So checking Facebook this morning one of my friends had a note with 10 Songs You Can’t Live Without and I thought; “what an interesting idea, but there is no way I could limit myself to ten songs, perhaps I should try ten albums that I couldn’t live without”. So I pondered that awhile and thought, “there is no way I could only choose ten albums”. So as I started to work on my list I realized that this is going to take more than one blog to get all this stuff before your eyes, so here is part one of my first ongoing series of albums you need to hear before you die.
Abbey Road – Not sure exactly what it is about this record, but I can listen to it from beginning to end over and over and over again and never get tired of it.
The White Album – This is the album that changed my world as a kid. “Revolution #9” moved me in ways that I’ve never been moved since. I know a lot of people quote Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s as The Beatles most influential work, but for me these two albums are two albums I can’t live without.
Hot Rocks 1964 – 1971 – This is a greatest hits compilation that goes up to about their disco era and includes all the great songs that you know and love. I know it’s missing “2,000 Light Years from Home” (which is a psychedelic trip and one of my most favorite Stones songs of all time) and it can be found on the other greatest hits record Through the Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) but Hot Rocks is a great way to get into the Stones.
1979 – 1983 Volume One – Another greatest hits collection on my list and really it’s because this has a lot of great songs including a live version of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” which is the song that put Bauhaus on the musical map. Bauhaus are often called the fathers of Goth Rock and I tend to agree with them. A great record for melancholy afternoons.
Grace – easily one of the best records released in the 1990s. Jeff had an amazing voice with a range that is rarely equaled. His lyrics were amazing and his melodies complex and catchy. We lost Jeff during the recording of his second album Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk which is also an amazing album but is unbalanced and often times lacking the complexity of Grace because it was never officially finished by Jeff. Every time I listen to this album I’m overcome by emotion at the loss of this amazing talent taken from this mortal coil at such a tender age.
COIL:
Love’s Secret Domain – What started out to be a techno record by two musical geniuses turned out to be the greatest psychedelic dance record ever released. Strange, unusual and musically haunting in many places this was the collaboration of two men who loved to experiment with sound and emotion. John Balance and Peter Christopherson. Sadly we lost John Balance in 2004 but that paved the way for the reunion of Throbbing Gristle.
Shipwrecked – Not that Chris Connelly from MTV news but the Scottish import that was brought to our shores by none other than Al Jourgenson of Ministry fame. While Chris made a name for himself screaming in bands like Ministry and Pigface and experimenting with his own solo stuff on Phenobarb Bambalam and Whiplash Boychild, Shipwrecked is his masterpiece. Dark and yet uplifting, complex yet simple, this is in my opinion the apex of his career so far.
High Octane: The Ultimate Collection 1984 – 1995 – Another one of those goth rock bands from the 80’s (you’ll see a lot of those on this list) this is a greatest hits collection that really does pull the best of the best from these guys. While most people know them for the song “Fire Woman” they had some great songs before and after Sonic Temple, not to mention they are still going strong today. This is a great way to get introduced to them.
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me – The Cure are probably one of the most influential acts ever to grace my ears. Strange, mystic, dark, complex and yet wildly digestable. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was the first record I bought by them after seeing their video for “Hot! Hot! Hot!” on MTV in High School. After that it was love for the rest of my life. Only Robert Smith, Martin Gore and David Gahan (we’ll get into that later) have been there for every Earth shaking moment in my life. This album changed me in ways that I will never fully understand and still holds up today.
Disintegration – If Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me changed my life, then Disintegration is the album that defines me. To this day it is easily my favorite album of all time. I can’t listen to this album and not have to wipe tears from my eyes. Perfect from the opening track to the final song.
Blast the Human Flower – I saw the video for Daxs’ cover of The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” on MTV’s 120 Minutes when I was a junior in high school and fell in love with the beats and her voice. I finally tracked down the cassette tape at COOP Records in Cedar Falls and fell in love with the entire album. Absolutely beautiful from beginning to end and genre bending from industrial beats to acoustic love letters this album was a staple in my rotation then and still today.
