No, much to the chagrin of many of you, I'm still among the living, at least for the foreseeable future. I'm a big fan of edumacation and an even bigger one of music, so upon reading la future marche funèbre of a legendary shaper of minds, I thought to myself, you lazy bastard, steal that idea!
"He said it's okay, so technically it's not theft."
Why are you still here?
"Because if I wasn't, you would be a dead, deceased corpse."
Okay, the Dean had twenty songs and despite the fantastic advances in technology, I figured there's no way in hell I could fit twenty songs/works on a single CD, so I pared it down to ten. Then I remembered that iPod People have a vast enough storage capacity to contain full-length pornographic movies, so no worries.
When I've gotten bored with rigor mortis and am totally into decomposition and you all are eating, drinking and being merry because you won't have to read any more of my crappy blog, here's what you'll hear. Here, there, they're hear their something something. And my invisible minions have locked and chained every exit, so if you hate classical and loathe metal, too fucking bad. Just imbibe more booze to dull the pain, chumps. Illegal drugs are okay as well. I won't snitch. I'm dead. Just be glad you're getting a eulogy in the form of tunes instead of Sominex spoken word.
Oh, and Utah? You're welcome for the links.
1. Beethoven, the complete symphonies -- Yeah, it isn't a single work, but it's my funeral, so you get all nine. And the Seventh gets played twice.
2. Metallica, To Live Is To Die -- Nearly ten minutes of a perfect hymn to despair. What, you thought I would have the executors of my estate throw a colorful bash with streamers, party hats and uptempo techno shit? Misery, you bastards, misery. Dance on your own time. Try the beef stroganoff though, it's excellent.
3. Bach, Brandenburg concerto no. 2 -- Picking only one of the six isn't easy, but this might be my favorite musically and it also made an appearance in an episode of The X-Files, a show my sometimes-better-half and I watched religiously. Until we found religion.
4. Opeth, Blackwater Park -- IMNSHO, the best band on planet earth. Their finest track? Perhaps. But I've downed many a glass of wine, written many a line with these Swedes blasting out of my headphones.
5. Katatonia, Sulfur -- Everyone has that band, act or composer that through some abstract, alchemical process, very nearly perfectly mirrors the listener's dominant moods. Autumnal sadness, anger, longing, disconnection, Katatonia plies their trade in the same emotions as I and this is my favorite track of theirs.
6. Agalloch, You Were But a Ghost in My Arms -- Speaking of autumnal sadness and affiliated lovely things, Portland's finest -- hear that Dean and Swinebread? Go see 'em, you closet headbangers! -- is another one of those 'put the headphones on, turn out the lights and wander' bands.
7. Alice In Chains, Down in a Hole -- Facelift is still the only album I ever bought solely through the album cover without having heard a note, but Dirt is their best work and arguably the finest platter of the 1990s, a decade where I graduated the bizarre hell of high school, got hitched and become a pop, all within the span of a smudgy smidgen beyond a single year. And given how I had no fucking clue about anything, certainly about being a father -- yes, and a husband. Merci, ma chère -- this album got spun a lot in 1992. And since.
8. The White Stripes, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground -- Ah, domestic bliss.
9. My Dying Bride, Your River -- I'm a moody, morose, romantic idealist cynical bastard, and this paean to that tortuously fun combination covers it nicely. As nice as those things can be.
10. Van Halen, Mean Street -- When I was a still a little geek, as opposed to the big geek I am now, and before I discovered the über-heavy stuff, the mighty Van Halen was my soundtrack. This is their grooviest.
11. AC/DC, It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) -- Also a big part of the formative years. Pourquoi cette chanson ? Bagpipes! Yes, I'm part Scottish. No, I don't wear a kilt.
12. Led Zeppelin, In My Time of Dying -- The time is past for me, so all you flesh and blood motherfuckers, kick out the jams.
13. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherezade -- Because I like big, symphonic works about love.
14. Piotr Tchaikovsky, symphony no. 4 in F minor -- Those who create, even us woefully unskilled types, have muses. Pete had Nadezhda von Meck and this is one of the towering fruits of that relationship.
15. Georges Bizet, L'Arlésienne suites -- Speaking of muses...no, I don't know anyone from Arles. Fooled you.
16. Slayer, Raining Blood -- Because everyone loves Slayer. I said, EVERYONE LOVES SLAYER.
17. Wagner, prelude to Parisfal -- Sure, Richie was a first-class Nazi douchebag asshole worthy of repeated kicks to the nuts and/or the skull depending on how martial your arts are, but man, if those aren't gorgeous, timeless chords.
18. Megadeth, Peace Sells -- See, even as a teenage jerk, I was political.
19. Anthrax, Time -- And wishing I had more of this for the good stuff. Glad to see that situation has been rectified, hardee har har.
20. Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath -- This is where it all started, and though I was negative three upon its release, I think I've made up for it since with much headbanging and countless hours with the classic lineup destroying the air around me.
Oh, what the hell. Five more. Though I could easily do a hundred.
21. Johannes Brahms -- symphony no. 3 in F major -- Like virtually the rest of humanity with access to music, specific sounds, pieces, motifs, works are permanently linked to a particular memory and that is certainly the case with this. Maybe that's why it's my favorite work of his.
22. Black Tape for a Blue Girl, All My Lovers -- All ain't a lot I can tell you, but these fine folks share many of the same aesthetics as Katatonia, with fewer power chords.
23. The Rolling Stones, Street Fighting Man -- I'm not from the streets, and I'm more a lover than a fighter -- boy, the wife would be laughing if she read that -- but it's the fucking Stones, man! At this late date, I can't remember what the first song of theirs I heard was, but I swear on Zombie Reagan's sleeping corpse that it might have been this one, though the devil always needs your sympathy, so please, give generously.
24. Arcturus, Kinetic -- Cosmic dreamscapes are so much better than plain ole earth, baby.
For the last, I wanted to echo my comments for #21 and find a clip of Gabriel Fauré's piano quintet no. 1 in D minor, but I see that the esteemed Frenchman is painfully underrepresented in the YouTube, as are quite a few of my other favorites. But oh, there's plenty of this lunacy. What the fuck is wrong with you bloody humans? So, I'll just say Auf Wiedersehen!
Shit, how many hours of music is that? Worthy of a pharaoh's funeral, not some nondescript yokel. Maybe I'll release it as a box set upon my death, all proceeds going to the most commie pinko socialist organization there is. You know, the U.S. Government. Never know who they'll be bailing out tomorrow.
Oh, I'm not tagging anyone as I don't think it's officially a meme and I don't want to be put on double-secret probation, but I humbly, gently, quietly, meekly and ruthlessly demand that you celebrate your future death on your blog through music. Get cracking, bones.
