No Honestly, I own these. (Top 10 Albums)

Member Name: Muffin_the_Mule

Product:	Top 10 Albums
Date:	03/07/02 (634 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's Musical

Disadvantages: It doesn't cook you dinner

There are only a few people about whom it can be said that they have 'good taste' in Music.
Look at your own record collection, and I bet there are a few there that you don?t remember buying, haven't listened to since you bought, or only bought because you liked the picture on the front.
Even when I was given records or CD's for Christmas's or Birthdays, they couldn't and in most cases, shouldn't be heard in public.
It is with this epitome that I say

"BEHOLD! Here is my top ten!"

You may be shocked, sickened and surprised on this Melodic expedition, so put down the children and let the dog go for a wee before embarking.
Please take care not to get too excited, or you may end up putting the Dog down and weeing on the offspring, and that would create years of therapy in later life.
Port one, here we go. A recent one it is too.

** Travis - The Man Who.
When I bought this, I was seeing a young lady who liked music created by children on experimental substances and the genre was always preceded by words like 'Euphoric', 'Hard' or occasionally 'Happy'.
They weren't the kind of tunes that you could listen to in the bath late at night.
Travis is. You can run a bath that's just a bit too hot to cope with comfortably and lie absolutely motionless to reduce the scalding effect and just relax.
Admittedly, There has been a bit of Travis Overkill since the launch of the album in 1999, but it did cause the breakdown of my relationship and for that I am grateful. Especially since she now has no hair on one side of her head. Lead Singer Fran Healy can be forgiven forthwith for having a girls name because he penned every track on the album, including the infectious
TURN
And the Virgin 1215 Radio DJ's Mainstay

Why does it always rain on me?

Somewhat annoyingly however, it does not at any point say about The Man Who? What? What did he do Mr Healy? Prey tell.

Next stop, and we're into the realms of fantasy and Movie Soundtracks.
I Like Soundtrack compilations, that will become apparent as I go forth. I like them because I like films, and quite often they're feel-good songs and they make reminiscing easier. Everyone loves to reminisce.
All you have to do to dominate a conversation in a pub on any night of the week, is ask someone slightly older than yourself

"Remember that TV program called 'The Adventure Game?'"
"You DO! It had a talking cheese plant called the Grunda Grunda Plant"

It's only a matter of time before people start singing the theme tune to Fraggle Rock or wondering what happened to those rubbery-leaved cheese plants that everybody owned at least 2 of. Therefore, second on my list is:

**TOP GUN - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Everybody who is anybody has seen this film, and even if you haven't sat through it all, you'll know the songs.
We have in no particular order:
Kenny Loggins (who?) with Danger Zone (Oh HIM!) If you still don't know, it's the one with the Guitar Riff intro. Stop denying it. You know it.
Ok, so you'll know who Berlin are, and they're on here too, with the song that Esso used for years and Years that recommended that you drive through forest fires to prove how good your petrol is. See? We're reminiscing already, and I've not even finished.
The Tom Cruise Film-Formula can be applied to every film he's ever been in (Good boy rebels, goes bad for a while, meets a nice girl, Goes good again... Think Top Gun, Think Cocktail... Think Days of Thunder....) but he too can be forgiven simply thanks to the music. Although he did introduce us to crappy Batman Val Kilmer, and Anthony Edwards, The ever-present stress head in ER. Lets move on before I change my mind.

Staying with Soundtracks, and Cheesy eighties electro-pop, the next album features more tragic fashions than can be contemplated in one sitting, from a decade dominated by shoulder-padded vixens and Shower-dream Sequences.

**The Wedding Singer Volume Two.
Quite why they released two versions of this I don't know, but the album features Tracks and Artists including:
Too Shy - Kajagoogoo (The HAIR!? What was he thinking?)
Space Age Love Song - Flock of Seagulls (The HAIR?! What were they thinking?)
True - Spandau Ballet (Nice Cuffs)
You Spin me Round (like a record) - Dead or Alive.
Pete Burns. He disappeared after this song became a huge smash for the Hit Factory of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Then he reappeared on programs like 'I love the 80's' and 'Never mind the Buzzcocks' looking frightfully awful, ruining the whole song for me due to the mental images it now conjures up. It no longer dredges Primary school Disco Memories of dancing with Lyndsey and Sarah at the same time, all It does now it make my temporal lobes scream LIPS MAN! LIPS!

From the Surreal Lipped Monster that is now Mr Burns, to the Surreal Pig-Inflators that is

**Pink Floyd - The Wall.
I bought this album after I went to a concert with my Uncle at Earls court to see the Dark Side of The Moon Tour in 1994. I came away from that night with tinitus that would last a week and a half, and the realisation that old men Rock.
The Wall is a Double CD written almost entirely by Roger Waters, who by now must be a very, very Rich man. The guy even designed the cover to the album for Pete's sake. (not Pete Burns's sake, euurgh)
The Rock-Rock theme of the whole Album just defies the years, considering it was released in 1979 and is still selling today. I also think having an album by Pink Floyd gives me instant Kudos, so in it comes.

