Marc's 5 favorite Albums

So I was talking to Ed (SINEDDIE for those of you "in the know") and he challenged me. He asked if I could name my five favorite albums of all time. With my CD collection in the thousands, that's a tall order. I have narrowed it down, but I'm not completely satisfied. I may have to expand this into my top ten. I tried to keep it away from artists with catalogs that I can't narrow down to one favorite album. So you won't see Zep, The Beatles, or Pink Floyd in this (you may when it goes to ten). I went with the idea of choosing albums I always go back to after my flavor of the day has gotten tiresome. Even then I missed a few favorites by narrowing it to five. These are in no particular order. Except maybe the first on my list. It could be my favorite CD of all time.

Verve - A Storm in Heaven
This album just sound like the soundtrack to my dreams. Psychedelic, a bit pretentious, but accessible. This album sounds so innocent. I think that's partly due to my innocence at the time and the stark contrast between this album and everything else I was listening to at the time. When grunge was king, I was a happy disciple. Then I heard this and was blown away by how different it was. It was one of those albums that I knew from the beginning that I'd always go back to. The opening chord of StarSail grabbed me. It rang out like a exploding star and I knew I would love the album. I would put this CD on the list just for that one chord.

16 Horsepower - Secret South
This CD has to be one of the greatest CD's of the past decade. The band has to be one of the most overlooked bands in recent history. I had been following 16 HP since their first EP. They fulfilled their potential in this album. This is the CD I hoped they would put out. It is just a spooky sounding album. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. They're the band that writes the soundtrack to ghost stories by a campfire. Every town has that one resident that's a loner. Rumors fly about him shooting people, killing his family, or some such nonsense. 16 Horsepower is the band that guy listens to. There is just a spooky vibe to these guys. They almost have a goth/alt/country sound, if that's possible.

Jeff Buckley - Grace
This guy took me by surprise. A friend sent me a tape after Jeff's death. It was a mix of his only solo release while living, Grace, and his first posthumous release, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. The beauty of his voice still sends chills down my spine. After I heard the tape, I immediately went out to find Grace. But no one had it, so I went for Sketches. Good CD, but it's just what it says it is, sketches for an album never finished. Grace falls in with the Verve's A Storm in Heaven album. It was so different from what I was listening to that it kept me enthralled for months. So Real and Corpus Christi Carol are two of my favorites, but I couldn't say I dislike any track from Grace. The album always makes me a bit sad. I always tend to think about Jeff's death and what could have been, had he not passed so early in his life.

Steve Vai - Passion & Warfare
This album was one of the first albums I had that I HAD to listen to constantly. I had Satriani's Surfing With the Alien, and I LOVE Satch, but this album just mesmerized me. How can this guy be THAT good? It's not possible. I played the tape (yes, tape) for eveyone I could. Vai is the reason I picked up the guitar and the reason I put it down. I still try to sound like him, but I know I never will. I loved this album because it was all over the place. Shred, Jazz, blues; how can one album have all that and still make sense?

Singles - OST
This one is a bit of a cop-out. I had a hard time picking between Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumkins, Mother Love Bone, et al, so I picked a soundtrack with all of them on it. But the songs are all great. Breath, Drown, Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns, Nearly Lost You, Birth Ritual, and Would? are all great tracks from great bands. Just listening to this brings me back to college and just after. Mother Love Bone started my love affair with grunge but so many other things killed it. I still love the older stuff, but PJ hasn't put out a consistantly good album since Vs. Alice in Chains touring with someone filling in for Layne Staley? No way. Mark Lanegan still puts out good material, but it's a lot differnt than the Screaming Trees. Soundgarden's last album was a bomb (as were all the Audioslave albums). Vedder and Cornell have blown out their voices. So I listen to the old stuff. Besides the nostalgia factor, the songs are just better than the new stuff.

Honorable mentions go to the entire Zep catalog, Temple of the Dog, Pink Floyd up until The Final Curtain, The Beatles catalog, My Bloody Valentine, Rush's entire body of work (especially Hemispheres), and The Black Crowes. Who knows, these bands may show up in updated lists. I think I need to do a Top 20 or 25 list to be fair. So who knows, maybe this is just installment 1 of 4 or 5.