1000 Recordings

Have you ever heard of a book called 1,000 Places to See Before You Die? Its a fascinating "traveler's life list" first published in 2003 and has inspired several spin-offs including books, calendars and even a board game and a TV series. Both of my sets of grandparents have done extensive amounts of traveling in their life, and have ended up using the book as the final fill-in of their lives. Apparently its the new traveler's textbook, and a pretty big thing.

Now the same people that brought you 1000 places, have brought 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. I first saw it on a shelf in a bookstore a couple weeks ago, and was totally enthralled. Ive done some more research, and it has gotten me really excited.

Coupled with a recent viewing of Julie & Julia, I feel some kind of resolve to be sure to listen to all of these recordings; I mean, why not? Im a sound designer, if Im going to be any good at what I do, shouldnt I have listened to all of these, be articulate in them, and able to use them at any moment, for any show, at any theatre?

I cant promise I can do it all in a semester (part of me dreams of being able to make it an independent study course), or even a year. But (as of this moment) I do feel like I wont be complete and any good at all until I can get this done. I also cant promise that each listing will produce its own blog entry; I have no clue what kind of effect each of them will have on me, or at this point how and in what order Im going to attack this list. The site allows one to browse by (album) title, artist, "featured recordings" (which doesnt seem to have rhyme or reason), or by genre (there are 15). Heck, I cant even promise a single blog entry on my experience.

Like I said, the toughest challenge seems to be in what order to I try to do this? I think my first step will be to find some kind of list that I can highlight and find out for sure how many of them I am already familiar with. A couple dozen maybe? My next step, I figure, will be to try to cross reference the list with another list (or two) that I already trust, one that has put recordings in order of importance: The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (and the 500 Songs; perhaps I might even dabble in the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs, as well as the 100 Guitarists. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame also has a list of The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll that Id love to use; now if only I had a database, a sortable list of all of these albums that could easily be cross referenced--then this part would be so much easier) that would make picking an order of importance the most plausible plan of attack. But cross-referencing (all of) these lists proves to be daunting enough; making an attack list seems extremely difficult; getting through it in a way that I can be satisfied seems endless; writing about it, while it would prove fun, noteworthy, and worthwhile, comes across as nearly impossible.

But we'll see. If by some glorious miracle I was able to do one every single day, that would take well over two and a half years. Im sure if I could add every single one of these albums to my collection I would have a collection worthy of awe the world over. But for now, getting my hands on them is hard enough, and my ears listening to them challenging. But I just cant see my self doing it if I cant "do it right." If Im going to do it, I want to do it all the way, and the right way. I want to listen to each album more than once, probably more than twice. It would take me several times through before I can feel like I am fully conversant in it. Honestly, who knows how long it could take? I dont even have the book in my possession yet.

Im going to go look at these lists now, maybe by tomorrow I can come up with some kind of plan, see some kind of progress, make some kind of list, get some kind of motivated, form some ounce of desire, see some kind of ending, and know some kind of path.