Yay! Another Zevon fan! I thought we were few in number. What a tragedy. I remember it clearly almost three years ago. Both Zevon and Johnny Cash died the same week, I believe. A depressing week for a music fanatic like myself.
My Ride's Here is indeed a great album. I rock out to Sacrificial Lamb on a regular basis.
The Wind might be on my list. Although I don't know if I'd want a poignant album with me on a desert island, there'd be enough to be glum about. I think my favorite Rush album is Presto, for reasons I can't articulate.
Who else but Zevon could write a song like Roland the Headless Thomson Gunner? Underappreciated genius. As far as Rush goes, I'd have to go with Permanent Waves, and I'd have to have London Calling by the Clash.
What happens when everybody in the world has an i pod with 5,000 songs on it or whatever; does this topic go the way of the buggy whip? "Daddy, what's an album?"
I only know a couple of songs from the ones you mentioned but only because you shared them with me.
I don't have a desert island CD list. 
But apparently I have a desert island book list, or at least a I'm-moving-bit-by-bit-and-here's-what-I-can't-
live-without-for-a-week book list.
Umm, yeah, that is supposed to be a frowning face, not an angry face. Also, forgot to add that if I had such a list, I'd have to have some country on it, probably Cash, but I really am not sure.
G Rex...I am the proud owner of an iPod. It is not a hindrance to album listening, but it doesn't encourage it. I need to invest in some LPs and a needle for my record player.
I think this list demonstrates that artists are not focusing on the album. The newest one is from 1994, over ten years ago. There haven't been very many top-to-bottom good albums released recently.
Albums...albums...album...the eternal debate! I, for one, still buy physical CDs. There's nothing like the rush brought forth by "New Release Tuesday" at my local record shop; busting open the CD, reading the liner notes and playing it in my player. I will never get into downloading songs. Never. Perhaps I'm too much of a completists.
I do own an iPod. I bought the 60 GB model, 15,000 songs. I've put about 5,000 on there thus far (all of them from full-length albums. I use the word album to describe a physical album as well as a collection of songs from an artist). I have about 600 more albums to load on to my iPod. It's been a truly exhilarating experience loading my music collection on to the iPod. It's taken me weeks to get the thing only a third full.
Ryan,
I think there have been many great albums since 1994. However, they're almost NEVER played on the radio. I could get all political here and say that big, corporate interests have watered down and homogenized radio and I would be true. Look at the Eliot Spitzer investigation out of New York. If I want to listen to the radio, I stick with NPR's 88.5 out of the University of Pennsylvania. They play music no other station does in this area.
There was an article in the WSJ last week detailing how, as iPods are more prevalent, consumers are buying fewer CD players in favor of iPod docking stereos for both car and home use. The other observation was that we're willing to sacrifice sound quality for quantity/capacity, since the compressed digital format of MP3s inevitably cuts the quality of the recording.
Since I work in Radio-Free Newark, I've been listening to radio online. 98 Rock (Baltimore) is still good, and the old Y100 (Philly) format lives on at Y100rocks.com, via Live365. Then for talk, Fox News runs Tony Snow in the morning (sorry Al, but I did listen to you this AM) and I'd leave WDEL on all day if the college kids that work here didn't hate it.
Yes, Mike I agree with your definition of album, and with your assessment of radio.
In this case, big media is only a symptom. If there were less government control of the airwaves, then there would be better radio.
One album I just got that I love is Max Q by The Reverse Engineers. I've also enjoyed Franz Ferdinand, but I was underwhelmed by The Killers.
Commenting by HaloScan
