Dang Mark, that was brutal! Should have posted a warning on that one!

Damn, only five albums?!? I'd bring a gun and shoot myself

If it's not cheating I'd probably bring five "mixtape" CD's to get all the best songs. I have a lot, a lot, of CD's but still I think it's only four I can think of right now that doesn't include at least one bad, wack or boring song. The four albums are 1. Thug Life - Volume 1, 2. Scarface - The Diary, 3. Crime Boss - Conflicts & Confusion and 4. Crime Boss - All In the Game but then I would only have gangster rap with me wich would be kind of boring.

I'd bring:
1. Westcoast and southern Rap mixtape with songs from -91 to maybe -99
2. Bounce, early Crunk and Screw mixtape
3. Bailefunk, Dancehall and Ragga mixtape
4. Oi!, Ska and Reggae mixtape
5. Soul, Funk, Rock and Country mixtape

But then I would still have no Classical music, Irish music or Gabber... This is harder than defining pi!

1. Are You Experienced - Jimi
2. Blonde On Blonde - Bob
3. The White Album - The Beatles
4. Never Mind the Bollocks - Pistols
5. A Love Supreme - Coltrane

Simon and Garfunkel Live at Central Park
Metallica And Justice for All
Pink Floyd The Wall
Metallica Black Album
Doors Greatest Hits

Excellent Albums: Pink Floyd is mentioned a few times.
1) ELO: On the 3rd Day
2) Best of Motown: Supremes, 4-tops, etc.
3) Best of Led Zep (if there be such a thing)
4) Best of Gospel (if there be such a thing)
5) Best of Oldies (impossible to determine)

Nearly impossible to narrow it down to 5 .. but here are the albums that get the most frequent "over and over in the headphones while I work" rotation, so I suppose if I had to limit myself I could stand these for a good long while:

One Quiet Night - Pat Metheny
17 Seconds to Anywhere - Liz Story
Sanctuary - Windham Hill (various artists)
Narada Decade - Narada (various artists)
Late Flower - Steve Topping

Closely followed by ...

Metal Fatigue - Alan Holdsworth
Beyond Nature - Phil Keaggey
Best of the Guess Who - Guess Who
...

Arggh .. way too difficult to pick only 5

Abbey Road - The Beatles
Leftoverture - Kansas
Dulcinea - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Bridge Across Forever - Transatlantic
Axis, Bold As Love - Jimi Hendrix

Nice list Thomas. Our tastes run very close together although I would side with your wife and dump Vinnie Moore for Holy Diver

uggggh! Replace Mindcrime with Holy Diver! Holy all-is-not right-in-the-world Batman! You can't be serious?
I'd say drop Octavarium....after all there are two Dream Theater discs on the list and I could do without the extra humiliation (or disgust--however you want to look at it) of the man with the pneumatic picking hand, John Petrucci, the master of scales himself.

I love these threads!!!!!

ORIGINAL: Jessie Sammler

I'd keep Vinnie Moore and replace Operation Mindcrime with Holy Diver. I like Queensryche, but could you really live without Vivian Campbell's solo on "Rainbow in the Dark"? Also, I'd keep Passion & Warfare. I like AC/DC too, but you gotta figure that even on a desert island there's going to be something from Back in Black on the radio at least three times an hour.

ORIGINAL: Creating Noise

uggggh! Replace Mindcrime with Holy Diver! Holy all-is-not right-in-the-world Batman! You can't be serious?
I'd say drop Octavarium....after all there are two Dream Theater discs on the list and I could do without the extra humiliation (or disgust--however you want to look at it) of the man with the pneumatic picking hand, John Petrucci, the master of scales himself.

I love these threads!!!!!

This is precisely why Apple created the iPod. So we can now fly without any anxiety caused by the fear of crashing and surviving on a desert island with nothing but Britney Spears and Hannah Montana to listen to!

I had to put Octavarium in there, 'cuz I really like how it covers so much musical style-turf. It's got the U2 sound, some great prog-metal and ELP meets Floyd meets Yes meets Rush meets Metallideth (copyright on the new name:)) in the title-track.

Here are a few of mine:

Muslimgauze: Betrayal
The Damned: The Black Album
Autechre: Incunabula
Skinny Puppy: Bites
The Cure: Carnage Visors

later,
Chipstar

Edit for bonus albums:

Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets
Coil: Musick to Play in the Dark, Vol 1
Muslimgauze: Untitled
The Church: Starfish
King Crimson: Starless And Bible Black
Big Black: The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape
The Cult: Love

Plus you could probably also find a way to use a CD as some sort of reflector to start fires or create photovoltaic cells

OR, break one in half and use it to slit your wrists after hearing Rainbow in the Dark for the two bajillionth time!

In no particular order :

Cardiacs: Sing To God
Dead Can Dance : Towards The Within
This Mortal Coil : Blood
Reinbert De Leeuw : Satie Piano Works
Fovea Hex : Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent
Best of Abba
Shostakovich : String Quartets
Steely Dan : Pretzel Logic
Motorhead : No Sleep Till Hammersmith
Van der Graaf Generator : Godbluff
Pink Floyd : Dark Side Of The Moon
Therion : Lemuria
Bowie : Scary Monsters (also for my Fripp fix)
Gary Numan : Exposure
Best of Rainbow

Jan

In no particular order:

1.) Delerium - Chimera
2.) Trashcan Sinatras - Cake
3.) Grapes of Wrath - Treehouse
4.) Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
5.) Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

Ask me again in an hour and you'll get 5 differrent answers.




edit: see, I already changed my mind.

My taste is very eclectic so most of my favorites are probably stuff no one here has ever heard of.

Macross: Do You Remember Love? - One of the finest scores by the late Kentaro Kaneda, combining orchestral sci-fi action with jazz and fusion.

Massive Attack : Mezzanine - The most amazing trip-hop album ever, and one of the most atmospheric and intense albums ever made.

Conan the Barbarian - Probably Basil Poledouris's finest film score, and very influential.

A Perfect Circle: Emotive - One of the finest recent bands.

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise - One of the best anime scores, by the one and only Sakamoto Ryuichi.

Cocteau Twins: Four Calendar Cafe - One of the most ethereal and beautiful albums ever made.

Steam: The Turkish Bath - Amazing film score by Transcendental that's the perfect hybrid of cutting-edge and traditional ethnic.

Curve: Come Clean - The original queen **** of the dark/aggressive sound that many tried ot ripoff.

David Bowie: Low - Need I explain?

Bigod 20: Supercute - One of my favorite industrial albums. (Tie with Meat Beat Manifesto's 99% and Machines of Loving Grace's Concentration.)

Lisa Hall: Is This Real? - Excellent production and catchy songwriting.

New Order: Technique - As far as albums go, this is probably their strongest and most cohesive.

Stone Roses: Stone Roses - One of the best rock albums ever made.

Morikawa Miho: Freestyle - The album that puts a smile on my face--finest pop I know.

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon - No need to explain

The Sundays: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic - Ethereal folk pop at its best.

Masahiko Satoh: Amorphism - One of my favorite jazz albums.

Saha an Digweed: Northeren Exposure II, East Coast - One of the finest progressive house albums ever.

Psy-S: Psy-S Presents-Collection - The most inventive and affecting pop album I own.

Trey Gunn: Third Star - Probably my favorite progressive rock album.