2017 -50 years – an album a day
Ok – I must confess that I’ll be 50 at the tail end of 2017. So I thought that I would listen to my life in music by choosing an album a day to listen to. Starting on Sunday Jan 1st I plan to listen to 1 album each day from the year assigned to that week. If I have time I’ll listen to a second album (so I have a list of 600 or so records) – but only 350 are guaranteed.
These won’t be my favorite records, rather albums that reflect the rock and pop world of that reflect the sound of that particular year. Unfortunately, as I really don’t like urban music, smooth R&B or rap – much popular current music has been jettisoned. During the 1960s and 1970s, the best records were also the most popular ones. Not today. So no Beyonce, boy bands, Brittney, American Idol winners or any other crap that no-one will be listening to in 50 years. Compiling the list was quite arduous – immediately I realized that the years 1967-71 were staggeringly good years for albums, 1972 not great, 73-77 excellent, 78 not great etc. Some years were great for singles, but brutally bad for albums. The following years are particularly bad: 1981, ’83, ’87, ’89, 1990, ’92, ’96, 2004, ’05, ’07, ’08 (2009-10 weren’t great) and 2012. I’m not saying that there were no great albums in those years, but not many. 1990 was particularly horrific – I really struggled to come up with 10 albums from that year.
I decided that I would only choose 1 album by an artist, unless, like Springsteen or Neil Young – they have had very long careers and albums that have defined different eras. I have generally excluded Irish artists (unless they had international reputations) and Jazz – as I’ll probably come up with a list of 50 jazz albums for the 50 years: this will take a lot of work as jazz records are less temporarily fixed in my mind.
Although I have vinyl versions of the majority of these albums, I have decided to listen them through my home Sonos player, unless the records are at hand. That way I can plan a weekly playlist and listen to the albums at any time, anywhere in the house.
| Date | Artist | Album | Year |
| 01/01/17 | The Beatles | Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band | 1967 |
| 01/02/17 | The Velvet Underground | The Velvet Underground & Nico | 1967 |
| 01/03/17 | The Doors | The Doors | 1967 |
| 01/04/17 | The Kinks | Something Else | 1967 |
| 01/05/17 | Love | Forever Changes | 1967 |
| 01/06/17 | The Moody Blues | Days of Our Future Past | 1967 |
| 01/07/17 | Tim Buckley | Goodbye and Hello | 1967 |
| 01/08/17 | Van Morrison | Astral Weeks | 1968 |
| 01/09/17 | Jimi Hendrix | Electric Ladyland | 1968 |
| 01/10/17 | The Rolling Stones | Beggars Banquet | 1968 |
| 01/11/17 | The Band | Music From the Big Pink | 1968 |
| 01/12/17 | Big Brother & The Holding Company | Cheap Thrills | 1968 |
| 01/13/17 | Blood Sweat & Tears | Blood, Sweat & Tears | 1968 |
| 01/14/17 | The Byrds | Notorious Byrd Brothers | 1968 |
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