The World Wide Web has just turned 29 today and Cool Music Central (the Blogger version) is now 10! Being active for almost one-third of the internet’s life on this platform (and actually much longer if you take into consideration that the very first C.M.C. incarnation materialized in 1999, in a now long gone domain) is certainly no mean feat and deserves to be celebrated with a special music list, the kind of which I have never attempted before.
Over the years I have published in
Cool Music Central a great number of music lists; you can say that my obsession with list-making is actually one of the main drives for starting this blog in the first place (and
this one as well, where you’ll find only lists). All of these lists however are always focused on a particular period of time (the albums of the month, the year, the decade). I have never tried in the past the seemingly impossible task of compiling a list of my all-time favorite records, my desert island album list if you will, and I guess that the time has finally come in this post, our 615th, marking
C.M.C.’s 10 year anniversary.
To be able to narrow down the number of albums that make up C.M.C’s Desert Island list to a reasonable Top 50, certain rules had to be put in place:
The first prerequisite to consider an album eligible for inclusion was to have it in physical format, so the starting point for this list was the approximately 3500 albums currently in my record collection. A side effect of this rule is that although there is no specific time limit for the selection, in reality the albums that make up this list are all released between 1976 and today, since my record shopping has always been focused in the period after the punk explosion.
The second rule was to choose only one album from each band or artist for possible inclusion in the Top 50 in order to have a wider variety of voices represented and to avoid making this list another tribute to The Fall and the late, great Mark E. Smith, whose stellar releases could easily occupy about one-fifth of it. With this rule, I was able to narrow down the number of albums that could be in the Top 50 to about 200.
The last rule was to try to have a balance between all the periods represented in this list, although for the punk and indie rock sound that we favor, the years between 1977 and 1988 is the golden period.
With all the above rules in place, our
Desert Island Album list has taken the shape of the
Top 50 we present today. Of course there are many other albums equally worthy of inclusion, so in order to give a more complete picture of our all-time favorites, you will find below a further 150 selections in chronological order and with the second rule lifted. These are (at least for now) the
200 albums that have created Cool Music Central’s ultimate soundtrack, and the Spotify playlist below is what we are listening to all this week in celebration of our 10th anniversary!
C.M.C.'s Desert Island Top 50
Further recommended listening:
Pink flag - WIRE (1977)
Marquee moon - TELEVISION (1977)
Suicide - SUICIDE (1978)
The modern dance - PERE UBU (1978)
Real life - MAGAZINE (1978)
Live at the witch trials - THE FALL (1979)
Fear of music - TALKING HEADS (1979)
Setting sons - THE JAM (1979)
Closer - JOY DIVISION (1980)
Sound affects - THE JAM (1980)
Crocodiles - ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN (1980)
Kilimanjaro - THE TEARDROP EXPLODES (1980)
Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables - DEAD KENNEDYS (1980)
Los Angeles - X (1980)
Crazy rhythms - THE FEELIES (1980)
Playing with a different sex - THE AU PAIRS (1981)
The flowers of romance - PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED (1981)
The fire of love - THE GUN CLUB (1981)
The gift - THE JAM (1982)
Hex enduction hour - THE FALL (1982)
A kiss in the dreamhouse - SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES (1982)
The days of wine and roses - THE DREAM SYNDICATE (1982)
Pornography - THE CURE (1982)
Fire dances - KILLING JOKE (1983)
Before Hollywood - THE GO-BETWEENS (1983)
Violent Femmes - VIOLENT FEMMES (1983)
Over the edge - WIPERS (1983)
Mommy’s little monster - SOCIAL DISTORTION (1983)
Burning from the inside - BAUHAUS (1983)
Power, corruption and lies - NEW ORDER (1983)
The wonderful and frightening world of... - THE FALL (1984)
The Smiths - THE SMITHS (1984)
Atom drum bop - THE THREE JOHNS (1984)
Native sons - THE LONG RYDERS (1984)
This nation’s saving grace - THE FALL (1985)
Gas, food, lodging - GREEN ON RED (1985)
Valley of rain - GIANT SAND (1985)
Blood and chocolate - ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS (1986)
Bend sinister - THE FALL (1986)
Sister - SONIC YOUTH (1987)
Warehouse: Songs and stories - HUSKER DU (1987)
