Educating Omand - Year One Top 5

We find out whether Educating Omand experiment has had any effect on our aural guineapig... er... student. Susan Omand gives us her top five albums from her listening lists...

Find the original Educating Omand list here.

Find the Educating Omand: Detention list here.



Way back in the mists of, well, January, we started on my odyssey of music re-education, Bossman Steve having decided that 80’s music was not, in fact, the be-all and end-all and that I should fill in some of the gaps in my aural chronology to bring my album knowledge a bit more up to date. For this task he enlisted the assistance of the Madius massive, with the godlike Mr Rob Jones being my guiding light for the first half of Year One and the devilish Mr Sambrook taking me to task and nipping at my heels (literally, ow!) with a selection for Detention, because I obviously hadn’t paid enough attention in Mr Jones’ class.



As a result, I have listened to THIRTY THREE albums this year that would have otherwise passed me by. Most were ok, had some interesting bits and some issues but were worth listening to, some seriously annoyed me (Killswitch Engage, Avril Lavigne), others bored me (Tool, Papa Roach) and yet more confused the hell out of me (Avenged Sevenfold, Cult of Luna) but everything added to my education whether it was in a positive or negative way. There were, however, some out and out successes, albums and bands which I had never listened to before that are now firmly ensconced on my listening list. So, after much whittling down, I give you my Educating Omand Top 5 Albums of Year One (with the caveat that I already owned and love Faith No More’s Angel Dust so it didn’t get included).





5. Thirty Seconds to Mars – A Beautiful Lie (read my full review here)



“Yes, I know, it’s not the done thing to like Jared Leto’s work but, I’m sorry, I do and this just underlines it for me because I have listened to this album several times now, including when I didn’t need to, purely for the sheer enjoyment of it. I just love his voice. “









4. Audioslave – Audioslave (read my full review here)



“But it is Chris Cornell’s voice soaring above the RAtM backing that strokes my soul, makes me smile like a loon and cry like a baby.”









3. Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place... (read my full review here)



“I seriously love this album and have had it on almost constant repeat for the last week – even though it means I have to stop and just sit, eyes shut, for 8 minutes every hour or so to listen to Memorial.”








2. System of a Down – Toxicity (read my full review here)



“Oh, dearest people of the interwebs, you have let me down. Severely down. Some might even say System of a Down… sorry, had to. Anyway, why oh why did you not tell me that these guys weren’t the kind of band I thought they were?”









1. Jambinai – A Hermitage



“I totally get that this band and this album will be an acquired taste, but I personally think it is a work of genius.”









So that was Year 1. I wonder what Year 2, and a new teacher, will bring?



Images - Amazon