Dinner Party Blues
Thursday August 3, 2006 in music |
We held a small dinner party recently and my wife, as usual, was first to grab some CDs to play. My wife, as usual, chose Frank Sinatra and Elvis. Don’t get me wrong, I like Frank Sinatra and Elvis, but I found myself itching to change the music after a while. I took out ‘The Madcap Laughs’ by Syd Barrett and was about to put it on when I thought to myself “maybe this isn’t suitable for a dinner party”. ‘The Madcap Laughs’ is one of my favourite albums, but unless you’re having David Bowie, Julian Cope and Graham Coxon round for tea, it isn’t really dinner party material.
I’ve compiled a still-incomplete list of favourite albums that, although favourite, are still dinner party no-nos. I’ll be going back to this post and adding to the list as I think of more. I also invite readers to add to them. This is what I have so far:
Certainly no:
Entire output of Syd
Entire output of Joy Division
The Velvet Underground and Nico
The Smiths by The Smiths
Doolittle by The Pixies
Low or Station to Station by Bowie
My own compliation of less accessible tracks by The Beatles (including Tomorrow Never Knows, Rain and Revolution 9)
The Sugarcubes (note: cubes, not babes)
Entire output of The Cocteau Twins
Albums I don’t own but would send guests home if I bought them and played them:
The ‘experimental’ albums released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the late 60s
Scott Walker’s most recent release
Anything by Psychic TV
The Fall, with Mark E Smith being particularly cross
Early Birthday Party/Nick Cave
Pornography by The Cure
Might just get away with:
Nick Drake
Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen