The longest-running radio program in the world is BBC Radio's "Desert Island Discs".
Each week some public figure gets to slide into the studio and tell us which 8 songs, 1 book and 1 "luxury" they'd want with them if they were stranded on a desert island. Of course, the whole premise failed if you asked stupid questions like "what about electricity, and a CD player?"
There are dozens of reasons for compiling this list: the now extinct titillation of making mix-tapes for girlfriends, the fact that we've just got back from Fiji, and the hatred I have for those Facebook ads where you have to sign up to spam hell in order to pick from someone's list of favorite deodorant scents or ice cream toppings.
I have kept re-visiting this subject over the years (i.e. fretted constantly). What would I pick, in the unbelievably unlikely event that I'd be dragged onto the radio to pontificate about my "Top 10, or 8?"
OK, have to be sensible about this. My first temptation is to start with Motorhead and build the noise up gradually from there. But millions of people and a handful of close friends (all critics) will be cocking their shotguns waiting for a mistake like that. So, I have to have some rules:
#1. More of an objection than a rule: You can't possibly pick THE Top 10. I'd want it to be like "High Fidelity", where John Cusack and Jack Black (and that other, weedy guy), argue over the "Top 3 songs to play at a Klan BBQ". So, Top 10 Post Punk songs would be very different than my Top 10 British Blues songs. But, rules is rules, so HUGE compromises were necessary.
#2. You don't want to fall into the trap of picking stuff that's too obvious - so while I used to think that if I have to pick a strictly limited set of tunes for my desert island delectation, I'd better pick bloody long ones - out go Led Zepp, Lynyrd Skynyrd, along with obvious-and-dreadful U2 and their ilk.
One sobering realization is that, although my "hipster blinkers" convince me I'm keeping pace with what the ankle-biters are listening to now, there's a potentially unhealthy block of ancient stuff in this list!
Any road up (as they probably still say on Coronation Street), you can find the list here.
PS - The Jonas Brothers' pic is ironic. You'll have to listen really closely to hear any of their drivel on my desert island.
