The ATN

production staff is a small but scrappy group. Even though we are enormously

fond of each other (it's like we've got the Holiday Spirit year-round.

It's a really beautiful thing), spending days on end together in the dark, cold

basement where ATN management makes us work is enough to strain even the

strongest of relationships. Over the past year, we've discovered that playing

one of the following 11 albums (we get extra because there're more of us) will

smooth things over.

1) Spacehog, Resident Alien : You haven't

really met Production Assistant Brick Thornton, the voice of ATN's Audio

News, until you've heard his rendition of "In the Meantime.

2) Beck,

Odelay (DGC): Yeah, yeah. We love it just like everyone else.

3)

Darlahood, Big Fine Thing (Reprise): One of the coolest parts, from our

perspective, of running those full length album previews is that we get to keep

the CDs. This one keeps getting re-filed in our massive CD library, but

Production Manager Claire Schneeberger keeps bringing it out just when we

need it. How does she do that?

4) Counting Crows, Recovering the

Satellites (DGC): Staffers either love or hate this one, but it always

makes for good dinner-break conversation.

5) Soul Coughing, Irresistible

Bliss (Warner): Hands down the best album ever recorded. At least, Managing

Editor Aimee Spanier, whose obsessive-compulsive personality drives her to play

it over and over and over and over again, thinks so. And ATN Executive VP Jon

Luini will stop any coding or programming or sprinkling of fairy dust or

whatever it is he does at his brand new 20" monitor to play along (on the

guitar he keeps at the ready), with "The Idiot Kings.

6) Idaho, Three Sheets to the Wind (Caroline):

Mellows us out when we're over-caffeinated or -sugarhighed. Therefore, it gets

played a lot.

7) Leftfield, Leftism (Hard Hands/Columbia):

The pick of our Illustrious Chief Copyeditor Carrie Cordiero, Bringer of All

Things Techno. We are in awe of her, as she is right about everything. She said

this was great. It was. We bow to her. Again.

8) The Mermen, Just About

Anything They've Ever Done: Jon Luini's fondest dream is to bump off Mermen

bass player Allen Whitman, and take his place. He refuses to stop practicing

along with A Glorious Lethal Euphoria, but is apparently confused, as he

keeps practicing the guitar parts. Regardless, we take group trips up to their

gigs in San Francisco on a regular basis.

9) Weezer, Pinkerton

(DGC): How can you not love an album that's all about messed-up, unhealthy

relationships (and almost-relationships. And not-even-close-to-relationships)?

"I'm dumb, she's a lesbian/ I thought I had found the one"? Haven't we all been

there? Um, metaphorically, of course.

10) Big Night Soundtrack

(TVT): When Production Assistant Heidi is feeling low (which is rare) we make

her listen to Rosemary Clooney belt out "Mambo Italiano." It makes her happy.

And when she's happy, we're happy.

11) Rent Soundtrack (Dreamworks):

OK, we all hated it. But what better way to bond than over a shared

dislike?