First Album is Chosen!

First album is chosen!

After much discussion on the criteria for album selection, we've decided on the following:

• All albums will be randomly selected from among the top 100 of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of all Time.
• For the first while, we're going to stick to the rock choices. Any folk, jazz, blues or country that comes up, will be skipped, at least until we get a groove going.
• This list was last updated in 2009, making it about 10 years out-of-date. Perhaps for our 10th album, we'll change gears and randomly select an album from Pitchfork's 100 Best Albums of the 2000's.
• We'll each provide our initial thoughts on the selected album (before listening) and then again provide our reaction and any further thoughts once we have listened to it.
• Since people will ask, we'll each also provide the platform we listened to the album on (streaming service, YouTube, vinyl, CD) and how it was heard (headphones, hi-fi stereo, car stereo, computer speakers).

Maybe if this gets some traction, we'll start a poll and see if folks wants to suggest albums for us. For now, it's time to reveal our first album!

The Band's second album, "The Band", sometimes also known as "The Brown Album". From Wikipedia:

The Band was a Canadian-American roots rock group including Rick Danko (bass guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), and Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar). The members of the Band first came together as rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins's Toronto, Ontario-based backing group, The Hawks, which they joined one by one between 1958 and 1963.

Introducing the Concept

Recently, I've been exploring some YouTube videos that dig in to the engineering and mixing aspects of popular music. One of the many rabbit holes I've fallen down is a channel for an online audio engineering academy (HOFA). One of the features is Dennis Ward "reacting" to classic recordings from the perspective of a sound engineer. It's fascinating.

Another great channel is Rick Beato's. Rick provides similar insight, but he has the wizardry to access individual tracks of songs and can break things down for the listener from a musical theory perspective.

Through these videos, I've learned a lot about what makes popular recordings, well, popular. The more I learn, the more I want to listen.

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A few months ago, I had Spotify playing a random mix while I was working. I wasn't paying much attention to the music until I heard a song pop up that I hadn't heard in decades, though I remember it vividly. The song was "The Logical Song" by Supertramp. I stopped what I was doing for a few minutes and looked up the song and the band on Wikipedia, curious about the background. It probably won't surprise you to learn that the song is from the album "Breakfast in America", an album that I of course had heard of, but aside from the singles, was almost entirely unfamiliar with.

At this point, you might be wondering how I managed to be a person that at one time owned thousands of rock CDs, but somehow missed this one. I wish I had an answer, but I'll bet I could find some gaps in your musical library too.

And lo, I came upon the idea to close some of my personal musical gaps. The plan is to designate a classic album, give it a full, one-sitting listen, and provide my thoughts on the work. I plan to start with seminal rock albums, but by no means is this project limited to that genre.

Since most things are more enjoyable with others, I'll be inviting some of my pals who share my love of music, both performing and listening. Let's see where this takes us!