1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

I was at my parent's house this weekend and noticed a book on the shelf called 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.  I am a fan of lists, so I opened up and began reading some entries.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a great mix of genres, organized chronologically from 1955 to 2005.   There are entries from writers all over the globe which diversifies the list a lot.  From albums that I secretly love (George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1) to albums I totally forgot about and cant wait to hear again (see the long list below). 

I then got ambitious (and a bit bored) and decided to flip through the entire book and see how many albums I own that are reviewed.  Turns out that I have very few albums that were released in the 1980s.  Minus The Replacement's Let it Be, Paul Simon's Graceland and a handful of Bruce Springsteen albums, I was moving through that decade quite quickly.  I think it has to do with the fact that I didn't really get into music until high school and have very few early hip-hop albums, but regardless there is a lot in that decade that I don't have and a handful I had never even heard of.

My total count was somewhere around 223.  Several times in the process I couldn't remember if I was on a number or that was the next number (NOTE: I have the same problem running laps around a track, so it's not surprising that I am not confident with my count).  I think owning more than 20% of the most essential albums is pretty good, though I imagine many readers out there possibly have more. 

Anyway, I wanted to share with you a list of albums that have been lost in my record collection but I have now rekindled with thanks to this book:

Neil Young - On the Beach (1974)
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Too Rye Ay (1982)
Paul Weller - Wild Wood (1993)
Spirtualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space (1997)
XTC - Apple Venus, Vol 1 (1999)
Travis - The Man Who (1999)
PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) 

Comments

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