Okay, this is a completely impossible task, I know. But I still think it's worth exploring.
You're going to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life. Fortunately, you have an unlimited supply food and water. And you are not alone, but stranded with the one person of your dreams (Jessica Biel, say, or perhaps your spouse. Rourke gets both Kat 1 an Kat 2.
You also have a top of the line video/audio system that magically needs to worry about electricity or power. The only problem is that you must choose no more than 10 songs, audios, or videos to play on said system. You can pick an entire album or DVD (multi-disc collections can be counted as a single item on this list, but only when the discs have been sold together: you may not choose the "collected work" of an artist unless the work is available in its entirety.
Which ten do you choose?
Here's my ten. Okay, 11. (I'm using the OP privilege to break his own rules. š
(Don't feel you have to rank them -- that's just piling impossibility upon. Mine are simply the
1011 that I would (tonight, anyway) take over options #12-infinity.
1. Guns "N Roses, "November Rain," Video. I've never been a particular fan of either GNR or Axl Rose. But whatever thec quality of their lives or the rest of their work, this song to me is transcendent.
2. Prince.
Purple Rain. Album.This to my mind is one of the greatest albums ever. IF I were limiting this to individual songs, I'd choose the title tune. But it's my rules, so I pick the entire album.
3. Carole King,
Tapestry. Album. I can go a couple years without ever hearing a track from this album. But then I need to listen to the whole thing. Over and over. Again and again.
4. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. Album. For a lot of Floyd, drugs probably help a lot to see it all. (Or so I conjecture. Ahem.) But DSM is in a class of one. I suppose most would put it in "rock" somehow, but reducing it to fit any genre label is like saying Stilton is a blue cheese.
5. Nightwish,
End of an Era. DVD. The last concert with Tarja. But it's here for me partly because this version "Ghost Love Score" was the first Nightwish song I ever listened to and it was transforming. (Thanks, Porforis, for posting it here.) This is the DVD that made me realize not only that metal was genre I had unfairly dismissed, but that it was a genre capable of major, major greatness, right up there with my hitherto favorite genre, bebop and cool jazz from the 1950s. And it has to be up there in the list of the greatest live albums ever.
6. Elvis, The 1968 "Comeback Special.". Elvis to me is the only artist that must be on this list because of his overall stature as an "music" icon. Picking a single song is absolutely impossible. "How Great Thou Art," "Are You Lonesome Tonight," "Jailhouse Rock," "Kentucky Rain," "Heartbreak Hotel," and a dozen others were possibles. My personal favorite might be either "Can't Help Falling in Love" or "In the Ghetto." But I go with the Comeback special because....well, just because. If you haven't watched it (its like separate 15 videos on YouTube), you have to. And then remember -- it was done in the frickin' 1960s, well over a decade before the original IBM PC and well over a decade before MTV was a glimmer of an idea in Robert Pittman's mind.
7. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The Message. Song/video. All by itself, this song (
video here ) showed this rural white middle class boy that rap/hip hop is a genre worth paying attention to. Had Run DMC, Ice T, Public Enemy, P Diddy, and all the rest had never existed, this song along would still be in the top 10 because.. well, just listen.
8. Miles Davis and John Coltrane, "So What." Video.
This video. Two giants from the 1950s and 1960s, the period in American jazz that defines the ultimate of "cool."
9. Dexter Gordon,
"Cheese Cake." Audio with slideshow. If 50s/60s jazz does anything for you, you'll hear a lot of great tenor players. The combination of racism and his own heroin addiction meant he spent most of his best years on Rock's side of the pond; but IMO Gordon was the best tenor ever.
10. Alan Dawa Dolma, "Theme from
Red Cliff, part 2,
YouTube video here. Video. Conclusive proof that you don't need to know the language spoken to be moved and changed by music. (Thanks to Foster for introducing her to us.) I have long considered "Casablanca" to be the greatest movie ever made, and it has never been particularly close. But John Woo's
Red Cliff, in all 288 minutes of its spendor, gives Bogie and company's classic a run for its money. Tony Leung may be the greatest actor alive. As the clips in Alan's "Shin Shen" video makes clear -- assuming you can stop fantasies about this Tibetan beauty and her amazing voice-- you aren't going to need to worry about not speaking Chinese to be enthralled by the movie. But even if you are scared away by 288 minutes of subtitles, Alan's voice is magical.
11. John Newton, "Amazing Grace." Song. This hymn has been recorded thousands of times, and there are a dozen or more versions that are simply great. So many that picking the best version is as much of an impossibility as picking the "best Elvis song." I was tempted to go with this "Celtic Woman" version, especially since it has the requisite bagpipes, a seriously cool setting, and multiple extremely seriously gorgeous women with seriously gorgeous voices. But in the end, I had to go with pipes and drums without words. Unfortunately, to get the full visual+audio effect, you'll have to buy the DVD for the
Amazing Grace movie. The best available on YouTube is audio only (
here ).
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)