Music Editor Crystal
1. Deftones, Around The Fur
2. Green Day, Dookie
3. Kaki King, Dreaming of Revenge
4. Muse, Absolution
5. Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral
6. Our Lady Peace, Clumsy
7. A Perfect Circle, Mer De Noms
8. Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
9. Tool, Ænema
10. Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman
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Contributing Music Editor Stef:
1. The Runaways: The Runaways
I want everybody to know that I cited Joan Jett as one of my idols a long time before Kristen Stewart showed up looking smokin’ hot in the upcoming Runaways movie (but uh, it didn’t hurt). The Runaways were the band every badass teenage girl should have been in when they were in high school. I may have become slightly more obsessed with this record in the last year or so, but knowing that these riffs came out of a bunch of smoky-eyed, angsty teenagers renews my faith in rock’n’roll every time I hear it.
(best track: “Rock and Roll,” a Velvet Underground cover song about a girl whose life is changed forever by the music on the radio. These girls were absolutely the target audience for this song, and they make you BELIEVE it.)
2. The Shangri-Las: Very Best of the Shangri-Las
A lot of people don’t know that I am obsessed with girl groups from the 1960s. Love was simple back then, everything was terribly romantic, and everybody looked cute in matching outfits.
(best track: “Give Him A Great Big Kiss,” which inspired the intro to the New York Dolls’ “Looking for a Kiss” – “When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in LOVE, L-U-V.”)
3. The Libertines: The Libertines
I get a lot of flak for loving this album like I do, but I really truly think Pete Doherty is a poet. If rock’n’roll has taught us anything at all, it’s that desperate, disgusting drug addicts with guitars are terribly attractive. This explains SO MANY of my tragic crushes, you guys. This record was written while the band (and the two singers’ friendship) was totally falling apart as a result of Pete’s addiction, and whole album is a raucous, chaotic, gorgeous mess. It never gets old.
(best track: “The Saga,” which addresses the band’s drug problem head-on – “Only fools, vultures and undertakers will have any time for you.”)
4. Siouxsie and the Banshees: Tinderbox
Once in college I took this course called American Pop Music, where in lieu of a final essay our professor made us give an oral presentation on which records we’d take with us to live on a deserted island. All the suck-ups and nerds said they’d take Sergeant Pepper, but I said I’d take Tinderbox cos asking me to spend the rest of my life anywhere without “Cities In Dust” is just fucked up, man.
(best track: “Cities In Dust,” the soundtrack to some of the best dance parties of my life.)
5. PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Every time I think I might’ve fallen out of love with New York City, the video for Good Fortune pulls me right back in.
(best track: “A Place Called Home,” which I cite as my favourite song of all time)
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Intern Lily
1. Bessie Smith: The Essential Bessie Smith
2. Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous
3. Fiona Apple: When The Pawn
4. Spice Girls: Spice
5. Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
6. Janis Joplin: Pearl (This is why my middle name is Pearl!)
7. The White Stripes: White Blood Cells
8. Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
9. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
10. The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed
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Audiostraddle Blogger Corey
1. Nirvana: Nevermind
2. Bruce Springsteen: Born In The U.S.A.
3. Radiohead: Kid A
4. Sheryl Crow: Tuesday Night Music Club
5. Keane: Hopes and Fears
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Editor-in-Chief Riese
1. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
2. Rent: Soundtrack
3. Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
4. Jeff Buckley: Grace
5. Tegan & Sara: The Con
6. Stars: Set Yourself on Fire
7. Ani DiFranco: Out of Range
8. Sarah Mclachlan – Mirrorball
9. Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
10. Portishead: Dummy
DJ Carlytron
#1 always and forever: Poe – Haunted
2. Bjork: Homogenic
3. Muse: Absolution
4. Tegan & Sara: The Con
5. Michael Jackson: Thriller
6. Deftones: Around the Fur
7. Our Lady Peace: Clumsy
8. Lady Gaga: The Fame Monster
9. Cardigans: Gran Turismo / Long Gone Before Daylight
10. The Faint: Danse Macabre
11. The Knife: Silent Shout
12. Kenna: New Sacred Cow
13. The Presets – Apocalypso
14. Robyn: S/T
15. Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out / All Hands On The Bad One
16. Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American / Futures
17. Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things
18. Stars: Heart
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Intern Laura
1. Iron & Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days
2. Tegan & Sara The Con
3. Justin Timberlake: Futuresex/Lovesounds
4. Ingrid Michaelson: Girls and Boys
5. Stars: Heart
6. Panic at the Disco: A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
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Design Director Alex
1. Lady Gaga: The Fame
2. Michael Jackson: Thriller
3. Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
4. The Cure: Greatest Hits
5. Taking Back Sunday: Tell All Your Friends
6. Daft Punk: Musique Volume One
7. Kanye West: College Dropout
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Audiostraddle Blogger Jess G.
1. Nico – Chelsea Girl
2. Aimee Mann – Bachelor No. 2
3. Cake – Prolonging The Magic
4. Josh Ritter – The Animal Years
5. The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
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Audiostraddle Blogger Isabelle:
1. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
2. Cat Power – Moon Pix
3. Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton – Knives Don’t Have Your Back
4. Patrick Wolf – Wind In The Wires
5. Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
6. Tegan and Sara – The Con
7. Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things
8. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
9. Joni Mitchell – Blue
10. Lisa Germano – Geek The Girl
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Intern Vashti
1. Metric: Grow Up and Blow Away (This album is perfect. I want to hold it tight and let it eat my heart.)
2. Metric: Fantasies
3. Over It: Silverstrand (Actually, I could probably live without this album but it brought me Siren on the 101 which I cannot live without.)
4. Tegan and Sara: So Jealous
5. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus (the soundtrack of my chaotic imagined happiness circa spring 2009.)
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Sooo … what’s yours?
