“What is it with guys and making lists?” This is often the reaction I get from women when I mention my “top 10 anything” list, whether it’s illustrating my favourite teen flicks (The Breakfast Club), songs about friendship (LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends”), biographies/memoirs (Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), ’80s sitcom themes (Perfect Strangers), or inadvertently gay name for a He-Man character (Ram-Man).
A year ago, I picked up Music Listography Journal, which has pages upon pages of different list categories such as “favourite songs to dance to,” “favourite break-up albums,” and “favourite movie soundtracks”. I have yet to fill out a single page because it seems like an incredibly daunting project that I will have to set aside at least an entire week of brain-power and music listening to ensure my choices are completely accurate.
For me, compiling lists are a way of organizing my jumbled, scattered ideas and interests into a more tangible system. More often than not, these lists are nothing more than my own OCD-driven exercises in daydreaming/distraction.
Paris-based Ten Songs That Saved Your Life employs a similar idea as Music Listography, only from the perspective of professional musicians. The blog features lists from a slew of artists including Justice and James Murphy, who couldn’t seem to narrow his list down to any fewer than 15 songs. But I can empathize with this. Whenever I try to compile a year-end top 10 list, it always ends up being twice as long.
Reading over this blog, it inspired me to give the subject a shot. But I couldn’t simply reduce my never-ending list of favourite songs to 10, so I decided to work with albums instead.
Here are my 30 favourite albums of all time in no particular order. I’m not sure I would give them as much credit as “saving my life”, but let’s just say that each and every one of these 30 brilliant LPs played an integral part in shaping my own music taste, and more importantly, forming my overall outlook on life.
wilco - summerteeth
d’angelo - voodoo
stevie wonder - songs in the key of life
michael jackson - thriller
the avalanches - since i left you
the magnetic fields - 69 love songs
the beatles - abbey road
sufjan steven - illinois
the cure - the head on the door
sigur ros - ()
pulp - his n’ hers
broken social scene - you forgot it in people
common - like water for chocolate
radiohead - ok computer
weezer - pinkerton
jeff buckley - grace
arcade fire - funeral
lauryn hill - the miseducation of lauryn hill
a tribe called quest - midnight marauders
mos def - black on both sides
smashing pumpkins - siamese dream
cody chesnutt - the headphone masterpiece
pavement - crooked rain, crooked rain
elvis costello - my aim is true
elliot smith - xo
the strokes - is this it
belle and sebastian - dear catastrophe waitress
the velvet underground - the velvet underground
bruce springsteen - born to run
curtis mayfield - curtis/live!
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![Just as I finally made peace with missing out on this weekend’s Coachella festival, I read this amazing scoop on VH1’s Best Week Ever blog:
We’re told an image of Nate will be projected onto the Coachella stage — alongside Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Warren G, and Daz Dillinger — to make it appear as though he’s actually performing on stage. [And it suuuuure will. - Ed]
According to sources, Nate will perform several songs.
For those of you who don’t listen to rap music that isn’t Kanye or Jay-Z, Nate is credited for started the whole “R&B rap hook”. He sadly passed away March 15, 2011 as a result of health complications of multiple strokes.
As a massive fan of West Coast rap, I don’t think there is a greater tribute to Nate Dogg than reprising his performances in hologram form as he joins his former Dogg Pound family. My only complaint is that there won’t be an Eazy E hologram.
I’m hoping Coachella will webcast this performance, which is set for 10:35 pm PST Sunday, although right now the webcast schedule has a TBA under 10:35 pm.
Also, I don’t know if you guys recall CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewing a Will.I.Am hologram during US Election 2008 night, but it was without a doubt the best five minutes of television I will ever watch. Period.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2fntov5JX1qb8i3so1_500.jpg)
Just as I finally made peace with missing out on this weekend’s Coachella festival, I read this amazing scoop on VH1’s Best Week Ever blog:
We’re told an image of Nate will be projected onto the Coachella stage — alongside Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Warren G, and Daz Dillinger — to make it appear as though he’s actually performing on stage. [And it suuuuure will. - Ed]
According to sources, Nate will perform several songs.
For those of you who don’t listen to rap music that isn’t Kanye or Jay-Z, Nate is credited for started the whole “R&B rap hook”. He sadly passed away March 15, 2011 as a result of health complications of multiple strokes.
As a massive fan of West Coast rap, I don’t think there is a greater tribute to Nate Dogg than reprising his performances in hologram form as he joins his former Dogg Pound family. My only complaint is that there won’t be an Eazy E hologram.
I’m hoping Coachella will webcast this performance, which is set for 10:35 pm PST Sunday, although right now the webcast schedule has a TBA under 10:35 pm.
Also, I don’t know if you guys recall CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewing a Will.I.Am hologram during US Election 2008 night, but it was without a doubt the best five minutes of television I will ever watch. Period.
For as long as I’ve been an avid fan of Wes Anderson’s films, I’ve been a not-so-secret admirer of his soundtracks. After all, the two are nearly synonymous. Some of the most pivotal (and hilarious) scenes in Anderson’s films are meticulously set to classic songs, re-imagined and re-introduced in the context of the eccentric world he creates.
In The Royal Tenenbaums, Luke Wilson shaves off his beard in the mirror while Elliot Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” captures the sombre mood. The Who’s “The Quick One While He’s Away” gives a raucous edge to the revenge montage in Rushmore, where Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman one-up each other, performing one hilarious prank after another.
In The Life Acquatic With Steve Zissou, Murray, wearing nothing but a speedo and a bathrobe, defends himself with a handgun against Filipino pirates while The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” snarls behind him.
The Playlist reports that ABCKO Records announced the soundtrack details for Anderson’s upcoming seventh film, Moonrise Kingdom, which will feature songs from Hank Williams, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Benjamin Britten, as well as score compositions from Alexandre Desplat (who also did Anderson’s magical Fantastic Mr. Fox) and former Devo-member-turned-film-composer, Mark Mothersbaugh.
And we all knew we could expect French pop icon Françoise Hardy (her song, “Le Temps De L’amour”, is featured in the trailer) on the soundtrack. If you haven’t checked out her seminal 1965 debut, The Yeh-Yeh Girl from Paris!, you probably should do that right away. And while you’re at it, check out Dirty Beaches’ “Lord Knows Best”, which samples Hardy’s hypnotic “Viola”.
The soundtrack for Moonrise Kingdom is out May 22, followed by the film’s release on May 25.
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