Toni Collette picks her 10 favourite albums: “There is a story”
Toni Collette is one of those actors whose face you’re bound to know before you’ve even learned her name.
Achieving her breakthrough in the 1994 comedy Muriel’s Wedding, Collette eventually became one of the most familiar faces in Hollywood, with strengths across the board – from the more lighthearted roles to the straight-up disturbing, a skill she flaunted in Ari Aster’s horror masterpiece, Hereditary.
There’s a reason why people consider it her best work, more so than her Oscar-nominated work in The Sixth Sense, and it’s her ability to take on a role that many others would have deemed too big, too far-out to even give it a go. In Hereditary, Collette stars as Annie, a mother on the brink of a mental breakdown as the environment around her family slips further into the grips of a demonic presence.
However, before Collette earned her keep in one of the best horrors in modern cinema, and before she even established her name in the art of film itself, however underrated, she already had another love in life: music. Collette has always loved music and started singing from an early age, seeing it as one of the most expressive creative outlets that there is.
However, aside from a handful of projects in which she contributed songs to, including Cosi, The Wild Party, Connie and Carla, About a Boy, and several others, as well as her own project, Toni Collette & the Finish, she rarely brings her love of music into her acting roles, instead keeping it somewhere else where she can love and cherish it without the additional pressure.
Collette is especially particular about how music should be treated, or listened to, and how it offers something that acting never will. She also understands that, when listening to music, it’s best done with the entirety of the piece in mind, and singling out songs as standalone things can sometimes detract from the full artistic vision.
It’s also why, when asked to compile her favourite music for Two Paddocks, she explained as much, saying, “The art of album making feels like it is slipping away. There is a story in an album. You can lie down and listen and travel with it. Whereas a single is more of a quick fuck. Sorry, but I prefer the former?! Most of the time.”
Many of her choices were records that are truly best when spent time with, including Neil Young’s Harvest and Jeff Buckley’s Grace. Others, like David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Radiohead’s The Bends and Tom Waits’ Closing Time, are also so masterful that it feels as though they’re over too quickly, prompting you to hit play again the moment that they’ve finished.
And then there are the ones that get richer with every listen, like Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball, Damien Rice’s O, REM’s Automatic for the People, and Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. What’s especially charming about Collette’s list is that it demonstrates not only her appreciation for a diverse array of choices but also how she views the art of music as a whole, with records that were made to be completely devoured, over and over. Or, as she put it, a lifelong affair, not a quick fuck.
Toni Collette’s 10 favourite albums:
- Neil Young – Harvest
- Jeff Buckley – Grace
- Arvo Part – Alina
- Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
- David Bowie – Hunky Dory
- Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
- Arcade Fire – Funeral
- Damien Rice – O
- Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball
- Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
- REM – Automatic for the People
- Tom Waits – Closing Time
- Radiohead The Bends
