Monday, May 01, 2006

Intro

A few days ago, I bought a little book entitled 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.





Then I thought, humm ok, I'll do it, and I'd better start now, not getting any younger. So, daily, excluding any days I don't feel like it, for reasons of being high, drunk, on vacation or respecting the Sabbath, I'll post here a completely subjective review of one album.

This is set in chronological order and starts in 1955 with the popularisation of the Album format with Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and finishes 999 Albums and 50 years later with the White Stripes' 2005 Get Behind Me Satan.

I promise to try to at least listen to each album thrice before posting although I am banking on Napster as well as my CD collection to access the Music, meaning that inevitably there will be some failures, but I will do my best to at least tell you what tracks I could and could not get (legally at least), as a way to make it easier if you want to listen to a certain album.

If you want to know all the albums that will be featured, buy the book. Actually it's not a bad selection. Some things I would never listen to if I hadn't decided to do this (i.e. Van Halen, Bon Jovi or the Louvin Brothers) so it'll be a journey of discovery for us all.

If you like this blog, buying the book would actually be a good idea, as it focuses more on the historical aspects of each album than I will. So if you need a set text, that's it. Heh

Buy it at Amazon: UK or US

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

1 + 999 only adds up to 1000 :)

Francisco Silva said...

excluding "get behind me satan" so 1+999+1 =1001!

Geoffrey Hogswash said...

Quite the challenge these 1001 lists. I shall join you in your quest to know everything that should be known about the worlds of music, cinema and literature. Since there are too few comments being left I shall try to leave a comment on each entry to get a bit of banter going on the subjects. Currently, Aesop is on my lap; Frank Sinatra is in my ears and I'm staring at Melies' MoonFace... I've a lot of catching up to do.

Dakota said...

Hi, I found the list online because I'm doing this too... yet too poor to buy the book but every list I found only has 998 on it... do you have a list posted anywhere with all 1001?

Francisco Silva said...

Dakota:

See if this helps: http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.22344/Music

Dakota said...

Thanks for the link, it still only has 998 though... I think all the online lists copied and pasted from the same original source which had only 998 on it... even the excel list you posted on the site only has 998 on it... curious

Francisco Silva said...

I got this comment a few days ago by someone with the same problem:

Anonymous said...

Okay, I found another list online, and the missing albums are Sweet Baby James and Nighthawks at the Diner. Just thought you'd want to know.

-the same anonymous

But i think that leaves you with 1000

Anonymous said...

The last one missing is younger than yesterday

Anonymous said...

Exciting to read your first entry of the blog you started for about 20 months ago.

I and a friend just started our own 1001 album project using the same list as you. It is a big exciting journey and we're planning to use at least five years on it. We are also planning to blog it, but it will probably be written in a mix of Swedish, Norwegian and English language. The first entries are non-English.

I will browse around your blog a bit more later, and I will probably return with more feedback and questions at another time.

The album I'm spinning in my iTunes today is Arcade Fire - Funeral it is good listening which I can recomend if you have not done it yet.

Happy listening!

gerard2004 said...

Great Site and good reviews.
Thanks for all the listening !
Here you can listen to all the albums for free !