Top Fives
Thursday, April 14, 2005 at 05:58PM Top Five Albums Ever.
U2 - Achtung Baby
Peter Gabriel - Us
Paul Simon - Graceland
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Marc Cohn - Marc Cohn
... and probably U2 - Achtung Baby, one more time.
Top Five Movies.
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Big Lebowski
On the Waterfront
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
U2 - ZooTV live (which is the Achtung Baby tour), (and I know it's not really a movie, but it's my list, and I don't care.)
Top Five TV Shows.
The Office - US
M*A*S*H
NewsRadio
24
The Simpsons
Top Five Guitar Pedals.
Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man
Digitech Space Station
AnalogMan BiComprosser
BadCat 2-Tone
Electro-Harmonix MicroSynth
Top Five Books.
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton
The Pastures of Heaven - John Steinbeck
The Comple Short Stories - Ernest Hemingway
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Top Five Authors to read everything of before I die.
Ernest Hemingway
Kurt Vonnegut
John Steinbeck
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Leo Tolstoy
Douglas Coupland
Top Five Recorded Guitar Solos.
(guitarist - artist - song - album)
The Edge - U2 - Love is Blindness - Achtung Baby
David Gilmour - Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb - The Wall
Dean Parks - Lyle Lovett - The Road to Ensenada - The Road to Ensenada
Sean Ashby - Sarah McLachlan - Witness - Surfacing
John Leventhal - Marc Cohn - Healing Hands - Burning the Daze
Top Five Games for Family and Friends.
Cities and Knights
Euchre
Ping-Pong
Basketball
Find Our Hands ( I play this with Ella when she puts on new clothes. She's getting really good.)
Top Five Jobs I've Had.
Being a Normal
Caedmon's Caller
Children's Librarian
Fork-lift driver in Nestle Factory
Dishwasher in Family Bakery
Top Five Cities I've Spent a Few Days In.
Nashville, TN
Austin, TX
New Orleans, LA
Vancouver, BC
Monterey, CA
Top Five States I Haven't Been In.
Rhode Island
Top Five Songs.
UltraViolet (Light My Way) - U2 - Achtung Baby
Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits - Making Movies
Highway 29 - Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses - U2 - Achtung Baby
The Blood of Eden - Peter Gabriel - Us
Top Five Lists I've Already Made That Could Go On Forever.
Top Five Albums.
Top Five Songs.
Top Five Books
Top Fives States I Haven't Been In Yet.
Top Five Lists I've Already Made That Could Go On Forever.
Wow, I've just made myself puke with my self-importance by making this list. I'm just really bored right now because Ben is running the computer while Andy P is playing guitar, and he's pretty much got it under control. However, most of my gear waits til I leave the room to start smoking and blowing up and hurting people, so I probably shouldn't leave.
But maybe I've convinced you that Achtung Baby really is the best album ever (besides Photographs, Souvenirs and Postcards, A Place Where You Belong, Share The Well, and Coming to Life) then I've succeeded. That was my real goal with this list post anyway. (Better Than This sucked, so you don't have to like it more than Achtung Baby...)
Reader Comments (16)
Better Than This is not on my list of albums that suck. It's melancholy of course, but really hits the spot when you're down. Being a closet WhiteHeart fan, I always wondered what it was like for the Normals to work will Billy Smiley(I'd heard he was difficult), but that's beside the point.
Pete Yorn's Musicforthemorningafter should be on everyone's top five album list. It's golden from start to finish to hidden track. I'll give you Achtung Baby, but I'd throw Caedmon's Call's self-titled album on there too. That album along with Coming To Life first showed me that not all CCM sucked.
The Shawshank Redemption should be on everyone's top five movie list as well. "Get busy livin' or get busy dying. That's got dang right."
The Simpsons seasons 1-5 are a given.
Hey Andy, it's Heather from Greenville! Nice lists! Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging!
ok, i agree with most of that... especially everything that has to do with achtung baby, the big lebowski and springsteen. no seinfeld? shame on you! other than that... you're still cool in my book.
The Norman abides.
[Wow, I need to be beaten for trying to merge Better Than This and The Big Lebowski. So, Joe ... what happens when I ... well, you know. Do you beat the crap out of my neighbor's car? ;)]
Geof...dont you mean "The NormAL abides"?
and i must confess...sometimes i need to play Find Our Hands.
Andy V...you've OBVIOUSLY never heard "What's Ailing Norman" ;)
Andy....the audio from the Normals live at Baylor U. in Texas, crappy as the quality is, is actually in my top 5 lists of best albums of all time. Seriously. You guys did "Fake Plastic" better than Radiohead live.
Mr. Vandergriff, our friend Heather is quite correct. ;)
You totally cheated on the top 5 Authors to Read Everything before you die. ;)
The winners for me: Orthodoxy (gotta love Chesterton!) an euchre. Now I'm gonna have to go listen to Achtung Baby again and figure out what the big deal is...
andy, you forgot a few lists:
Top 1 Guitars you wish you would have purchased
1. that electric beauty in the Ecuadorian Guitar shop
Top 1 Movies involving U2 that you had never heard about before seeing:
1. Entropy
Top 1 things you wish you didnt step in:
1. Ecuadorian dog poop
"That's it, That's the list!"
Ok...a couple of things...I havent seen my copy of "Better Than This" in at least a year...so at first, i had no idea what you're talking about...and second...Sage, you are so...so correct about the Live in Rudder stuff...yall's cover of Fake Plastic Trees is probably one of the best things i've ever heard...or seen.
Props on the Marc Cohn stuff.
Heck yes.
Bryan is eeeeeeeeeeeevil. But funny.
I just listened to Achtung Baby yesterday for the second time and was not all that impressed. Curse my crappy Christian music roots and learning about all the good music after getting a firm handle on the Christian world. I don't know why I did that to myself. I guess I was stupid and young.
But, I definitely will be listening to Achtung Baby more. It definitely deserves it. I did like Better Than This some, mostly because it rocked a bit more than the other albums.
but, I do have to say "Thanks for the music" because The Normals and your solo album have been some of my constant favorites over the past five years or so. You mentioned the fact that you have no label censoring your work, which is always good, but I am amazed how well you managed to push the envelope on Coming To Life, although I'm sure ForeFront wasn't too impressed with your sales in comparison to dc Talk or anything. ;-)
I'm really looking forward to your blog. Thanks, Andy, for starting it!
i know that this is three years later and all...but I definitely concur about Romeo and Juliet. Damn good song.