Sunday, May 23, 2010

1,000 Recordings to Expand My Horizons

I'm still pretty much in music mode, having received the first 100 copies of my new album "Message from Tomorrow" on Friday. So I've been working on getting the album into CD Baby's hands for digital and CD distribution. This should happen pretty soon. In the meantime, as if I don't have enough music on my brain already, I've been spending time browsing in the book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die by Tom Moon. The list is crazily diverse and very interesting. I find that I already have nearly all the pop and rock recordings (mostly albums) he suggests, as well as many of the classical pieces (though usually not by the artist he suggests). But even if I have the CD's and have already ripped them, I haven't necessarily paid close attention to all of these recordings before (at least not for a long time), so I'm finding gems in my own collection.

Where I'm weak is in jazz and in world music. In spite of what I call my "completeness obsession," I'm not taking the author literally, and I plan to take my time. I've enjoyed some world music (especially Indian), and I'm open to the possibility of being blown away by some African artist I've never heard of. And although I like a lot  of "jazzy" pop and rock music, I've never had a great affinity for straight jazz. So I'm taking it slow, but I think this book will help me expand my musical horizons in several directions.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Excellent book. I was weak in all of the same categories, and also classical. Still having a hard time with that one, and jazz, but the World entries have been ear opening! King Sunny Ade and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt I can strongly recommend to a rock/blues fan. I am working through the book in its entirety at www.recordingtherecordings.blogspot.com and putting up streams of the recordings as I complete them. If you want to check a few off it will save you some legwork. Keep up the bloggin.