5 albums to take to a desert island?

If someone put a gun to your head and said "You're going to a desert island and you can pack 5 full length CDs (no various compilations allowed)" What would you bring?

Here's my list (In no particular order):

1. Radiohead - Kid A

I know, I know...No brainer right? Radiohead is almost mandatory for any kid of my generation to call their favorite band. But the truth is...they are. I can't fight being lumped in with the crowd on this one. When the first chords from "Everything in it's Right Place" come on, I always get a chill down my spine. This album will never get old no matter how many times I listen to it.

2. M.I.A - Arular

I'd consider M.I.A my second celebrity girlfriend. Bjork had been starting to get a bit too strange with the Swan Dress & her full on attack of the reporter at the airport, so I had to call it quits and switch over to Maya... I used to blast Bucky Dun Gun in the photo lab @ school in DC, and I remember all the girls would gang up on me and say "What are we listening to??" They flipped the stereo back to hot 99.5 as soon as I stepped out of the dark room to check out a developed photo. All I got to say to these girls is "Look who's on hot 99.5 now suckers!" (I am not saying that I like XXXO. I'm simply stating that I had her blasting before the mainstream stations did). Arular isn't a cohesive album necessarily. It just happens to be a hit after hit record with no need to skip tracks like most one hit wonder albums I listen to. Additionally there's a hypnotic quality in listening to Maya's childish sounding voice talking about murder, ransom and gun shots. I hope Maya gets her mojo back for the next album she does...

3. Sneaker Pimps- Becoming X

The Sneaker Pimps are wayy too underrated. Every review I've read says that SP came to the trip hop scene long after the path had been paved by Massive Attack & Tricky. Granted, there's chronological truth to this statement, but SP shouldn't have to be compared to the originators of a genre. What the Sneaker Pimps brought to the sound happens to be my all time favorite female vocalist: Kelli Ali.

The combination between Chris Corner's soundscape and Kelli's vocals are killer. 6 Underground is probably my all time favorite song period. Too bad, Chris pulled the carpet from under Kelli's feeet and kicked her out of the band after the first album. Chris's vocals are very good, but nowhere near Kelli's.

4. Blur- 13

Other than the track Coffee & TV, this album flew under most listener's radars. Coming from some suburban Brits, the decision to make an album themed on cowboys is definitely a curveball. This being said, the boys completely pulled it off and made the album into a 13 track masterpiece. Starting off with the gospel love ballad Tender and then switching right into the staticy rock song Bugman the listener gets pulled every which way and is never sure of what to expect in terms of musical genre and sheer velocity. Definitely a trippy album to your hands on.

5. NIN- The Fragile

If you didn't already know this, my Honda Fit runs on NIN. I have every single Halo album and the entire collection takes up a solid 10% of my iPhone's music space. I have yet to miss death-gripping my car wheel and rocking out to this 2 disk masterpiece on any one of my many road trips.

You see, locking yourself up in a house in New Orleans for five years to write an album can lead to a number of things (insanity, madness, confusion, anger, fear...). In this case, Trent's destination happens to be all of the above!

This album bleeds emotional distress, but with such a solid vocalist and steadily grinding industrial instruments, you can't help but feel that you can relate to where Trent's coming from. If I had to chose the best track to rep the album, I'd go with

Into The Void

To make things more awe-inspiring, the entire NIN ensemble consists of....well...just Trent Reznor. He's a one man band in the studio, and when on tour he brings instrumentalists along with the criteria that he is able to physically push them around (this was something he said in an interview during the Downward Spiral tour).

I developed a late stage Trent Reznor man crush at the end of high school, and I still find myself trolling youtube many a late night to track down unreleased NIN footage and the like. I sure hope Trent puts together something half-way decent with his new band and wife-team Mariqueen How To Destroy Angels...