Top ten!

Sometimes, when you have an entire night ahead of you to produce ten pages and finish off a piece of sparkling philosophical prose, it's best to take a long and stupid break, look at the wall while chin is placed between thumb and forefinger, and mull over a top ten list. Unfortunately, all that comes to mind is top ten records, that worn-out category that a billion others have done (I rejected top ten dance steps because I only know two: the high school dance one and the adulthood wedding reception one). To make it a little more difficult then, only pop, rock, and related. "Pet Sounds," anything by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Love, Marvin Gaye, and Radiohead are out, and the list must not exclude embarrassing revelations. It must not exclude the Kinks, however, for that would be heresy. It can also include whatever just happens to float your boat at the moment, but which you might hate within a year or two. But no looking at the record collection and make the list as quickly as possible. Plus, you're allowed to do the list, then feel ashamed afterwards and wish it looked completely different. So, top ten, in no particular order. And I imagine I'm just talking to myself here, but feel free to chime in (giggle).

1. Pilot -- From the Album of the Same Name
2. Kinks -- Village Green Preservation Society
3. The Books -- The Lemon of Pink
4. Wire -- Pink Flag
5. Kinks -- Something Else
6. The Jam -- In the City
7. Brian Eno -- Here Come the Warm Jets
8. Tom Waits -- Rain Dogs
9. Prefuse 73 -- Surrounded by Silence
10. Robert Wyatt -- Old Rottenhat

There... about two minutes.

UPDATE (one minute later):

I'm ashamed to have included Pilot, but I've loved that record forever.