Sitting Here In Limbo – BStone

It’s kind of complicated to explain how we came up with the following idea. First, let us say that we miss LOST. A lot, given how badly 24 sucked at the end and the total lack of summer programming until Scott Baio gets warmed up and rolling. The other thing you need to know is that when the iPhone got released, we started thinking about how much iPods and digital music had changed our listening habits, at least in terms of not listening to full length albums as much. So, basically, we combined those two things to go old school on a concept that we are continually thinking about, and a list that we are continually adjusting–if we were going to a deserted island and could only take 10 albums, what would they be?

There are, of course, some rules; a lot of times these will vary from crowd to crowd, depending on who is making them up. But, if you’re putting your list on here, you have to follow these: 1) No greatest hits. They’re not albums. 2) Live is okay, provided it was a live album released by a studio production company. This one is highly debatable, but if an artist and studio combine to plan and produce a specific live show, then we’re letting it in. Exceptions are the eleventy billion Pearl Jam, Grateful Dead, and Phish shows. Don’t use them. They go the same way as a bunch of Panic bootlegs or that REM tape from Greensboro that your older brother gave you in ‘93. 3) Double studio albums are only one pick. Also a debatable issue, but if you’re sacrificing the music you like just to have more music you don’t, then you’re a tool. 4) No compilations. Totally ob-vi, brah. 5) No soundtracks. The exception here is an album-style soundtrack penned by one ar-teest. Remember, this is not the 10 albums that you think are the “greatest of all time,” or whatever the eff that’s supposed to mean. They are the author’s personal picks for what he/she wants to listen to while stuck on a desert island. Rules and stuff are subject to our discrestion by the way; if we forgot a rule and add it later, we’ll let you know. Without further ado, our first in the series of Desert Island Picks, Brahsome.com’s very own Bstone. (After the jump of course.)

Care To Get Nice?

I’m going to try and spare you all the intro business and just jump right into the meat-heart of the list, but I want to point out that while I may or may not have had anything to do with the rules, they weren’t picked so I could squeeze my double and live album choices on here. I consulted with some fellow musically inclined brahs and we decided that was the best way to go–a live studio album isn’t some scratchy bootleg, it was produced that way because the artist and/or record company certainly sees something in the way the band plays live. Just like a double album, in my humble opinion, shouldn’t be split into two, since it’s the studio creation of the artist–the full album concept isn’t realized if you only have a half of it, right? Anyway, onto the list, which, I’ll also admit, was not as easy as it would seem. I got seven of my albums down and was locked in trying to fill the final three and realized I had about 15 more I could have put on. Damn you, desert island rules.

1. Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
This one was really, really easy. Not only would it be my pick for “greatest album of all time” (although I’d listen to Beatles arguments), but it IS the best album ever produced by the band that I feel is the greatest rock and roll band of all time. It’s also the only place you can get “Loving Cup” outside of the Internets, I believe. Literally every song is great and there have been 10+ points in my life where I’ve gone three months without ejecting it from my CD player. No question it’s in here. And it was a double record but it fits one CD. How awkward.

2. Widespread Panic – Light Fuse, Get Away
Say what you want, but Panic is my favorite band. Ever. And with Michael Houser on guitar and live in concert is when they were at their best, so this absolutely fits the bill. I’m 99% sure that the songs are actually from different segments of shows (a couple from Raleigh in ‘99 maybe?) but it doesn’t matter–the studio cosmetics cover it up perfectly. “Disco” and “Love Tractor” are musts and the “Porch Song” reminds me of high school and drinking Busch Light at Suck Creek in Chattanooga, which someone should have named better. “Papa Legba” is disgusting to open up the “second set” and “Conrad” is just effing gravy.

3. Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
Jeebus. This was effing impossible to pick between a Steely album. I just saw them in concert a few weeks ago, and it saddens me that Walter Becker is a fully functioning corpse. Or maybe he’s alive but his larynx is not–he sang “Haitian Divorce” and absolutely butchered it. Anywho, I debated between Aja, Katy Lied, and Can’t Buy A Thrill before settling on Scam. It’s got the heaviest guitar work of any album and it’s tough to argue against “Haitian Divorce” and “Sign in Stranger”. Add in “Kid Charlemagne” and it’s a done deal. There’s no real way I’m going to be permanently happy with any one Steely album though.

4. Van Morrison – A Night in San Francisco
Without sounding too cheesy, this album is flat out spiritual. Van is at his absolute finest, he’s absolutely killing the place in ‘94, Junior Wells and John Lee Hooker even get on the act and there’s a ridiculous “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and several lengthy jams including the finale of “In the Garden/You Send Me/Alleghany” where you can literally feel the energy of the crowd through your headphones/speakers, all topped off with a “Shakin All Over/Gloria” encore that rips the place apart.

5. Jay-Z Unplugged
What? I like live music. Anyway, this is the best way to break all the rules by grabbing all of Hova’s songs, with the added bonus if the Roots destroying the background. Just filthy. I’m not a huge fan of some of the slower songs but it has to make the list. “Izzo” and “Ain’t No Nigga” are sickening.

6. Wilco – Being There
This was a tough call too, between Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, this and Kicking Television. The live album (Kicking) has “Handshake Drugs” but it doesn’t have the bitter angst feel that Being There does, or the cheesily feel good steering wheel tapper “Monday”. There was no way Tweedy wasn’t making the list and this is probably my favorite album–the one that got me into the band way back (before I forgot about them and then had “Y.

7. The Band – The Last Waltz
I easily could have put this first or second. And no, I’m not taking the box set, asshole. Come on! I get everything here–”Ophelia”, “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”, five Bob Dylan songs including the must-have “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” and most importantly, “Caravan” with Van Morrison, which is one of the sickest versions of any song I’ve ever heard. The sole reason why I love leg kicks so much. Now if only I could get rid of that goddamn Joni Mitchell.

8. Nirvana – Nevermind
I was talking about the inclusion of this album with Heavy D on our drive to the Capitol last weekend, and he asked the question, “Is it on there because you think it needs to be, or do you really want it?” Then I spent a couple of hours listening to it this week. I want it in there. Add in the fact that a lot of the other stuff I have on here is “lighter”, at least by the grunge infused standards that I grew up with, and I’m putting it in. If you need me to tell you what I like about this album, besides the fact that it essentially defined like 60+ percent of my formative years, then you haven’t listened to much music.

9. Ryan Adams – Cold Roses
It’s bizarre that I wouldn’t have included him a year ago when I wrote this list up. But I am a pretty damn big fan of Mr. Adams now. His versatility is amazing–some of the stuff off of Rock and Roll actually sounds like the aforementioned Kurt Cobain and crew (”Note to Self, Don’t Die”) but this is the album that got me started on listening to him. It’s the most countrified of all of his stuff and yes, it’s a double disc, but it’s great shit. “Let It Ride” sounds like the soundtrack to a coming of age novel and the whole album is so brilliantly infused with disillusioned sadness and angst. I know myself well enough to realize that at some point, while sitting on a deserted island, I will be bitter. Once or twice. This will help.

10. Beck – Midnight Vultures
I already have enough bitterness and angry music to help me hunt boar, so I’m bypassing a Rage album here. Instead, I’m taking the album that reminds me of the year 2001 (or somewhere thereabouts) and my college house at Groveland. And a downstairs stereo and some other, um, stuff. Anywho, everything about this album kicks ass, from the hyped beats of “Nicotine and Gravy” to the slow hilarity of the trailer park love song “Debra”.

Albums that could be in this list on any given day: RHCP Blood Sugar, Luna Live!, Grant Green Live at the Lighthouse, GNR Appetite, Rage Rage, Nirvana Unplugged, lots of Bob Dylan albums, Derek and the Dominoes Live at the Fillmore, plenty of Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads Stop Making Sense or The Name of This Band Is…