Around the Fur – Out of all the 90’s Nu-Metal bands that graced our airwaves none have redefined themselves and continued to make important music past their shelf life like the Deftones. Their last record Saturday Night Wrist was near brilliant but Around the Fur holds the keys to my musical heart with one very special song that I’ve always kind of unofficially thought of as my wife’s song. A great rocking record with a lot more going on under the surface than one would expect.
Violator – Ah… the record that made them famous and for good reason, it’s perfect. Often considered their masterpiece, which I kind of agree with but also I don’t agree with, this album has all the greats you grew up with “Personal Jesus”, “World in My Eyes” and my favorite track off the record “Clean”. Everyone in the world should own a copy of this record.
Songs of Faith and Devotion – This album dropped with tons of hype as it was the follow up to Violator and well people didn’t get it. I love it, almost as much as Violator. Dave Gahan was starting to enter his Rock God era and the songs just swell with tension and a need for acceptance. A beautiful album full of great songs and amazing melodies.
Ultra – Released in the late 90’s when a lot of the DM hoopla had disappeared and Dave had fully recovered from heroin addiction and an attempted suicide, Ultra was a return for Depeche Mode and in my opinion this record is everything that Violator was. While they have two albums since Ultra, Ultra remains the benchmark for the new era of Depeche Mode, and the song “Home” completely explains the way I feel about my wife.
Some Great Reward – This was the first album that would lead to the success of Violator. With songs like “Blasphemous Rumor”, “Master and Servant” and “People Are People” this is and excellent look at the past and a great crystal ball for what was about to happen for the world’s greatest electronic band.
Rio – This album has been with me since the beginning of time it seems like. I loved it as a kid and I still love it to this day. If you don’t have it in your collection that you are missing out on some of the greatest 80’s pop music ever created. Excellent album.
Astronaut – After many many years of Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon carrying on the Duran Duran name with various cohorts in tow, Duran Duran reunited and released Astronaut. Hands down their best record since Rio and now one of my favorite records of all time, it’s a wonderful record with great melodies and huge hooks. I saw them on this tour with my wife and was blown away by how good they still are.
Tabula Rasa – Einstürzende were the forefathers of industrial music starting in Germany in 1978 banging on cans and using skill saws and power drills to create their music, in the mid 90’s I finally discovered them and picked up this record, unbeknownst to me they had discovered melody and song structure and created one of the most beautiful albums I’ve ever heard in my life. With songs like “Die Interimsliebenden” and “Blume” they changed my mind forever that banging on garbage cans can be beautiful and emotional and not just noise. Stomp! owes these guys a ton of royalty checks.
So that’s it for now, I’ll leave you with A – E with an R thrown in for good measure. This is just a peek at what is brewing under my hat rack as I think about some of the greatest music that I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I will follow up with the rest of the alphabet shortly and I’ll even through in a few numbers too.
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This post was written by Gabe Wilkinson on March 5, 2009
“Stomp! owes these guys a ton of royalty checks.”
As do Savage Aural Hotbed
But yeah, EN are genius. Thing that bugged me about Tabula Rasa though, was that it was apparent to me on quite a few of the songs that they had started sampling the trash cans, pipes, springs, etc. & then sequencing them, where before they had always played them directly. That plus the new more melodic direction plus putting out an English-language version of “Die Interimsliebenden” smelled like sellout to me at the time, hardcore noise-head that I was. My stance on those kinds of issues has definitely matured since then. Sequenced or not, EN have a knack for getting cool sounds from unusual sources (or even from voices alone, as on “Halber Mensch”). Tabula Rasa is the album to put to rest any argument that EN aren’t real musicians.
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss me was probably the first “alternative” album I had. I think I was in about 5th or 6th grade and kind of on a lark my dad joined Columbia House or something like it, and we ended up with a bunch of cassettes. I don’t know what possessed him to pick that particular one, but it ended up becoming pretty much mine. The big eyeball in the inside cover art scared me enough that it was a while before I gathered the courage to give it a listen. Once I did though, I thought it was really cool and played it for my cousin Wade who informed me that it was “college rock.”