Deserted Island Music

"If you were stranded on a deserted island . . ."

I’m sure that phrase has been the beginning to many an interesting conversation. It is also an incredibly overused cliché that can sometime lead to eye-rolling. I’m hoping this entry will be in the former category.

This past weekend, I was catching up with some episodes of my not-nearly-as-good-as-the-original Dawson’s Creek replacement One Tree Hill. I was super excited to see one my favorite cult TV actors and music genius John Doe on the show as a special guest star (appropriately playing a not-as-well-known-as-he-should be music almost-legend). I’ll save the googling for some of you and say that he was in the (in)famous 80s LA punk band X and was on the TV show Roswell. He and his fictitious maybe/maybe-not daughter, Peyton, – an independent record label owner – were having a conversation that revolved around the question:

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 5 albums would you want with you?

They both had some good choices: Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, U2’s The Joshua Tree, Nirvana’s Nevermind, Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True. Hopefully the episode motivated some teeny-boppers to check out some of these amazing albums.

However, this inspired me to come up with my own deserted island album list. Of course, nowadays we could change the phrase to “If you were stranded in space billions of miles from human civilization . . . or “if you were the lone survivor of the zombie apocalypse . . .” The point is that these are albums you could listen to over and over and continue to enjoy them (or get sick of them more slowly than other albums). Therefore, this list is not necessarily what I currently listen to most frequently, or even what I have listened to the most over my lifetime. Is it the music that would keep my sane and connected to humankind if I isolated and alone.

Unfortunately, I could not just limit it to 5. So in no particular order, here are the 10 albums I would want with me if I were stranded on a deserted island/lost in space/zombie apocalypse survivor:

1) David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
2) Pixies, Doolittle
3) The Beatles, St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
4) The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow
5) The Who, Who’s Next
6) R.E.M., Life’s Rich Pageant
7) Weezer, The Blue Album
8) Ben Folds Five, Underground
9) New Order, Low-life
10) Death Cab for Cutie, Transaltanticism

Honorable mentions (i.e. these could rotate in and out of the list depending on my mood that day):
11) The Clash, London Calling
12) Led Zeppelin, IV
13) Nick Drake, Bryter Layter
14) R.E.M., Murmur
15) R.E.M., Document
16) The Beatles, The White Album
17) The Cure, Boys Don’t Cry
18) Belle and Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress
19) The Lemonheads, It’s a Shame about Ray
20) The Police, Synchronicity

Comments? Questions? Glaring omissions? Rants about my musical taste? I’d love to hear it. And, by the way, what are your top 10 deserted island albums?