My Desert Island Discs
1) As easy as it would be to just choose eight Beatles albums, that's not playing the game properly really is it? So I'm only going to pick one. And my pick is Revolver. Just for the sheer brilliance of the music spread across 14 tracks. When I listen to the album, it just feels like summer. From the guitar sounds on Taxman, the solemness of For No One and the singalong Yellow Submarine, it just fills me with overwhelming joy.
2) My second choice is Double Life by Nick Harper. It's a double live album and it's absolutely great in my opinion. It's got The Verse Time Forgot (which, for Marisa and I, seems to be "our song"), his live-only covers of Monty Python's Galaxy Song and a Led Zeppelin/Elvis medley, amongst other cleverly written, fantastically performed gems like Aeroplane, and a fifteen minute behemoth of a song including a bit where he breaks a guitar string and fixes it whilst continuing the song without missing a beat!
3) Thirdly, it's Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Another album that conjures up visions of summer and feeling good. And those harmonies!! Puts today's so-called "vocal groups" to shame. From Sloop John B to God Only Knows via my personal favourite on the album, I Know There's An Answer (Apparently, Brian Wilson originally called it Hang On To Your Ego, but they felt it was a bit too 'heavy' for the Beach Boys image and changed it to something more easy on the ear!)
4) Next, it's Oasis' debut album, Definitely Maybe. I can strut up and down the deserted island with my air guitar, pretending to be a Rock'n'Roll Star. Then, I can keep my spirits up by shouting that I'll Live Forever. Then I can just Slide Away. I don't think Oasis ever improved on this album, and as it was the soundtrack to my youth, it's simply got to be on the list.
5) Fifth on the list, I think would be the Beautiful South's greatest hits album Solid Bronze. Paul Heaton is a good songwriter who often gets overlooked. Let's not forget, A Little Time was a number one song. Then there's Perfect 10, Song For Whoever, Blackbird On The Wire and lots lots more to keep me singing along. (I'm on a desert island, I can sing as badly as I want and no one will ever hear me!)
6) Number six is a bit different. It's Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys. It's like one long medley from start to finish, heavy on samples, but very well done, and not like the 'subtlety of a flamethrower' of today's attempts. (Yes, you, I'm talking to you Black Eyed Peas. It's not a sample of the Dirty Dancing song, it's just a bloody travesty of a rip-off. Oh, and it's a bit shit too by the way.) Johnny R'yall is my particular favourite on the album.
7) Almost there, now. My penultimate choice is Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan. He'd pissed off half his fans by 'going electric' and moving away from the political comment and protest songs that people had got used to, and began writing more social observations. Like A Rolling Stone is bloody brilliant, as is the rambling Tombstone Blues, and the slightly funereal Ballad Of A Thin Man.
8) Finally, I'm going to try and sneak in Motown Gold - a triple album of Motown greats from the likes of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes and Smokey Robinson. This needs no justification on my part, so I'm going to leave it at that.
So that is that. If I'm ever unlucky enough to get trapped on a desert island without a volleyball as a companion, those are the eight albums I'm relying on to keep me sane until rescue.
Over and out. You can go and listen to the albums yourself now, and, like me, bask in their individual brilliance.
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