The five best albums heard in the Print Room Café

The Print Room Café (or PCR if you’re pretty much Tupac) is known for several things: unnecessarily long queues for an establishment within a short distance of three other coffee emporiums, those buzzy remote things they hand out with food, and, most importantly, badass tunes.

From nostalgic funk to unashamed pop perfection, the dedicated caffeine soldiers of the PCR have shown little fear in bringing the masses the pleasures they feel too guilty about to listen to at home. So as a salute to those fearless music warriors, we’ve compiled the definitive list of our favourite café’s best compact discs.*

Millenium– Backstreet Boys

(YouTube)

The Wikipedia page for the Backstreet Boys says that they are sometimes referred to as the BSB. I have never heard anyone do this ever. Do not do it. If you are looking for something to do instead, listen to this bloody album. The third offering from the Florida-grown fivesome, it includes the smash hits “Larger than Life,” “I Want it That Way” and “Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely,” songs so poptastic they’re like the child Britney and Justin never had.

And if you don’t like the  record, you’re in the minority: the album’s sold 24 millon copies worldwide, two million more than Oasis’s career-defining What’s The Story Morning Glory? Yeah.

Best Line for Coffee Karaoke: “Tell me why? Ain’t nuthin’ but a heartache. TEEEELLL ME WHY?”

Celebration-Madonna

(YouTube)

Madonna has been around since the dawn of time. Back when the earth was just a mass of seething volcanoes being pockmarked by a bunch of asteroids, the only living creatures were an indiscriminate primordial soup and Madonna Louise Ciccone, gyrating away with abandon, occasionally reinventing herself with regard to whatever pre-historic epoch she was living through.

It’s not surprising then that in between surviving dinosaurs, several ice ages and a twitter spat with DeadMau5, she’s had to time to release THREE greatest hits albums. This is the third one, following 1990’s The Immaculate Collection  and 2001’s GHV2 ,and covers a whopping 36 of her best hits, from classics like ‘Vogue’ to modern chart toppers like ‘4 minutes.’

Best line for Coffee Karaoke: “Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name, and it…feels…like….hooooooome.”

8 Days of Christmas – Destiny’s Child

(YouTube)

Unfortunately, the Print Room only gets to play this utter gem once a year, but if we had it our way, it’d be on repeat January through to December. Released in 2001, the album featured the newly trimmed down, and most recognisable, line-up of Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, following the exit of LaTavia Roberson, LeToya Luckett and Farrah Franklin after their 1999 breakthrough.

Having lost three members, they managed to also misplace four of the traditional days of Christmas, replacing stuffy old favourites such as “Eight maids a milking” with “A pair of Chloe shades and a diamond belly ring”. Not letting the crass commercialism get them down, the rest of the album sees R&B re-workings of all the classics like “Silent Night” and “Little Drummer Boy”, which has forever cemented the trio in our hearts and ears for every Yuletide since.

Best Line for Coffee Karaoke: Trying to keep this one to the rhythm: “On the second day of Christmas my baby gave to me, the keys to a CLK Mercedes”

5ive-5ive (The Boyband called Five)

(YouTube)

Not to give too much room to their American counterparts, the PRC often hands over a sizeable wedge of airtime to the best of British boybands, and rightly so. From the golden late nineties era of curtains and white tracksuits  sprang forth 5ive, a boyband so funky they didn’t give a monkey’s about shoving numbers and letters together willy-nilly, with scant regard for how one might read it if it’s just written down and you aren’t in the know.

Nomenclature aside, the first, and arguably best, album by the band featured four consecutive top ten hits, culminating in a number one with the rap-bravado of “Everybody Get Up”. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face once your latte’s worn off.

Best Line for Coffee Karaoke: Doing all the actions to “Everybody get up! Singing, one, two, three four. Five will make you get down, now.”

Songs About Jane – Maroon 5

(YouTube)

Continuing with the number five in band names (In a Top 5 article? Leave your comments about the Illuminati below), the final pick of the Print Room’s pop crop is of a mellower sort. The debut from Adam Levine’s light-pop/rock band reminds us that there was a time before the autotuned horrors of their 2012 offering Overexposed.

Songs about Jane, (genuinely just written about a girl called Jane,) is chock full of breathy, soulful hits, even earning them a Grammy for “This Love”. Best for when somewhere between heartbreak and finally getting over it and realizing you can use Tinder on the Café’s wifi.

Best Line for Coffee Karaoke: “And she wiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllll be loved” *breaks down sobbing*

*They’re actually played on an iPod but that’s way more boring