Your Favorite Four Discs

[Philoctetes]

Take discs to mean what they may, and please do give a little explanation as to why they are your favorite.

1. Erasure - Nightbird
This is really the only disc I can listen to all day, everyday, nonstop. I simply love everything about it. Love the vocals, the lyrics, the catchy rhythms. I really enjoy things that just give me pure and simple joy.

2. Enescu playing Bach's Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas
This disc was made by this early great master, late in his career, when his technical skills had left him, but I think that he more than compensated with his emotionalism. This is easily the most gut wrenching performance, that I've heard, and you could feel his adoration for the piece, perhaps even his love for it, sonically.

3. Krishna Das - Breath of the Heart
This is a disc that I use for relaxation. It's simplistic chanting, and it really draws my mind inward, and helps me focus at the task at hand. The music is quite enjoyable, and being that they are chants, the melodies are quite catchy, but I feel that he captures the meditiative mood.

4. Messiaen's Complete Organ Works
I simply love the organ, and for me, this is the peak of its power. Massive layering, sonorous, deeply structured beautifully constructed. I love just turning this shit up, and rocking the fuck out man.

[MN Dave]

Take discs to mean what they may, and please do give a little explanation as to why they are your favorite.

1. Erasure - Nightbird
This is really the only disc I can listen to all day, everyday, nonstop. I simply love everything about it. Love the vocals, the lyrics, the catchy rhythms. I really enjoy things that just give me pure and simple joy.

CHORUS is my favorite Erasure.

[Brahmsian]

I will give this some serious thought and get back to this.  Should be interesting! 

[Bogey]

Staying away from box sets and greatest hits, here is one from each of my favorite music genres:

     

[Sergeant Rock]

Four is not enough. I need the Trinity (Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner) as well as my favorite classic rock and alt country albums:



The Ride of the Valkyries, heard on a car radio one day when I was 13, made me an instant Wagnerite. Die Walküre is my favorite opera--and not just Wagnerian opera. Karajan's blend of orchestral beauty, poetry and power combined with sonics that balance voice and orchestra perfectly is ideal--as are the incestuous twins, Janowitz and Vickers.



M6 is my favorite symphony; Solti my favorite version for reasons I've discussed repeatedly in the Mahler threads. That he is one of the few conductors to include the third hammerblow is just icing on the Mahlerian cake.



I value each of Bruckner's eleven symphonies; picking one that is imperfect structurally, not yet among his mature masterpieces, is perhaps perverse but, man, I love that primal trumpet theme, and love how he recyles it    I completely understand why Wagner was so taken by it.



On 23 November 1968 I heard the Grateful Dead for the first time. They put on a free show for the students of Ohio University, Athens Ohio. That they actually came to our backwoods campus, in the middle of Appalachian nowhere, was a minor miracle; that they did it for free is a reminder of what the counterculture was all about. I don't think that show was recorded (no boots have ever appeared to my knowledge) but Two from the Vault, taped during a show in L.A. three months earlier, is a close facsimile; the set list is similar and the show even ends the same way: with the electricity cut off mid-song by the powers that be (in the OU case, a sleepy custodian who wanted to go home after a marathon four hours )



In Germany in 1975, on the Armed Forces Radio Network, I heard Emmylou Harris (Gram Parson's queen of Cosmic American Music) sing the great bluegrass-tinged song "Bluebird Wine" from her solo debut album, Pieces of the Sky. It was love at first listen, and I've remained in love for...gasp!...thirty-five years as she's straddled the great country/folk/rock divide.

Sarge

[Brahmsian]

M6 is my favorite symphony; Solti my favorite version for reasons I've discussed repeatedly in the Mahler threads. That he is one of the few conductors to include the third hammerblow is just icing

Sarge

Oh, it is for sure my favorite Mahler symphony! 

[Conor71]

As of this moment:



One of the first Albums I got into and I still enjoy giving this one a spin - don't think theres a bad song on it! .



I have re-visited this often and find it enjoyable for both light and serious listening - I find the WTC endlessly fascinating and always find new things in it each time I listen.



Unusual album in that it is comprised of covers of another bands music - very beautiful and again, good for both light and serious listening.



A relatively recent addition to my record collection but one destined to become a firm favourite - this music is full of life and puts me in a good mood every time I hear it. I also own the version of these works with Podger/Pinnock which is probably interchangable with the Gould/Laredo version here.

[bwv 1080]

hard to say, right now probably

[MN Dave]

[karlhenning]

What a funny idea for a thread.

[MN Dave]

I think my post was a thread-stopper. 

[DavidW]

Staying away from box sets and greatest hits, here is one from each of my favorite music genres:

     

Hey I have 3/4 of those!

[Bogey]

Hey I have 3/4 of those!

[Hollywood]

[Drasko]

My dad was flamenco fan, so this was the music I was raised on, and I still love it. Was thinking whether to choose one of Camaron de la Isla / Paco de Lucia collaboration albums or this solo Paco.



Punk and metal were the first music I was passionate about in my teens. This particular album (Bad Religion - Against the Grain) stuck with me till today, long after my interest in those mostly gone.



This album was released when I was 15. My metal days were waning, I sold my entire LP collection and drunk the proceedings in one night with friends. So I was there looking for something completely different, and bang! there it was: catchy rhythms, disco clubs and scantily clad girls, what more there was to life! Nowdays rarely go to disco clubs but still like Prince, and scantily clad girls.



Nothing much to say on this. Sublime.

[Sergeant Rock]

What a funny idea for a thread.

Yeah, a weird thread but fascinating to see the picks. Who would have guessed Drasko's?

Sarge

[Philoctetes]

Yeah, a weird thread but fascinating to see the picks. Who would have guessed Drasko's?

Sarge

In regards to Drasko, I would have only gotten one. 

Great selections so far, and thanks for the reasons, for those who gave them.