Desert Island Discs
Feb 9, 2019 7:14:16 GMT -5
ganews, King Charles’s Butterfly, and 3 more like this
Post by Prole Hole on Feb 9, 2019 7:14:16 GMT -5
So why not have our own Desert Island Discs thread!
You probably know the deal, but if not - you get to select eight pieces of music (not whole symphonies if you go down the classical route, it would be one movement) to take with you as a castaway on a fictional island. But which eight? You can be as brief or as detailed as you like, treat it as a quickie thread or ramble on interminably. The choice is yours! My eight are presented in no particular order, except for the first one which is.
(As a side-note, the BBC's entire archive of Desert Island Discs is now available online: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr/episodes/a-z/a)
1. "Drive", R.E.M. - My favourite song of all time. From Mike's near-inaudible count-in to Michael's bone-dry delivery of, "tick. Tock". From the soaring orchestration to Peter's immaculate guitar. "Drive" is a relentless whirlwind and will forever remain my favourite song. Not necessarily the best song ever, but unquestionably my favourite.
2. "Lola", The Kinks - It is physically impossible for me to hear that opening guitar riff (CHUNG-chung-cha-cha-cha-cha-chung-chung-CHUNG) without having a big stupid grin on my face. This is a deceptively simple song, yet impishly clever and by turns funny, warm, self-deprecating, compassionate and straightfowardly fun. Just glorious.
3. "Trans-Europa Express", Kraftwerk - As with all band on this list, there could have been a good half-dozen other songs minimum that could have taken this slot, but in the end it had to go to this. No song quite stakes out the brilliance, importance and influence of Kraftwerk quite like "Trans-Europa Express", a soaring ride across Europe that's both simultaneously minimal and maximal, oppressive and freeing. It's a brilliant piece of music.
4. "A Day In The Life", The Beatles - One song could never summarise everything The Beatles are but if I must pick just a single example then it's this, which combines everything that makes the Beatles so worthwhile. It's a proper collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, it had an experimental edge to it, it embraces both the psychedelic and the ordinary in juxtaposition to each other to find something worthwhile in both, we get a career-best performance from Ringo (seriously, listen to Ringo on this - he's fucking amazing) and the whole thing just gels together into one of the most perfect album-closers of all time.
5. "So What", Miles Davis - A beguiling piece of music, miles (heh) away from the usual lazy jazz cliches of, "Hi! And welcome to jazz club. Great!" this winds itself around you inescapably. There's that tinkling piano introduction, then the bass slides in, paralleled by the horn, until the whole lot bursts forth, releasing the tension of the introduction and sounding like the universe itself is playing music. Beyond parallel.
6. "Life During Wartime", Talking Heads - The colossus at the centre of my favourite Talking Heads album (Fear Of Music), and hugely influential on both how I see music and how I play guitar, I could only ever choose "Life During Wartime". I love how incredibly simple it is - just two chords, A minor and E - yet it's a hugely complex song too that contains worlds within its simplicity. So much achieved with so little, vastly disciplined and loose at the same time it's just such an absorbing piece of music.
7. "Can You Forgive Her?", Pet Shop Boys - I'm not going to argue that "Can You Forgive Her?" is the best Pet Shop Boys song, nor even the best on Very (that would be the bitter excoriation of "Yesterday, When I Was Mad"). But it was my gateway drug to Pet Shop Boys, and it's certainly about as archetypal a song from them as you could imagine. There's that huge WWAAAAMPP first note that never fails to make me jump, a typically coy approach to sex and sexuality ("behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed"), there's Neil Tennant's dry wit ("she's made you some kind of laughing stock / because you dance to disco and you don't like rock") and dry delivery ("rrrrrrremember when...") and some really powerful instrumental arrangements. This song pack a huge punch.
8. "TVC15", David Bowie - Again, i wouldn't necessarily argue that this is the best song Bowie has ever written (as ever, how can there be only one?), but there's just something so irresistible about the blend of 20's cabaret piano, a jumpy unhinged vocal, and the way the song is able to shift between the piano section, the "transmission/transition" bridge, then the sheer sonic weight of "Oh my TVC 1-5 uh-oh/ TVC 1-5". The production on this song is incredible, the sheer weight of the pileup at the end feels like a physical thing, an oppressive, occluding force. And the lyric is archetypal Bowie, somewhere between sci-fi (a hologramic TV set that eats his girlfriend) and a suggestive surrealism. A genius piece of music.
