ALL TIME GREATEST CD LIST Being a structured thinker I love lists and so here is another one! The mail order record club I belong to always features in it’s monthly mail out a subscribers “wish list” featuring that particular person’s top ten list of CD’s for all time. Here is mine (unpublished, except on this site).   1. The Beatles: Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967. Always features on any list of the top few albums of all time and deserves top billing here. The original release was the first to feature printed lyrics and also came with a psychedelic dust cover and cardboard cut outs of Sgt. Pepper’s moustache and other things. There is no weak song on this truly ground breaking and epoch making recording. My favourites are the moving “She’s Leaving Home” and my all time fav Beatle’s song “A Day in the Life.” Artist Peter Blake, on the inside of the 1987 CD release says that each of the fab four were asked to submit a list of names of people whom they wanted to feature on the now famous front cover collage. John Lennon included Jesus on his list but he was left off because EMI were still worried about fallout in the United States from John’s recent “We’re bigger than Jesus Christ” remark. Alistair Crowley, perhaps the most famous Satanist of the 20th century, made the cut and is in the top left corner.  2. Radiohead: OK Computer, 1997 Apart from “Creep” I hadn’t really got into Radiohead until this great album came out in the late nineties. Only Thom Yorke could spend a whole film clip (“No Surprises”) with his head in a goldfish bowl. The theme of technology and our use of it pervades form the first track “Airbag.” The highlight for me is the haunting vocals of “Exit Music.” Not a weak track and easily the best album of the decade.  3. Pearl Jam: Ten, 1991. Having said that about OK Computer I have to admit., however, that this album runs a close second to the mantle of best in the nineties. It came out around the same time as the Nirvana phenomenon (with “Nevermind”) was always better lyrically and musically. Pearl Jam gave in to record company pressure for the first and only time to make a film clip to “Jeremy” and what a fascinating clip it is. I’ll never forget seeing Pearl Jam live in Melbourne a few years ago – they opened with “Release” form this CD and I thought it was the CD at first until we saw Eddie. Brilliant live band! 4. The Rolling Stones: Let it Bleed, 1969. A sort of ode to the end of the sixties, this album was made at a time when the Stones were a truly great rock band and not a collection of sad middle aged blokes painfully flogging a near dead horse. Exile on Main Street (1972) runs a close second but the original album cover and the presence of my favourite Stones song “Gimme Shelter” tips the scales in favour of this one for me. 5. INXS: Shabooh Shoobah, 1983. Some will find this an odd selection considering that it was the US number one “Need You Tonight” from the later album “Kick” which really launched INXS as an international band. Nevertheless I am a child of the Eighties and my enduring memory of INXS is of a young and untamed (pre Kylie) Michael Hutchence belting out “The One Thing” and “Don’t Change” on the Countdown stage. This early recording is easily the band’s best for me and still rocks after all those years. Apart form the two tracks mentioned above there is also “To Look at You” and “Black and White.”      6. Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973. Pink Floyd are one of those bands you either love or hate. I loved them for this album but I hate them for leaving my two favourite tracks “Of the turning away” and “Bran Damage” off their recently released best of “Echoes.” So typically Pink Floyd. This album had lots of pyramids and some great tracks with sublime messages in “Breathe,” “Money” and “Time.” The highlight for me is, though, “Brain Damage / Eclipse” a great song that turns the hairs on the back of the head every time I hear it.  7. Duran Duran: Decade, 1989. I tried not to have compilations or best of’s in this list but I caved in for this one because the music of Duran Duran really defined the pop rock of the eighties. A must for nay retro nightclub DJ. I believe the boys are still playing pubs and clubs in England somewhere. 8. Alice Cooper: Welcome to my Nightmare, 1975. Alice, real name Vincent Furnier, is the son of a Baptist Pastor. He outraged the bible belt with this mid seventies hit album with a horror theme that would also define his stage shows. Apart form all of the gimmicks this is a really good recording. There is the title track, the very weird “Cold Ethyl” and the haunting “Steven” and the rocky “Department of Youth” as well as the really touchy-feely “Only Women Bleed.”   9. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV, 1971. “Stairway to Heaven” is usually on top of the best ever singles or lists and rightly so, it is a truly great song produced by a great band at their very peak in the early seventies. This album also features two other great tracks in “Rock ‘n’Roll” and “Black Dog.” A rock classic, although the “Remasters” double CD is probably better value!     10. Kiss: Dynasty, 1979. Ah Kiss! They could have put out a blank record in the late seventies and it would go straight to number one. And what would face painters do at fete’s all over the world if it was not for them! Dynasty is a whisker ahead of “Unmasked” for me as their best simply for the smash hits “I was made for lovin’ you” and “Sure know something.” The re-make of the Stones “2,000 Man” is a little known gem also. Dynasty is classic Kiss in full make up at the very top of their game!