# CDs everyone should own **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2008, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419 "2008-02-13T07:08:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/61 "2008-02-14T03:17:02Z")
Hoobawho? ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/62 "2008-02-14T03:30:21Z")
Here’s one. It’s a song you know, but you don’t know who it is generally. But if you like it, now you know. When it was popular in a commercial years ago, I made my Mom crazy! asking her every time “what song is this???”. Dave Brubeck. Time Out. I have a greatest hits album (I mean CD, I’m very young! No, it’s on my Ipod I mean!) [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDOgYw5-pNs) I think a lot of what is called “smooth jazz” is so dull nowadays. This is is wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/63 "2008-02-14T03:34:47Z")
Paul Desmond is God! ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/64 "2008-02-14T03:37:19Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Paul Desmond is God! [/QUOTE] The sax player? I was impressed with the drummer in that clip. But yeah, the sax makes the song. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/65 "2008-02-14T03:42:08Z")
Moby - Play U2 - The Joshua Tree U2 - Achtung Baby Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral Portishead - Dummy The Cure - Disintegration New Order - Substance Zero 7 - Simple Things Daft Punk - Homework Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars Sasha & Digweed - Northern Exposure Sasha - Involver Armin Van Buuren - Boundaries of Imagination Tiësto - In Search of Sunrise 3 Paul Oakenfold - Another World ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/66 "2008-02-14T03:45:09Z")
Joe Morello is his own god. Follow the [beat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFqoPfP1KHc)… ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/67 "2008-02-14T04:41:30Z")
**Beatles** - _Abbey Road_ **Dresden Dolls** - _Yes, Virginia_ **Elliott Smith** -\* XO\* **Nellie McKay** - _Pretty Little Head_ (or _Get Away From Me_, take your pick) **Radiohead** - _OK Computer_ **Roby Lakatos** - _Alouette_ These are essentially my desert island picks (the ones I can remember at the moment, anyway). I can listen to all of these over and over again and still appreciate their awesomeness. ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/68 "2008-02-14T06:30:55Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] Think it weird if you must, but I nominate the soundtrack to **O Brother, Where Art Thou?**. Some incredible songs on that disc. [/QUOTE] I second this! ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/69 "2008-02-14T19:59:02Z")
I think if your budget is tight, you’d be better off to check the local library or see if any nearby universities allow their CDs to circulate. I’m not suggesting you burn the CDs, mind - I’m just saying it’s better to borrow something and find out if it is or is not something that you need to own. It’s also much easier to check out the astonishing diversity of styles that exists. Consider, as but one example, Miles Davis. He’s a colossus of jazz, but do you want to hear his early work with Charlie Parker, his ‘Blue Note’ recordings, the ‘Birth of the Cool’, the first quintet, the Gil Evans arrangements, Kind of Blue, the second quintet, Bitches Brew, the wild energy of Jack Johnson and Live/Evil or the later consolidation of Tutu, Amandla and Thalassa? Every one of those periods or albums is worth exploring, and worth many listenings, and it’s extremely worthwhile to listen to all of them back to back to hear his ideas develop. If you get everything I just mentioned, you’ll (I hope!) have a wonderful, ear-opening listening experience, but if you don’t do it through the library, I think I might have just cost you about $500. And that’s just one artist. I don’t know where you are or if this could work out, but if it can be arranged somehow, I think that’s the way to go. (University of Toronto, where I live, doesn’t allow the circulation of CDs, though you can listen to them in the library. UBC in Vancouver, allows everything to circulate, so when I was last there with a visitor’s library card, I was like a kid in a candy store!) Just my two cents. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/70 "2008-02-14T21:09:05Z")
[QUOTE=BrassyPhrase] Here’s one. It’s a song you know, but you don’t know who it is generally. But if you like it, now you know. When it was popular in a commercial years ago, I made my Mom crazy! asking her every time “what song is this???”. Dave Brubeck. Time Out. I have a greatest hits album (I mean CD, I’m very young! No, it’s on my Ipod I mean!) ![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DDOgYw5-pNs/maxresdefault.jpg)https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDOgYw5-pNs?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque I think a lot of what is called “smooth jazz” is so dull nowadays. This is is wonderful. [/QUOTE] The song is called “Take Five” from the album _Time Out_ by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. And, yes, this is a CD everyone should own. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/71 "2008-02-14T22:36:15Z")
Okay - here’s a start. Note - this is meant to be a _survey_ of some of the best examples within a genre - it is not meant to be a definitive Best of and some things are most certainly missing. But if our OP wants a few more CDs to get a good overview of a specific genre, I offer these suggestions: 50’s Rock / Rockabilly - most of these are Best of’s, since that is the best way to get their hits: - Chuck Berry - Jerry Lee Lewis - Buddy Holly - Little Richard - Elvis - Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins (in some kind of rockabilly round-up) - I don’t know enough about doo-wop to recommend a specific group or album Early 60’s American Rock - Beach Boys - Best of (to get the hits); Pet Sounds (because it is Pet Sounds!) - Motown - Best of collections - I know there are 4-CD and more collections that cover Smokey, the Temps, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Martha Reeves, etc. - when in doubt, buy a bigger box set! - Jackie Wilson - Best of - Sam Cooke - either a Best of (for familiar versions) or the live recording from Harlem where he flat out smokes British Invasion and Brit Blues - Beatles - honestly, every one of their studio albums; if you want, you can just get '64-'67, then get Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver (their best), Sgt. Pepper, MMT, White Album and Abbey Road… - Stones - Hot Rocks and the big 4 (Let it Bleed, Beggar’s, Sticky, Exile) add Some Girls and you’re pretty much set - It might be fun to get a Best of Brit Invasion that has stuff like Dave Clark 5, Freddie and the Dreamers, Gerry and the PM’s, Herman’s Hermits, etc. - but, IMHO, not necessary - Jeff Beck - Truth - Yardbirds - best of - Cream - Disraeli Gears - John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, featuring Eric Clapton - The Best of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac This is all off the top of my head - I am sure I am leaving off certain key stuff… **Lord Il Palazzo** - is this what you’re looking for?? ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/72 "2008-02-15T00:49:02Z")
I have tired to reply to this thread on several occasion and I keep coming back to the fact that the essential music library really has said everything I want to say, better and in more detail. Are the any particular genre’s of music that you are particularly fond of? Cause I can get real specific if you give me some more infomation to help narrow things down a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/73 "2008-02-15T01:09:50Z")
Ok - the album that came to mind in reading the OP - and I love many of those suggested - was ‘Want One’ by Rufus Wainwright. I could not imagine not owning it and have bought maybe 7-8 copies for friends. I love Joni (Hejirah for me) I love XTC and Costello - I loooove Steely Dan and the Band and Miles and loads of stuff; but I cant imagine being without Want One. MiM ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2008, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419/74 "2008-02-17T06:56:27Z")
Heart- “Dreamboat Annie” Laurie Anderson-“Strange Angels” Anything by the Blue Man Group [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cds-everyone-should-own/437419.md?page=3)