Desert Island Discs

by Grant Purdum


If I were a marooned island marauder, one choice would undoubtedly be Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power. Listening to singer Phil Anselmo wax neurotic is as necessarily therapeutic as squeezing pus out of a simmering boil, and twice as abrasive.


Next, Radiohead's OK Computer has to be mentioned. The gallantly girlish, grousings of pouty singer Thad Yorke have to be heard to be believed, and the sound effects and thumping bass lines remind one of music usually equated with ghetto blasters.


You can't make a "best disc" list without noting Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction. The first album my parents ever forbade me to buy was simply the baddest, fattest, most devastating revolution balled up, polished and blended on tape.


Next, for a little variety, Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers. Easily the most talented drunken loudmouth rapper in New York (and the competition is fierce) ODB laces 17 tracks of roughly produced beats and squeaks with homicidal rantings postal workers would be taken aback by.


The most essential is Tool's third release Aenima. Easily the most thought-provoking metal ever, Aenima massages listeners' ears with balanced blends of beauty and blatancy. Maynard Keenan's soft as Seattle rain vocals and Danny Carey's prodigious drum manipulation carry the album to insane heights -- a cohesive musical adventure that plays more like a motion picture than an album.