Thursday, August 28, 2008

25 Albums




So I recently wrote the 25th installment of my music column at the Manila Bulletin (Luis Listens, every Saturday), and to mark the occasion, I started counting down my favorite albums for each of the past 25 years. As I wrote, "personal rocked-my-world significance trumps all considerations of pop-historical significance at every turn," so this is not a catalog of the most influential or critically-acclaimed stuff. ;p And I didn't want to repeat any artists, which resulted in, as Kidlat observed, a lot of "horse trading," so to speak.

There were some years (1989, 1992) where it was really really hard to choose just one album. Then there were others where no choice really gut-level appealed to me (1995, 2001 I think, and 2007 to some degree), but then I can hardly claim to have listened to everything worthwhile -- or even everything I might have enjoyed -- for a given year. ;p

Anyway, here you go: part one is here, part two is here. Part three should be up this Saturday... assuming I meet my deadline, mwahaha.

5 comments:

CHANSONATA said...

I love "Head Over Heels" from SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR. My all-time favorite Tears For Fears song, though, is "Woman in Chains." Hearing it almost always makes me stop and think.

Luis K. said...

Hey Shan. Love both of those songs, and both of the albums they're from.

Funny thing about 'message' songs: I think in my case, they make me think about their lyrical content only the first few times I listen to them. Then forever after I only enjoy them for their sound. (Assuming they sounded good to begin with.)

Bea said...

I concur with most of your choices.

Most especially with Queen. I know they're usually dismissed as "queery rock" or videoke anthems but I think Fred rocks the moustache like no other and has the most excellent voice.

And also I think it's really cool that Brian May is an astronomer. We should have known when he wrote such cosmic, anti-gravity stuff like Who Wants to Live Forever WTF!

Luis K. said...

Hi Bea! :) Yeah, I love it that Brian May has a Ph.D. And that his thesis sounds like the title of an awesomely psychedelic album: A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.

Am really enjoying all your Yapak/Yakap entries, btw. :) And am truly amazed that your body survives all of that street food. I just ate 1/4 kilo of those siling labuyo peanuts the other day... it almost killed me. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have eaten 1/4 kilo.

Bea said...

Thanks! Brian May is bananas.

1/4 kilo? Fek. Grabe ka naman! They are kakaadik. That's why you're supposed to buy a little brown paper bag whilst in transit. By the time you get immense cravings, the guy selling them is already so far away.