Road Trippin'

Q: If you could only listen to one artist while on a long road trip, who would it be, and why?

A: My first answer, either the Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, or Beatles.

The main reason is they have a huge catalogue, which means you wouldn't get stuck listening to the same songs. If you pick your favorite band right now, let's say, Gnarls Barkley por ejemplo, you would only have like 1 album to listen to.

Also, these bands have a pretty wide range of genres, so it's not like you would only want to listen to them if you were in one particular mood. For example, if you choose the Rolling Stones, you could go from Jumpin' Jack Flash to Wild Horses and then Love in Vain. Coldplay would not be a very good choice, because the songs all sound the same. When the trip is over, you would be in a pretty depressed/low-key mood. No good.

Out of these three bands, I am going to have to go with the Grateful Dead. They are probably my favorite of the three, which helps, but there is more to it than that. They have a few different styles, which would be a nice change of pace.

You could start out listening to a live album and get through the first couple hours listening to only like, 10 songs. They have half hour jams! After that, you could put in a couple of their studio albums, specifically Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. These albums contain gems like Dire Wolf, Box of Rain, and Ripple. These are all typical "songs," meaning they don't go on for extended periods of time. Plus, they have more of a laid back, acoustic vibe to them, almost alt-country, so it would be a good switch from the electric freakouts of songs like Samson & Delilah, Bertha, and Estimated Prophet. Finally, you could follow that up with their greatest hits, and get songs like Scarlet Begonias, Truckin', and One Toke Over the Line. You could then go back to another live album (they have tons), and get a chance to hear those traditional songs off W.D. and A.B. in a live context. You can't go wrong, I say.

You want a more recent band? Okay, I would say either Red Hot Chili Peppers or Sublime. I am a bit partial to Sublime, so that is who I would choose (No disrespect to RHCP).

With Sublime, you could just play every album in order. The first would be 40 oz. to Freedom, a great choice for the beginning of a road trip. Their style incorporates punk, hip-hop, acoustic ballads, reggae and ska, so it changes from song to song, let alone album to album.

After 40 oz. you get Robbin' The Hood. You can use this time to A) think about how ridiculous Raleigh Theorore Sakers is and B) be baffled as to how Robbin' the Hood came after 40 oz. If you listened to these two albums without knowing anything about the band, you would assume the opposite. Robbin' the Hood is clearly a lo-fi, DIY debut album, and 40 oz. is the wiser follow-up by a more mature band. Nope, you got it backwards.

These guys released 40 oz., which includes hits like Bad Fish, Don't Push, and Date Rape, a monster album when all is said and done, and followed it up with Robbin' the Hood, an album full of instrumentals, fillers, and, of course, the rants of one Raleigh Theodore Sakers. (To give you some insight into why they did that, RTH was Brad Nowell's answer to all the people who thought he was in the music biz strictly for the money.)

The equivalent to this would be something like the Eagles releasing their debut, with Peaceful Easy Feling and Witchy Woman, and coming back with a DJ Sizzurp mixtape.

After this, you could get into their self-titled third and final studio album. Find me one person who would not want to hear Santeria, What I Got, and Wrong Way. The beauty of these three albums is that they have some major, radio-friendly hits, but also songs that could have come from a Beastie Boys, Black Flag, or Jimmy Cliff album. Plus, they cover a lot of good songs, so they got that going for them.

After the three studios, you could finish the trip listening to 2 live albums: Stand By Your Van and Sublime Acoustic. SBYV and SA were recorded pre-Sublime, so you're not going to hear a live version of What I Got or Santeria, but they are real cool albums. 40 oz. is very well produced, with lots of added effects and backing vocals, etc. It is real neat to see them pull off songs like DJs and Waitin' For My Ruca live, with just a bass, guitar, and drums.

Sublime Acoustic gives you a similar feel. It is pretty much just Brad playing with his guitar, and would be a nice change of pace when you are trying to have some mellow time on the road. If there is still some miles to travel, pop in one of the compilations. I suggest Second-Hand Smoke. It has a lot of remixes and dubs, plus it opens with Get Out, which is an awesome song. The thing you will learn about Sublime is that may have the same song on three different albums, but it will sound different each time (kinda like the Grateful Dead).

So those are my two choices: Sublime and the Grateful Dead. In fact, if the question-poser allows me to take both of these artists with me, I could probably make it to California no sweat.

Radio? Where we're going, we don't need the radio!

Oh, and furthermore, Susan, if you are reading this, what do you think? Which artist would you pick if you were on a road trip? And why? How about a desert island? Would you pick a different artist? Maybe we will follow this up with desert island discs.