MentalPolyphonics
You ain't gotta be in jail to be doin' time.
January 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Tagged: Marilyn Manson, Music, Nine Inch Nails, Pink Floyd, Sublime, Video, Warren Zevon
New Years day is one of those border times. The combined psychic weight of our planet-wide slacking and recovery gives the day a ruddy, lazy quality — even if you yourself are up and about normally.
I pay close attention to the albums I listen to New Years day. I try to enjoy complete albums that reinforce my worldview, to start the year with a reminder of what I hold dear. Here are the five I started this year with, in order.
My current favorite album. Warren Zevon wrote track seven, Mohammed’s Radio, in one manic all-night session after he failed to meet Hunter Thompson at a costume party one Aspen Hallowe’en, inspired by one of the guests’ costumes:
When I sit down with my screenplays and start writing scenes I often put a single track on loop that conveys the feeling of the sequence to me (and then I usually write it into the script, even though you’re not supposed to). As it repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats I get the nuance and rhythm and try to write something that hits the same emotional note.
The indie script I’m working on is action-oriented and Mohammed’s Radio is the track I looped for the relaxed, vaguely menacing opening sequence.
The classic isolation concept album, Dr. Z clued me onto this one back in ’06. It took over my brain so quickly, with such resonance, that I used it in therapy in ’08.
Partially responsible for me flaming out of accounting, The Wall literally changed my life. Ahh, the corporate drone mentality: Stress, drugs, and rock & roll. I wish I missed it.
Soulful, heroin-fueled surf-reggae punk music from Brad Nowell, the second most influential rock musician of the 90s after Cobain (I’ve never been a Nirvana guy). Someone also once called Sublime “the second most important reggae act” after Bob Marley. That’s good for a best double-finish award.
Life is too short, so love the one you got…
The first time I heard this album was Summer 1994 and I thought it was catchy. It took until 1996 for it to really set my brain on fire.
An all-time favorite. Perennial.
I learned the word “cunt” from this album, Manson’s best. His albums until 2007′s Eat Me, Drink Me were successful variations on Portrait.
I learned the more complicated and interesting pejorative “cuntfucker” from Cake and Sodomy. Great workout music.
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