You probably know the deal, but if not - you get to select eight pieces of music (not whole symphonies if you go down the classical route, it would be one movement) to take with you as a castaway on a fictional island. But which eight? You can be as brief or as detailed as you like, treat it as a quickie thread or ramble on interminably. The choice is yours! My eight are presented in no particular order, except for the first one which is.
(As a side-note, the BBC's entire archive of Desert Island Discs is now available online: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr/episodes/a-z/a)
1. "Drive", R.E.M. - My favourite song of all time. From Mike's near-inaudible count-in to Michael's bone-dry delivery of, "tick. Tock". From the soaring orchestration to Peter's immaculate guitar. "Drive" is a relentless whirlwind and will forever remain my favourite song. Not necessarily the best song ever, but unquestionably my favourite.
2. "Lola", The Kinks - It is physically impossible for me to hear that opening guitar riff (CHUNG-chung-cha-cha-cha-cha-chung-chung-CHUNG) without having a big stupid grin on my face. This is a deceptively simple song, yet impishly clever and by turns funny, warm, self-deprecating, compassionate and straightfowardly fun. Just glorious.
3. "Trans-Europa Express", Kraftwerk - As with all band on this list, there could have been a good half-dozen other songs minimum that could have taken this slot, but in the end it had to go to this. No song quite stakes out the brilliance, importance and influence of Kraftwerk quite like "Trans-Europa Express", a soaring ride across Europe that's both simultaneously minimal and maximal, oppressive and freeing. It's a brilliant piece of music.
4. "A Day In The Life", The Beatles - One song could never summarise everything The Beatles are but if I must pick just a single example then it's this, which combines everything that makes the Beatles so worthwhile. It's a proper collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, it had an experimental edge to it, it embraces both the psychedelic and the ordinary in juxtaposition to each other to find something worthwhile in both, we get a career-best performance from Ringo (seriously, listen to Ringo on this - he's fucking amazing) and the whole thing just gels together into one of the most perfect album-closers of all time.
5. "So What", Miles Davis - A beguiling piece of music, miles (heh) away from the usual lazy jazz cliches of, "Hi! And welcome to jazz club. Great!" this winds itself around you inescapably. There's that tinkling piano introduction, then the bass slides in, paralleled by the horn, until the whole lot bursts forth, releasing the tension of the introduction and sounding like the universe itself is playing music. Beyond parallel.
6. "Life During Wartime", Talking Heads - The colossus at the centre of my favourite Talking Heads album (Fear Of Music), and hugely influential on both how I see music and how I play guitar, I could only ever choose "Life During Wartime". I love how incredibly simple it is - just two chords, A minor and E - yet it's a hugely complex song too that contains worlds within its simplicity. So much achieved with so little, vastly disciplined and loose at the same time it's just such an absorbing piece of music.
7. "Can You Forgive Her?", Pet Shop Boys - I'm not going to argue that "Can You Forgive Her?" is the best Pet Shop Boys song, nor even the best on Very (that would be the bitter excoriation of "Yesterday, When I Was Mad"). But it was my gateway drug to Pet Shop Boys, and it's certainly about as archetypal a song from them as you could imagine. There's that huge WWAAAAMPP first note that never fails to make me jump, a typically coy approach to sex and sexuality ("behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed"), there's Neil Tennant's dry wit ("she's made you some kind of laughing stock / because you dance to disco and you don't like rock") and dry delivery ("rrrrrrremember when...") and some really powerful instrumental arrangements. This song pack a huge punch.
8. "TVC15", David Bowie - Again, i wouldn't necessarily argue that this is the best song Bowie has ever written (as ever, how can there be only one?), but there's just something so irresistible about the blend of 20's cabaret piano, a jumpy unhinged vocal, and the way the song is able to shift between the piano section, the "transmission/transition" bridge, then the sheer sonic weight of "Oh my TVC 1-5 uh-oh/ TVC 1-5". The production on this song is incredible, the sheer weight of the pileup at the end feels like a physical thing, an oppressive, occluding force. And the lyric is archetypal Bowie, somewhere between sci-fi (a hologramic TV set that eats his girlfriend) and a suggestive surrealism. A genius piece of music.