Document - R.E.M. (1987)
Mirage - MEAT PUPPETS (1987)
Life’s too good - THE SUGARCUBES (1988)
The House of Love - THE HOUSE OF LOVE (1988)
Bummed - HAPPY MONDAYS (1988)
In the Spanish cave - THIN WHITE ROPE (1988)
Green - R.E.M. (1988)
Isn’t anything - MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1988)
My invisible lantern - SCREAMING TREES (1988)
House tornado - THROWING MUSES (1988)
Frenz experiment - THE FALL (1988)
Tender prey - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS (1988)
Automatic - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN (1989)
Monsters - MEAT PUPPETS (1989)
The Stone Roses - THE STONE ROSES (1989)
Doolittle - PIXIES (1989)
Extricate - THE FALL (1990)
Goo - SONIC YOUTH (1990)
Every good boy deserves fudge - MUDHONEY (1991)
Swift-work - THE FALL (1991)
Trompe le monde - THE PIXIES (1991)
Uncle Anesthesia - SCREAMING TREES (1991)
The real Ramona - THROWING MUSES (1991)
Fontanelle - BABES IN TOYLAND (1992)
Dirty - SONIC YOUTH (1992)
Dry - P.J. HARVEY (1992)
Code: Selfish - THE FALL (1992)
Henry’s dream - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS (1992)
New west motel - THE WALKABOUTS (1993)
Saturation - URGE OVERKILL (1993)
Independent worm saloon - BUTTHOLE SURFERS (1993)
In utero - NIRVANA (1993)
Too high to die - MEAT PUPPETS (1994)
Let love in - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS (1994)
Cruise yourself - GIRLS AGAINST BOYS (1994)
At action park - SHELLAC (1994)
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 chambers) - WU-TANG CLAN (1994)
Deadsexy - SCARCE (1995)
University - THROWING MUSES (1995)
Scream, Dracula, scream - ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT (1995)
No joke! - MEAT PUPPETS (1995)
Mellon collie and the infinite sadness - THE SMASHING PUMPKINS (1995)
My brother the cow - MUDHONEY (1995)
Garbage - GARBAGE (1995)
To bring you my love - P. J. HARVEY (1995)
In the long still night - GALLON DRUNK (1996)
White light white heat white trash - SOCIAL DISTORTION (1996)
Black love - THE AFGHAN WHIGS (1996)
Dust - SCREAMING TREES (1996)
New adventures in hi-fi - R.E.M. (1996)
Too many days without thinking - SWELL (1997)
Brighten the corners - PAVEMENT (1997)
Dig me out - SLEATER-KINNEY (1997)
I can hear the heart beating as one - YO LA TENGO (1997)
Celebrity skin - HOLE (1998)
1965 - THE AFGHAN WHIGS (1998)
Powertrip - MONSTER MAGNET (1998)
Acme - THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION (1998)
Keep it like a secret - BUILT TO SPILL (1999)
Stories from the city, stories from the sea - P.J. HARVEY (2000)
The unutterable - THE FALL (2000)
R - QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE (2000)
Group sounds - ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT (2001)
White blood cells - THE WHITE STRIPES (2001)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB (2001)
Stephen Malkmus - STEPHEN MALKMUS (2001)
Source tags and codes - AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD (2002)
Yoshimi battles the pink robots - THE FLAMING LIPS (2002)
One beat - SLEATER-KINNEY (2002)
Coral fang - THE DISTILLERS (2003)
Abattoir blues / The lyre of Orpheus - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS (2004)
Desperate youth, blood thirsty babes - TV ON THE RADIO (2004)
Funeral - THE ARCADE FIRE (2004)
Silent alarm - BLOC PARTY (2005)
Gimme fiction - SPOON (2005)
Let’s stay friends - LES SAVY FAV (2007)
23 - BLONDE REDHEAD (2007)
Icky thump - THE WHITE STRIPES (2007)
We were dead before the ship even sank - MODEST MOUSE (2007)
Favourite worst nightmare - ARCTIC MONKEYS (2007)
Dig, Lazarus, dig!!! - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS (2008)
Antidotes - FOALS (2008)
Dance mother - TELEPATHE (2009)
Exploding head - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS (2009)
Fantasies - METRIC (2009)
Your future our clutter - THE FALL (2010)
I will be - DUM DUM GIRLS (2010)
Let England shake - P.J. HARVEY (2011)
Wild Flag - WILD FLAG (2011)
Only in dreams - DUM DUM GIRLS (2011)
Visions - GRIMES (2012)
Blues funeral - MARK LANEGAN BAND (2012)
Bloom - BEACH HOUSE (2012)
Factory Floor - FACTORY FLOOR (2013)
Shaking the habitual - THE KNIFE (2013)
Silence yourself - SAVAGES (2013)
Indigo meadow - THE BLACK ANGELS (2013)
Manipulator - TY SEGALL (2014)
Nikki nack - TUNE-YARDS (2014)
Warpaint - WARPAINT (2014)
Have you in my wilderness - JULIA HOLTER (2015)
The agent intellect - PROTOMARTYR (2015)
Currents - TAME IMPALA (2015)
Teens of denial - CAR SEAT HEADREST (2016)
My woman - ANGEL OLSEN (2016)
Human performance - PARQUET COURTS (2016)
American dream - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM (2017)
Masseduction - ST. VINCENT (2017)
The underside of power - ALGIERS (2017)
