.
All I could take with me in term of music and audio was a small battery powered cassette player and a small carrier that contained 10 cassettes. The first one in the box was Live at the Fillmore. I should also mention I saw them play a few weeks before Duane died in the motorcycle accident. That box travelled with me for a couple of years until I got out of the Navy.
A couple more points, there were no permanent buildings when I arrived, mostly comprised of seabees building out the island, we had the highest rate of drug and alcohol abuse of any unit in the US military that year.
Bob Hope arrived on the first jet to land on the island and performed on Christmas Day that year. Temperatures easily got into the mid 110s and no A/C for 98% of the 1,100 men stationed there.
Of the albums mentioned here... Aja would definitely be on the list, as would Abraxas and the White Album. But of course, on classical music you get to cheat by choosing complete things like Beethoven's Nine Symphonies. So I would probably choose a compilation of Mozart's last six piano concertos, preferably performed by Mitsuko Uchida.
Mine would be: Genesis The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
1- Has to be a double album, more music! 2- It probably helps that I saw Genesis perform the album at the NY Academy of Music on Dec. 7th in 1974 (on Broadway!), in the 11th row (what a coincidence, exactly 49 years ago), an incredible show, one of the best! btw I know the date and seat because I actually kept a log of all the shows I attended back in the 70's.
There are more than a couple for me but lately it's been Steve Earle, El Corazon. Its recorded well and has a twangy vibe with a sophisticated lyric contrast. I encourage others to give it a spin.
I saw that tour in Boston! It didn’t lessen my view of them, but things were going so badly, that 1/2 way in, Gabriel offered everyone to go to the box office and get their $$ back. Almost no one did. The cocoon thing wouldn’t lift back up off of him for the costume change, then it collapsed on him. The rest of the show didn’t go much more smoothly. Good LP pick, though!
Oh, and just I spent another $30 on him. Looking forward to its arrival.
Damn that's a shame! The show that I saw went smoothly, they were fantastic. They did the entire album, then a couple of encores, the last being The Knife. An incredible show!
Two. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Issac Hayes Shaft, and or Black Moses. Each were done in 1971. I’ve never recovered, as nothing else comes close. And I’m a jazz man.
Bach Goldberg by Feltsman incredible spontaneous almost improvised playings after the end of the Soviet empire in his first invitation to Moscow ... A top level Bach lesson in pure joy ...Gould is mannerism compared to it ...
For Strings trio , the Sitkovetsky transcription is a treasure ...
Scriabin by Sofronitsky or Zhukov ...The low cost version of integral by Michael Ponti is the only non Russian version i admired but the sound is horrible ...Try it at low cost if sound matter less than music ... I love him ...This version is unique but does not compared to Sofronitsky, nothing compared anyway ... It takes more than great pianist to play Scriabin, i tried them all 😁 ...
Most great names are unable to play it because the time dimension in Scriabin is indecipherable linearly ... Scriabin dont play in the linear time dimension ...This is why Scriabin is one of the greatest musician adding something that dont exist in Bach ...Schonberg is under Scriabin genius for me not above , but Schonberg too with is mathematical recipe quit linear time ...Scriabin never used a recipe or a formula to create an artificial new world, he created without quitting the human heart with an artefact as Schonberg did ...
Scriabin is like Gesualdo or Purcell , an island of its own ....
@mahgister +1 But which recordings of Bach Goldberg Variations and Scriabin piano sonatas?
I think all the guys are thinking about this the wrong way. While hearing the same music over and over again would quickly get old, good cover art would have other uses and could sustain you a while longer. How about Britney Spears - Oops!... I Did It Again.
I think all the guys are thinking about this the wrong way. While hearing the same music over and over again would quickly get old, good cover art would have other uses and could sustain you a while longer. How about Britney Spears - Oops!... I Did It Again.
Exactly right ...
Most people confuse their musical taste about a bunch of tunes with music with inexaustible depth ...
They dont realize that listening FOREVER the Tunes of any pop singers or his music is the definition of the inferno or assured madness ...
Try listening the Bolero of Ravel for one hour .... Try it ... This repeated short melody cannot be borrowed as the only listening on an island which even Ravel hated in this way ...
Almost no musical works will do ...Save those with depth and impossible to get on all aspects for a very, very long time ...
Save some Bach or Beethoven Quartet or some others genius pieces ... As the 100 transcendental studies of Sorabji ...
My definition of hell is rap music for eternity ...But think about that : it is the paradise for some ...
I concluded that hell and paradise dont exist so much as separated but are together mixed on earth ...
A Single Choice? Very hard. There are many great examples listed already, but mine would have to be "Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs". Such a Strong Artist. Unbelievable voice. His Lyrics actually tell a story, and he takes care in how he tells it. Some may think it's dark, but the songs are truthful.
As everyone mentions, it’s hard to choose just one. If I had to do it then I’d take “Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”.
It has a little of various modes on it and is still one (ONE) of my all time Genesis favorites.
Hopefully I’d find a wreckage somewhere with “Yes - Close to the Edge” in it so I could have two though.
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