My List

Listening to: Fear Factory, Demanufacture

OK, this is a little long - don't let that intimidate you. I was in a band during my 20's and music is my thing. Steve from Blog d'Elisson threw in his two-cents, Van Morrison, "Moondance", a superb recommendation (and worth so much more than two cents); it's also on my list.

My top 15 Greatest seduction CD's and yes, it's in order of preference.

1. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
   This is an essential disk, a "desert island" disk, an almost prosaic allusion, a masterpiece. From "So What" to "Flamenco Sketches", there isn't a wasted note on the entire session. And what a band: with John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderly, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans, James Cobb, and Wynton Kelly, Davis couldn't miss. Every cut explodes with passion so, as a seduction album, it's at the top of the list.
   
   "This is the one jazz record owned by people who don't listen to jazz," says an Amazon reviewer and if you don't own it, click the previous link and purchase it.
   
   
2. Al Green - Greatest Hits
   I could have picked three or four Al Green albums but almost all the great stuff is here. I can't tell you how many times I've put this on and someone has asked, "Who is this, I love this guy?!?" If you can't get in the mood with Al, someone needs to check your pulse.
   
   
3. Roxy Music - Avalon
   I have my own reasons for loving this album but there's something about Bryan Ferry's voice that gets women HOT (female readers, can you clue me in and tell me what it is about Bryan Ferry's voice that gets ya'll wet and jittery?). A lot of heartbreak songs here but also a lot of, mmmmmmmm, there ain't NUTHIN' like this moment with YOU songs.
   
   
4. Van Morrison - Moondance
   The title cut has made it into so many movies to suggest that sheets are gonna' get rumpled that it's almost silly to include it here. Sure, it was the title cut that made me rush out and buy this but my personal favorites are "And It Stoned Me" and (especially) "Into the Mystic". Celtic Soul for my Celtic soul.
   
   
5. Massive Attack - Mezzanine
   Trippy, sensual, THROBBING... oh so, irresistable. With guest vocals from The Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser (amongst others), cuts like "Angel", "Inertia Creeps", and the title cut are as insistent as the urge you're wanting to satisfy.
   
   
6. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
   There is no getting to the bottom of this dense and beautiful album and every time I listen to it, I come away with something new. If you've ever had sex on acid (what I'm told "To Here Knows When" is about), you get some idea what listening to this album is like.
   
   
7. Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On
   I just watched 'Badasssss' last night (I highly recommend it) and although there was no Marvin Gaye music featured in the movie, the influence of this album was evident in almost every song in the movie - especially the sex scenes. Sure, it's a politically aware album (at the risk of sounding like a fogey, we need more albums like this, now more than ever) but the music is as sexy, sensual and passionate as any music ever made.
   
   
8. Prince - 1999
   1999 beats out Purple Rain, Sign O' the Times, or Controversy (or any other album) because of Little Red Corvette and D.M.S.R. but if almost any Prince doesn't have you and your paramour naked (or at least breathing heavy), you might want to switch brands of breath mints.
   
   
9. Joni Mitchell - Blue
   There's nothing but candles and the indicator lights of your stereo illuminating the room, your conversation is a breathy whisper, and Joni is in the background singing about what a lonesome heart feels like when it finds a home. Can you say, "Heaven"?
   
   
10. Etta James - At Last!
    Not only does Etta sing like she really, really, REALLY means it, she sings like if you don't mean, you better get the hell out - NOW. With songs like the title cut (another cut as ubiquitous in movies as breaking waves), "Spoonful", "If I Can't Have You", and "I Just Want To Make Love To You" (among so many others), hey, yeah, you're getting lucky tonight, my friend.
    
    
11. Big Star - #1 Record
    One of the greatest albums you've never heard (although you've heard it in the influence on countless other bands), you'll get the sense that the windows are fogged up, your foot is tangled in the steering wheel, and yeah, you're seeing fireworks. Foreigner might have sang that it feels like the first time but '#1 Record' actually gives you that sense.
    
    
12. Moby - Play
    Of all the choices here, this selection truly achieves the distinction of "soundtrack"; just put it on and let it wash over the both of you.
    
    
13. Nick Drake - Bryter Later
    Almost everyone knows "Pink Moon" as the song from the Volkswagon commercial where it's apparent the riders in the car are going to a party where everybody's tripping. Well, that song isn't on this album (that's on the 'Pink Moon' album, a darker, starker, more beautiful, but NOT seduction music album) and it's just as well; this album is completely about two hearts in motion, touching, kissing, falling deeply into someone's eyes. This is the album that's playing when you say, "Let's go to the bedroom."

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Classical music is problematic; not everyone loves it (although hating it is a filter for me - you hate it, uh uh, we're not gonna' work out, honey). So I saved these selections for last even though they supercede the majority of the previous selections.


14. Richard Wagner - Prelude from 'Tristan und Isolde'
    Even if you hate opera, this is an orchestral piece, almost 11 minutes of sublimely passionate music - the crescendos are absolutely ORGASMIC. However, if you even barely tolerate opera, the final song of 'Tristan und Isolde', "Der Trank! Der Trank! Der Furchtbare Trank!" (traditionally known as "the liebestraum") is intensely passionate - and tragic - but well worth programming your CD player as a follow up to the Prelude.
    
    
15. Claude Debussy - La Mer/Nocturnes
    Since my introduction to 'La Mer' was a disk that included the Nocturnes, I can't separate the two but I suggest you likewise include the two together. My dilettantish understanding of classical music is that Romanticism (whence Wagner practices his art) grew out of Expressionism (of which Debussy is the Alpha and Omega). Don't get hung up on the terms: Debussy gets the hormones POUNDING. Accept no substitutes.

There you have it, my little, magic fifteen. I'm not suggesting that all fifteen have to be played before magic happens (I like a long seduction but let's be real!), it's just that one needs to consider all contingencies.

Thus, whatever you got, I'd love to read about it. Hey, it's a Friday night, X has the wee ones and Nino is ALONE. Inspire me... PLEASE!!!