At number 5, It's none other than a Geordie whose record contract stated he had to bleach his hair and keep it that way, and took lyrics for a song from his 2-year-old son. Introducing:

**Sting and the Police - The Very Best of
The 18 songs on this album cover Stings career up until 1997, before he did a Paul Simon and went after the African Influences. When you listen to this album, it's surprising how many songs you realise have been covered, featured, or had influences taken from. Especially by Sean (I've got no Chin but I've got a gun in my underpants) 'Puff Daddy' Coombs.
My particular favourites on the LP are An Englishman In New York and Message in a Bottle. Proving once again that old folks can still Rock it.

Being Mancunian, I have got to include someone from my home town, and it is of course those mono-eyebrowed ruffians Oasis.

**Oasis - Definitely Maybe
By far their best album, before they moved down south and were influenced by Cinzano and Lemonade in China Whites Rather than A Pint of Boddingtons in The Queen Adelaide, this is pure and unadulterated Brit pop at its best.
Every single track on the album is a classic, and there's less of Lennon infatuation that has appeared to take over Liam Gallagher.
The Line up is the original five, of Liam, Noel, Bonehead (Paul Arthurs), Guigsy (Pauls Mcguigan) and Tony McCarroll on Drums. You get the Arrogance and the attitude, and a pretty little pamphlet of pictures in the cover sleeve. They don't make them like this anymore. Do they?

Slideaway at Supersonic speed and Bring it on down to the next album:

**The Verve - Urban Hymns.
The band that are touted to have saved Clarks Shoes from going bankrupt by wearing their up-until-then totally unfashionable Wallabies range of suede and Crepe moccasins. Clarks responded by slapping an extra £30 onto the price tag and getting themselves into the back once again. Lead Singer Richard Ashcroft has to be up there with Ian Brown as the most likely man to be directly related to the Neanderthal male, such is his uncanny resemblance to a monkey.
He does write some catchy hymns though, and even though he had to pay all the royalties made from his biggest hit 'Bittersweet Symphony' directly to the Rolling Stones after stealing their intro, he can still walk with his head held high, but do watch out for the angry mob behind you Mr Ashcroft.

Brit Pop and Status-inducing Albums out of the way and sadly its back to Sound tracks.

**The Lion King - Hans Zimmer, Tim Rice And Elton John.
Not related to the man who invented old Lady-shufflers, Hans Zimmer concentrates solely on Music. Alongside toupee trouping Elton and Food-monikered Tim, He created on of Disney's greatest soundtracks.
Taking notes from Ladysmith Black Mambazo - a band most famous for a Heinz Ketchup advert - Old Elton took time out from shopping at Interflora.com to pen

"Can you feel the love tonight" And
"Circle of Life"

Both pieces could sit well on any Elton John Album, rather than just a cartoon sing-a-long, and I'm only slightly ashamed to say I like it a bit too.

Penultimate on my list is yet another Soundtrack, and another involving Hans Zimmer-Frame, but this ones a good film too.
It's not that I'm a Tom Cruise obsessive, it's only a dishonourable coincidence, and this film is much more about the abilities of Oscar Winning actor Dustin Hoffman, and less about Miniature Pretty Boy Thomas.

**RainMan - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
Although this is in my top Ten List of albums, I only actually like 4 songs on the whole record. But I like them enough for that not to matter.

For an album to be able to include Artists with styles as far apart as Etta James and Bananarama, I think it all fits together rather well.
It's also educational, featuring as it does the Delta Rythum Boys with Dry Bones, teaching me that my "Head Bone" is connected to the "Neck Bone". Take note all scholars out there.
The film is emotive and passionate, the soundtrack is a reminder of that. Isn't that what Music is about?

Finally, and my favourite album at the moment (note the fact that I have retained the power to have a new favourite should need be) is by an American band, and it's a new one.
It's quite likely you've never heard of them either.

**Five For Fighting - America Town
Lead Singer/songwriter Pianist and all round nice Bloke is John Ondrasik, The Album has a typical American feel-good aura to it, but much like Welsh warblers The Stereophonics, the upbeat tempo is the opposite to the message behind the Lyrics.
Track 2 is called Easy Tonight, and is about a guy whose girlfriend commits suicide, and it honestly sounds like Ondrasik is singing with a smile on his face.

By far the best song on the Album is called 'Superman'.

Superman is proper music, with real words and everything, a refreshing change in today's poppy music climate.
It starts with a solo on the piano, and reaches a crescendo that makes you smile and want to play it over and over.
The Lyrics are sarcastic and cynical, and although they sound right when drawled by the band, they don't quite look right on paper, for example

"I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me"

Surely Superman knows better than to dig up streets. Maybe I don't get it.

If I have my way, it'll be the soundtrack to the next Superman film, But I'm not sure how I'll arrange that, unless I make them Film myself, with figures crafted from the finest plasticine.

And so concludes my top ten. Please, once you've finished laughing, clear up the mess and don't be too rude, I might write another.

I buy all my songs from song shops, but I believe you can get them cheaper "online" or something.

Summary: Cheery.