Thursday, April 19, 2012

Alien invasion: 5 CD's to save the world.


One of my best friends and Bassist for the Americana band, Sons of Bill,  Seth Munson Green, sent me an email this morning of some dude’s blog who wrote a “5 Albums I would I give to alien invaders to keep them from destroying the world.” One of the Albums the blogger picked was Sirens, here is the overall scene the blog: Accidental History: Searching the past to understand the future, sets. imagine you find yourself in this scenario: aliens appear and tell you that they’re going to destroy the Earth.  But they won’t if you can prove the Earth deserves to exist.  Your only chance is to play five albums from your collection.  And these are actual albums, not live shows, not greatest hits albums, and not Time Life Shallow Exploitation of Your Memories of that One Decade compilations.  You can use anything currently at your disposal that meets the criteria, but can’t, say, download something from Amazon.  If there’s a backstory that explains the context of the album you can add that in, too.

Here is his list, in a nutshell, click the link to see his reasoning: SOB’s: Sirens, The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper, Harry Connick Jr.: Star Turtle, Over The Rhine: Ohio, Paul Simon: Graceland. I will give the man credit and say that he has some pretty good taste in music. That being said, my list goes in a wildly different direction.

TV on the Radio: Dear Science
Simply put, TVOTR is the best band of the 21st century, and there is always hope that just saying the band’s name will be so stupefying to the aliens that their heads will explode. It could also have the opposite effect, and enrage the aliens so much, that they just say “fuck it, that name is so stupid, the world ends now.” Hopefully they won’t be able to see a picture of the band, because if an aliens reaction to hipsters is anything like mine, the earth won’t stand a chance. Hopefully, the aliens get passed the name and image and listen to the album, they will hear an album that is everything the human mind can make up. With the albums lead off track “halfway home” gut-wrenching riffs, to “Golden Age’s” awesomely dazy beats, by the time “Lover’s Day” ends the aliens will be demanding more music.     

Prince: Purple Rain

Oh man, from the opening “dearly beloved…” Speech from “Let’s go Crazy” to the last lament of Purple Rain, the aliens aren’t going to know what hit them. They might be in such a trance while this album is playing, that I can somehow destroy them before they destroy us. I am not sure how the aliens are even possibly going to be able to handle “The Beautiful One’s” they’ll probably cream their pants by the end of Purple Rain, and then they’ll be in a weaken state just as Team America: World Police, gets there.  

Beck: Sea Change or Mutations

I can’t decide which of Mr. Campbell’s break up album’s, I would make the aliens listen to. Mutations is my personal favorite, with “Nobody’s fault but my own” being my favorite Beck song. However, most critics think Sea Change is his best album, so I might have to go with the masses on this one to appease a large collection of aliens (I assume, it’s not just a small group of aliens on the death star…but you never know…even if it is, Earth is so much more kickass than Alderaan). Plus, Sea Change is still a most excellent album. If this alien scenario ever presents itself, I will make my decision then, either way, there won’t be a dry alien eye in the house. I just hope their tears aren’t made of some kind of toxic gas or liquid (or solid, for that matter) because that would be trouble, with a capital T.

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon

A little too obvious, but screw it, it’s my favorite album of all time, even when I am completely sober. While the aliens are busy drying their eyes from Beck, and cleaning their pants from Prince, they are going to be given an extra dose of mindfuck, I mean, the idea of a dark side of a moon, They’re aliens in a spaceship, they’re probably circled the moon and know “there is no dark side of the moon…it’s all dark”, along the way, they will have to question their own sanity and even their “Us vs. Them” attitude, they seem to have.

Led Zeppelin: IV

Simply put, the aliens must be made aware of Zep’s existence, and for a minute, I was having trouble deciding which Zep to put on the list, then I remembered a little tidbit from Mike Damone, of Fast Times at Ridgemont High “When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.” I figure, the aliens will all start making out when Black Dog comes on, and leave earth happily, or while they are making out, we’ll send an army to destroy them, even if I happen to be a casualty, I will go out listening to Zeppelin, and if they still decide to destroy the world, my last moments on earth will be listening to “When the Levee Breaks” which is, at the very least, a win/lose situation. Then, there’s always the chance they’ll love Stairway so much, that they will just leave us be.

Anyway, that’s my list and my reasoning for it. Hope you all enjoyed it.

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