Top 5: Deserted Island CDs

     I know this one is a little cliche, but I'm not in the best of moods at the moment, so this is what I'm going with.  What five cds would you want with you if you ended up on a deserted island?  We will ignore all the problems with the scenario, like how would you play them... I don't need to pick just five now that I have an IPOD... I would rather have books or dvds... etc, etc.  I'm listing the five cds I would want with me on a deserted island that happened to have a power source and an odd magnetic field that prevented only IPODs and DVD players from working and caused books to spontaneously combust...

5. Def Leppard - Hysteria:  I love this album.  Maybe its childhood nostalgia.  Maybe its poor taste in music.  I don't really care, I will blindly defend it as a work of entertainment genius.  It's loaded with songs that are fun to sing out loud and rock out to.  It is quite possible that songs like Woman or Excitable may cause me to long for female companionship, but seriously, what rock album isn't loaded with songs to do that?  My favorite tracks are Gods Of War and, due mostly to sentimental reasons, Pour Some Sugar On Me.

4. Weezer - Pinkerton:  It took me a while to fall in love with this one.  I got it as a Christmas present the year it came out, listened to it once or twice, then threw it in my cd book.  Four long years later, I heard it again in a friends car and fell in love.  I'm not sure if it was a more mature disposition that had me relating to the subject matter more or a better developed music ear that had me enthralled by the song construction and sonic techniques.  Either way, or a combination of both, it quickly became one of my all time favorites.  Weezer may have come back and reached higher levels of commercial success, but they have yet to put out a better album then Pinkerton.  My favorite tracks are The Good Life and Why Bother.

3. Billy Joel - Turnstiles:  This choice is basically for a change of pace.  Everything else I chose is hard rock, I assume it would be nice to have a softer more musical option.  That's not to say that I'm not a huge Billy Joel fan.  I love the man and have since I was 8 or 9 years old.  It's tough to choose which album I would want to represent him on the island.  The Stranger is the most classic of his albums and its hard to go without Vienna, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant and Movin Out, but ultimately I have to go with with Turnstiles.  Although All You Want To Do Is Dance is probably the worst song he ever wrote, Turnstiles is my favorite Billy album and since most of its best tracks aren't on his greatest hits collections, its my choice.  My favorite tracks are Summer, Highland Falls (one of my all time favorite songs) and Prelude/Angry Young Man.

2.  Pink Floyd - The Wall:  Wish You Were Here is by far my favorite Pink Floyd album and one of my all time albums of all time.  It has played an important part at important junctures in my life.  But, I decided to go with The Wall based on length.  At twice the running time, The Wall allows me more music to listen to than if I chose Wish You Were Here.  That's not to say The Wall isn't important to me.  It was my introduction to Floyd, a band I would consider one of my all time favorites, and, as odd as it may sound, I relate to the subject matter, or at least how I interpret the subject matter.  I can't say I'm confident I understand all that Roger Waters is trying to say with the album, but certain songs have come to mean certain things to me and have become important to my understanding of myself wither it was meant by Roger or not.  My favorite tracks are Don't Leave Me Now and In The Flesh.

1.  Reel Big Fish - Cheer Up:  What can I say, they are my favorite band, there is no way I would go anywhere without their music.  I realize most people don't enjoy them or think they are too pop or think ska is juvenile or that they play a shitty bastardized version of ska.  I don't care.  I love them.  I love them more then any other band on the planet.  If that kills any credibility I may have when talking about music, so be it.  Even in Reel Big Fish fan circles this may considered a poor choice.  It's by far their most pop album and the furthest they have been from ska music, but I really enjoy the songs on it.  Turn The Radio Off is genius and probably their best album, but I have more fun listening to Cheer Up and if I'm stranded on a deserted island I am going to need as much fun as I can get.  My favorite tracks are Drunk Again and Valerie.

Honorable mentions go to Pearl Jam "Ten", Say Anything "...Is A Real Boy", and The Beatles "Abby Road"