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Location: Blogs Vienna Team Blog |
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| Posted by: Team Member |
2/17/2007 |
Graham Kervin of Team Olomouc fame recently developed a list of his favorite albums and published the list on his blog (http://grahamkervin.net). Not to be outdone by our co-workers to the north (OK, so we're not actually in Vienna yet, but when we get there they will be our co-workers to the north), I've decided to come up with a list of my own. I'm not going to get involved in a discussion of what is the most influential album (though I can't see how anyone could argue against Sgt. Pepper's), at least not today. I'm not making an argument that these albums are the greatest or the most influential or even my favorites of all-time. I'll get to those lists some other time. For now, I just want to list some albums I've been enjoying as of late. In no particular order…
1. Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. I don’t know much about Death Cab other than that they share a lead singer with the Postal Service and that their name stems from the 1960s rumors that “Paul is dead.” I can tell you that these catchy, melodic songs are fun to sing along with. The songs sound as big as anything Phil Spector ever did, but at the same time they are small enough to make anyone with a guitar and a capo (on the fifth fret for several of the songs) try their hand at strumming along while daydreaming they’re on stage before a theatre of screaming fans. The lyrics are simultaneously thoughtful and ambiguous and always vivid (“Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole/Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound”).
2. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. I love this album, the first of The Boss’s two and a half acoustic albums. The songs here are mostly dark in tone (the title track is about a murderer), but they nonetheless manage everything you’d expect from Springsteen. If anything, Nebraska is the acoustic stepbrother to Born to Run. When you spin this CD, the expanse of America is before you and, just like with Born to Run, this is freedom but it is what also ultimately brings sadness. You cannot tame this America. It is a fleeting task which can only consume you, but you can’t avoid this.
3. Pop by U2. I remember when this album came out during my senior year in high school. A lot of people, including myself, were disappointed with it. Now, I think it’s probably my favorite U2 album. Pop is a scathingly satirical album addressing consumerism, materialism, and the personal void created by these pursuits. This is the bipolar opposite of their mega-hit The Joshua Tree as the boys from Ireland continued to mock their own rock star image in an Andy Kaufman fashion—a joke they carried throughout the 1990s, isolating a lot of fans who missed the punch line. It’s not an album that you necessarily sing along with (as you do The Joshua Tree or even Achtung Baby), it’s an album you listen to and think about.
4. Mercury by The Prayer Chain. Chances are that you’ve never heard of this album or this band. A review I once read (back in the 90s) called The Prayer Chain “The best band you’re not listening to.” I got into The Prayer Chain in late 1997. By then they’d already disbanded. They released four albums, all of them filled with majesty and grandeur. Their sound was so much bigger than the four musicians who made up the band. I don’t think I’ll ever not listen to this album. There is nothing out there like. The songs touch on apathy (“Mercury”), death (“Creole”), love (“Bendyline”), angst and broken heartedness (“Grylliade”), hope and peace (“Sky High”). This is an album of the 90s. This is an album for today.
5. Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes. I don’t know how or why these guys are so good. There’s not a boring note or misplaced lyric anywhere on this album, the Stripes most recent release. One guitar player. One drummer. And, they can play just about any other band off the stage. This album is their best. This album is one of the best all-time rock albums. Surely every other band out there, when listening to Get Behind Me Satan, has to ask, “Why are we not the White Stripes?” As with any Stripes album, there’s a brutality in the guitar and drums that accents the occasional piano playing of Jack White. If the guitar and drums are a violent attack, then the piano is the weeping aftermath.
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