3/11/07

Sup dweebs, in the spirit of High Fidelity, I decided to post a few of my top 5's.

Top 5 books at the moment

1. Sirens of Titan: A fantastic work from Vonnegut, an unrestricted, inter-planetary epic that courageously answers the meaning of life. Its also one of his more humorous novels.
2. Killing Yourself to Live: A book by Indie/Hipster prophet, Chuck Klosterman. Using narratives similar to Kerouac, he writes about a cross country roadtrip, in order to find the death sites of famous musicians. The beauty of the novel though, is that it really doesn't deal with his intended thesis that much. Most of the time he writes about his women, the people he meets and a good deal of 90's alt rock and indie criticism. He also talks about Kiss ALOT, which seems pretty ridiculous, but surprisingly his fetish with 80's metal adds another dimension to his narrating. If Mark Twain and Steve Malkmus had kid, it would certainly be Chuck Klosterman (Ace Frehley is obviously the godfather.)
3. Slaughter House Five: Classic Vonnegut, his best work. Funniest novel I've read in a long time. I'm sure everyone has met a real life Roland Weary
4. The Beach: Alex Garland's famous novel. Its a solid read, narrator is craazaaay. Highly recommended, a generation x must read.
5. The Tesseract: A fantastic novel dealing with Manila's street life. Alex Garland interweaves all the characters together and by the end you find yourself thinking, "this is what Crash and 21 Grams wish they could be like"

Current Top 5 records

1. Radiohead- The Bends: A perfect release, what else can I say about the album? "Black Star makes me feel like an ice cream sundae?"
2. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot- Quintessential Wilco album, crazy story behind it, even crazier outcome. Even better was that the succeeding album, A Ghost is Born, is arguably as good
3. The Mars Volta- Deloused in the Comatorium: Majestic, chaotic, transcendent and even life changing. This concept album takes the listener on a ride. It is a different type of art, where the beauty is found in the abstractness and darkness of the music.
4. Pavement- Terror Twilight/Brighten the Corners/Crooked Rain Crooked Rain/Wowee Zowee: ALL of these albums changed the way I listen to music. They are listed in order of importance. They have always been labeled as slacker rock outfit, but they are straight up damn good. From the perfection of Gold Sounds, the melodies of Grounded, the power of Stereo and the nostalgia you get when you hear Summer Babe; this band conjures up so many emotions and they do it all well.
5. Modest Mouse- We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank: A relatively new release, but it clicks fast and stays hot. It feautres backup vocals from some guy from the Shins and a lot of pirate imagery.