Pointless Musings

I have recently passed a milestone and am approaching another. My Creative Zen MP3 player contains 402 albums and 4897 tracks. It would take two and a half weeks to listen to everything on there back to back but I’m not going to try that as I like to sleep and go to the lavatory occasionally. I would suggest that my player remains the favourite object I own by some considerable distance – closely followed by my Pure digital radio methinks. When I took the girls to their swimming lesson this morning I sat poolside and indulged in a sort of Desert Island Discs style activity which proved enormously stimulating. You can search for albums really quickly on the machine but, if you wish, you can scroll all the way through the albums from start (‘#1 Record/Radio City’ by Big Star) to finish (‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ by David Bowie). At any one time, as you scroll, only six album titles are visible on the screen at once so I wondered which ‘screen of six’ I would take to a desert island or Stroud or Dax or wherever if those bare half dozen recordings were all I was allowed. The three contenders are listed below. The third option is a bit tongue-in-cheek but The Fall’s Peel Sessions are marvellous while the first two on that list are bona fide classics. I would say that Option One wins the day as it covers quite a few bases and covers them rather magnificently: a classic folk album, a classic jazz recording, some peerless seventies reggae, a subtle and delicate soundtrack, a post-punk loud and scary thing and Radiohead’s finest and most challenging hour. Option Two is tempting, mind. After a week or two on the island (or living in Stroud or Dax) I’d probably be crying out for One Hundred Years by The Cure or Horsechimes by Prefab Sprout.

Option One
Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan
Kes Original Soundtrack by John Cameron
Kid A by Radiohead
Killing Joke by Killing Joke
Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo

Option Two
Pornography by The Cure
Post by Bjork
Power, Corruption and Lies by New Order
Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan
Protest Songs by Prefab Sprout
Rabbit Songs by Hem

Option Three
The Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada
The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk
The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 (Disc 1) by The Fall
The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 (Disc 2) by The Fall
The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 (Disc 3) by The Fall
The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 (Disc 4) by The Fall


Talking of The Fall, I’m off to see them tomorrow night at the Bristol Academy. As ever, I’m looking forward to the wonderful and frightening noise that awaits me.