"You must pack a small bag for your trip to the Afterlife. What do you take? Why?”

Jonathan Carroll, one of my favorite living authors, posted that question on his website just half an hour ago. It made me think. For those of you who have been following this music column, it’s probably not surprising that the first thing that came to my mind was music. In other words: an mp3 player with plenty of memory, and lots of batteries. (I’m going to want reading material as well, of course, but that’s a whole ‘nother list.)

Funnily enough, the list of albums I came up with to load on that player differs slightly from my standard Favorite Albums of All Time. I mean, of course, the old favorites have to be on there, but to be honest, they’re so familiar that I can’t really listen to them much now (I may feel differently after a century or two, of course). I can’t even recall the last time I listened to The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses, for example, though I still consider it one of the essential albums of my life.

So I would be loading a whole lot of other things on my afterlife mp3 player: material by other artists, and less familiar material by old favorites, or live versions, or covers, even. Stuff like:

The other Tori Amos albums aside from Little Earthquakes. I listened almost constantly to Little Earthquakes for a year, early in the '90s. I’ve heard two or three of Tori’s albums since, but none of them ever grabbed me the way that first one did. As far as I can tell, for sheer strength and sincerity of expression, beauty of melody, and lushness yet simplicity of sound, Earthquakes rules. But I can’t sing along to it for eternity. (Though I imagine “Happy Phantom” will hold up well.)

The Beatles. I don’t own a single Beatles album. You don’t have to, really, to be familiar with their work; like love and hate, it’s all around. I don’t think I’ll ever buy one in my lifetime either. Nothing against them of course, but sometimes their music seems to me to be like a mall that everyone goes to on a weekend. It’s nice, but everyone goes there and it gets crowded and even though it has everything you want, you kind of get a little sick of it. But I think I might want them on hand for the afterlife, seeing as how they are arguably the pinnacle of pop achievement.

The early albums of XTC. They may be my favorite band, but I must confess a preference for their later material, probably since the first album of theirs I bought was Oranges and Lemons in 1989 (the one with the humorous heartfelt classic “The Mayor of Simpleton.”) I bought each release thereafter, and there is something special about getting and appreciating something when it’s fresh that sticks with you. They got smoother as they got older, though I would hasten to add that they never devolved into easy listening. But the early stuff is quirkier, more angular, often more difficult, though of course with glorious pop moments sprinkled throughout.

Abbatoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.  My lovely and generous friend Robyn sent this double album to me from the States when it came out. Now, The Boatman’s Call by the same band is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I was all set to get into this. But upon first listen it seemed like a lot of nice sounds with no heart or balls. I’m probably wrong. I’ll find out, eventually.

Critics’ darlings I never got into. There are a number of artists who are consistenty praised by the music press that somehow just never appealed to me enough for me to spend an appreciable amount of time with their material. You know: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kraftwerk, Wilco, Dizzee Rascal, TV on the Radio, Right Said Fred. Just kidding about the last one. (I know all of their albums by heart already.)

Classical music. Maybe I’ll finally listen to some after I’m dead. I hear that Mozart fellow is pretty good.

Send questions and comments to Luis at
thekingofnothingtodo@yahoo.com.