Sometimes you can start writing or thinking by asking yourself a rhetorical question. We did it as kids, learning to converse with one another: "What would be the worst way you could die?" Answering that question would occupy an entire afternoon, with much acting out and falling down dead.
Anyway, here is today's rhetorical question:
"What music do you listen to that is so special that, if the Communists barged into your rec room and confiscated it right now, you would bolt out the door the moment they were gone to get a replacement?"
It occurs to me that if you were looking for something as a gift, or for yourself, a do-or-die list like this by a discerning individual like myself (former Rolling Stone contributor and intimate of Charles Manson) would make a dandy gift list.
Herewith, then, a list of pop records most special to me, that I could not bear to be without. There's a couple jazz items in here, too, to assuage the more sophistimicated breast.
#10
Velvet Underground (3rd LP)
by the Velvet Underground
Review: Sweet Jane, what a record this is, the Velvets' best by my reckoning, which makes it perhaps the best rock and roll record ever. Slow lovely doowop numbers, the chunky rhythms of "What Goes On," the delicate lyrics of "Some Kind of Love," and others. Tunes that get inside you, like "Jesus," and "Candy Says," and "Pale Blue Eyes." You feel like you're disappearing into Lou Reed's appalling yet nevertheless still-redeemable soul.
Review: OK, it's a jazz record, but I listen to it the way I would candy, or late Wes Montgomery. This is silky, sumptuous trumpet an flugelhorn jazz. Not as rigorous or perhaps as coldly intelligent as Miles, but much richer emotionally. Isham brings a remarkable gift of exploration and dreaminess to his compositions. I discovered him early on, with his first Windham Hill records. His "Film Music" album ont hat label featuring "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" is likewise a dream of a record, but relying more on layered synth than trumpet and trio.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
Let's see what do I grab when the fascist right wing kicks in the door, well aside from a 120 gb external firewire drive and my iBook, I'd say "Horses" by Patti Smith, the single CD of Big Star, "A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane, "Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop, "Heroes" by David Bowie, The Velvet Underground and Nico, "Rocket To Russia" by The Ramones, and "Henry's Dream" by Nick Cave, and "Rock and Roll" by The Mekons, plus a whole bunch of albums to be named later.