Earlier this week, Algonad asked for some help figuring out what turntable he should purchase to play twenty albums – the twenty albums he would choose to have on a deserted island. In the discussion that followed, ubelmann mentioned that he was working on sifting and winnowing his digital music library to under 64 GB. I was really intrigued by the idea of voluntary artificial constrains on a music collection. I’m a digital hoarder, and have accumulated nearly 100 GB of music. I have two small bookcases jam-packed with CDs and a small vinyl collection. So what would I do if I could only take twenty records with me to a desert island? Would I take the music most important to me, or the best stuff in my collection, or the longest albums, or what?

I’ve thought about it for a couple days, and I’m still not sure I have an answer that satisfies. Not all of the albums below contain music I have strong emotional attachment to based upon significance to specific events or periods of my life, though some of it certainly does resonate. I suppose if I were headed to that island I’d try to bargain, and ask for one supplemental CD mix of songs that I have a deep personal attachment to, just to preserve my sense of identity and emotional connection to my loved ones. But otherwise, I think I’d want to have music that was provocative and beautiful, so that’s what I have below.

CH's Desert Island Twenty

• Modern Jazz Quartet - The Complete Last Concert
• Frank Sinatra - September of My Years
• Bill Evans - Conversations with Myself
• Antônio Carlos Jobim - Wave
• Oscar Peterson - Olympia, 1963 – The Champs Élysées, 1964
• Tomasz Stańko - Leosia
• Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives, Vol. 1
• Mary Lou Williams - Black Christ of the Andes
• Cesária Évora - São Vicente
• Anouar Brahem - Le Pas du Chat Noir
• Tower of Power - Urban Renewal
• Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys
• Rodriguez - Cold Fact
• Bruce Springsteen - Live in Dublin
• Glenn Gould - Bach: The Goldberg Variations
• Daniel Barenboim - Chopin: Nocturnes
• Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign
• Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
• Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

What's your desert island twenty?