Anomalous Material Presents: Desert Island CD Blog-A-Thon

Last year, Andy of Fandango Groovers spearheaded the amazingly sucessful and infectious Desert Island DVD blog event. This year Castor from the bodacious Anomalous Material has decided to one up our fellow Brit with an event of equal magnitude. What’s that you ask? Well this time around, our desert island get away will be void of a DVD/BD player and widescreen TV. Instead, those creature comforts will be replaced with a comfy chair, super noise reducing headphones and 12 music tracks of our choosing but the catch is that they all be from movies.

Man, selecting these songs is actually the tougher question. Sure I could answer what movies I’d watch til the end of my days, but what songs would I listen to while I waited for oblivion?? “En garde” says Castor…well here’s my parry…

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For years I have been a super fan of Huey Lewis and the News. Being raised on Back to the Future, that film all but immortalized Huey in my eyes and the song Back in Time is one of my favorites ever..like ever ever. There’s lots of great Huey songs that I’m torn between Couple Days Off, Hip to Be Square, Stuck With You and their most recent hit Pineapple Express. But at the end of the day, Back in Time is my final answer!

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I don’t know for sure if it was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves that did it for me but Bryan Adams is one of my very favorite musicians of all time. Seen him in concert, have all his albums but his style is his own and when I started to play guitar I found his music was incredibly simple and got me playing all his hits in no time. Well it’s hard to pick one song but Run to You just always makes me smile. Maybe it’s that guitar riff in the beginning or maybe it’s where he hit his stride as the first of his many many hits, but this one is my favorite…and who cares if it’s about infidelity:P

Now I’ve never heard it in a movie but I bet it’s got to be used in some 80’s movie. If not, to stay within the rules of the game I choose Mysterious Ways from the Movie Cashback. But I still like Run To You better.

Although if we’re talking 80’s I probably should have chosen Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World from Real Genius…oh well:P

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Rocky Balboa has always been a part of my life and while I was too young to grow up with the first Rocky I certainly grew up with the training montage of Rocky 4 in my head. That said here’s the pincale montage of determination against adersity, even if it was laced with Cold War stereotypes:P

Sure wish the ass-hats at YouTube didn’t disable embedding for every single original Rocky training montage which features my favorite inspirational tune Gonna Fly Now.

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This is a simple one but I figure that if I’m going to be stranded on a desert island I’d better be able to kick back and enjoy what I’m listening to right? That said, nothing would put my mind more at ease than to listen to this song from Israel Kawakawiwo’ole in the form of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Sure it’s from the 50 First Dates Soundtrack but so what?

It was a close one between this and the 80’s classic from Mr. A Cappella himself Bobby McFerrin.

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Badassery comes in many forms but the combination of Propellerheads’ Spybreak and The Matrix is an electric combination of awesome. Used perfectly in the lobby shootout scene of the first Matrix this really gets you pumped.

Again, too bad all the YouYube Videos disable embedding:( I just love watching that scene.

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Growing up listening to John Williams’ music to Star Wars was one of the things that really got me in to movies, specifically scores. That said his music for Hook, a film that actually deserves more credit than it gets, is criminally very overlooked in my opinion. The song “You Are the Pan” has this magical quality to it that is one of his finest works up to that time. This is a sample of all the songs from the soundtrack but You Are the Pan is briefly highlighted at 7:17.

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Equally high on my list of favoriter composers Hans Zimmer is such a close number 2 it’s almost a dead heat for 1st place. Gladiator, The Rock, Inception, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron, 2 of the 3 Pirates films, Rango and plenty more great works I tell you it’s hard to find a favorite. But it’s Zimmer’s music complimented by Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard that really gets to me as they collaborate for the final track of the Gladiator score. Now We Are Free is such a perfect end to the film and is a nice addition to the scene where Djimon Hounsou’s character burries Maximus’ figures in the bloody sand where he perished. Damn, so very beautiful…excuse me while I cry a little.

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It was the soundtrack to the Ed Burns/Dustin Hoffman con-man flick Confidence that first introduced me to Zero 7 and I’ve been a die hard fan ever since 2002. They are a great down-tempo band that’s perfect for relaxing. Hmm, can’t think of a better way to spend all my free time on a desert island. Almost as infectious as Air’s Cherry Blossom Girl.

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Now if we’re talking about getting lost then Air’s ethereal Alone in Kyoto will send you there. Thanks to Sophia Coppola for finding a perfect fit for this in her beautiful film Lost in Translation and for introducing me to Air.

While no one comes close to Air’s style, acceptable substitutes can be found in Flames by Vast and Ryan Adam’s cover of Wonderwall which both offer comparable introspective journeys. In case you were curious.

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But let’s not get too bummed out being put on a desert island. So a nice pick me up comes from the one band I look to for a bit of kick ass rock n roll. Really they can be considered heavy metal and by that note they were a great choice to be featured on the Transformers soundtrack. Tough not to get amped listening to this one. Hey it may even get me in the mood to swim to some other island if I ever get bored of mine:P

It was hard to chose between Disturbed, Nickelback and my dear favorites Guns N Roses but since Island living may at some point resort to cannibalism, I think Nickelback and GNR would end up on the sharp end of a kabob knife. Sorry Chad, sorry Axel, this is Disturbed’s island!!

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I didn’t grow up listening to Duran Duran. But when they were featured in probably my favorite scene of Matthew Vaughn’s exceptional film Layer Cake something about the song became lodged in my brain. To this day it’s one of my most listened to songs and my absolute favorite to play on guitar. Maybe it’s that catchy guitar intro, mabye it’s just a great song…either way it’d be on permanent repeat on Desert Island radio!

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And coming at number 12, I’ve saved the very best for last. Growing up in New York (after being born in New Jersey) I’ve always had this cosmic connection to Frank Sinatra. Some people love Elvis, others adore The Beatles but as far as old school goes, I’ll always love The Chairman of the Board. Just so happens old Frankie boy was born in Jersey himself…if it weren’t for him I would claim no association with The Garden State. That Jersey boy knew where his future laid…in the city so nice they named it twice, the good old Big Apple. Nothing says home to me like his anthem from the film New York, New York which redundantly enough is titled New York, New York!

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So that’s it. Thanks for the great idea Castor. Head on over to Anomalous Material to see what he and all the other participating bloggers have picked to be their Island Grooves. Maybe we could have an Island Dance Party. Hey Castor, you bring the limes, I’ll bring the salt!!