About The Album-a-Day Project
A few months ago I took an inventory of all of the music I have floating around: lps, 45s, cds, mp3s, cassettes, 78s, 8Tracks… and figured that if I listen to one album each day (average 12 songs) it would take me close to 50 years to hear everything. My first thought was that I’d be dead before I finished it all. My second thought was that I’d better get started.
And so I have.
I listen to every note of every song of whatever album that I choose for that particular day, and when it’s over I say goodbye to it forever. Some albums I don’t feel too badly about never hearing again (Byrdmaniax comes to mind), but what about Pet Sounds, Revolver, Kind of Blue, Shake Some Action or Lark’s Tongue in Aspic? Knowing that I’ll never experience this music again is forcing me to really listen, and hearing for the last time is turning out to be just as rewarding as hearing for the first time. Every song seems to have a memory attached to it, and every memory links to other memories and, of course, other songs. I’m now mind-surfing most of my waking hours… I highly recommend it.
I’m keeping folders full of mp3s of all songs that I think are important. If anyone wants to know anything about me, it’ll all be in those folders. In the meantime, I’m going to post an album every day here and list the songs I consider to be the essentials so you can make your own folders full of great songs. Maybe you’ll post in the comments section to tell me that I missed a song, and tell me why – maybe I’ll have a reason to go back and listen again!
Most of these posts will be pretty straightforward – just the album and a list of the songs I like – but if I feel that I actually have something to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times before, I will.
This is really going to be fun, and we’ve still got 50 years to go!
Bye for now,
Shane
