"Albums 2014": An introduction!

Hello! It has been a very long time since I blogged anything. However, I've been undertaking a challenge so far this year and people wanted to know how I've been getting on, so I'll be using this blog as a record.

Here's the thing: I’ve never been a big one for new year’s resolutions. The standard ones (exercise more, eat less, don’t drink) have never been ones I’ve particularly felt the need or desire to do, and any I do make are vague and therefore, hard to demonstrate to myself that I’m sticking to. This year was no exception, until, setting off on a long car journey on 2^nd January, I realised that the CD collection accumulated in my car contained nothing I wanted to listen to with the exception of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I was heading off to an Orchestra and Choir weekend, too (a wonderful organisation called OneSound, do check them out!) which made my lack of musical interest even more upsetting. I quickly resolved to undertake a project; each week in 2014, I would listen to an album I had never listened to before (and really should have done).

I’ve known for a long time that my musical education has gaping holes; my parents’ influences mean that I can almost sing along note-for-note to the base line of Widor’s toccata and fugue (OK I can’t but let’s pretend), but their grasp of anything 20^th century extends to the Seekers, Simon and Garfunkel, a bit of Bob Marley, and Karl Jenkins.  This is admittedly a good snapshot, but a small one. Whilst some of my contempories were subjected to endless repeats of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ on childhood car journeys, I was listening to ‘Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat’ and ‘Hello Children Everywhere’ (both experiences I would not trade for the world, by the way). 

So. It came to pass that I came to the start of my twenties having never listened to more than one or two of the so called ‘classic albums’. Aged 21 I listened to Dark Side of the Moon on a flight across the Atlantic (probably a good place to do so) and I heard Metallica on Radio One’s excellent classic album series. I came into 2014, aged 25, not knowing that David Bowie was Ziggy Stardust, never having heard of Cream, and not identifying Ozzy Osborne with Black Sabbath. (I am going to be entirely honest in this blog, so please take compassion on my ignorance!) I have my own mental list of brilliant albums- Lauryn Hill’s ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ (this having been introduced to me thanks to my sister Alison), The Streets ‘Original Pirate Material’, various albums by Muse, Red Hot Chilli Peppers ‘By the Way’ and Bellowhead ‘Broadside’ would all feature- but it is short and a matter of luck by what has come my way. It is time, I have resolved, to rectify this. Since I like to be different, and do not like to buy into industry what-I’m-told-to-do lists, I have been asking friends and colleagues; what two albums must I listen to? They can be old or new, but I want them to be recommended because my friends think my life will be the richer for it.

I have unintentionally phrased the questions slightly differently to different people (a poorly conducted experiment) which may have conditioned the answers I have received. But the answers I have received have been brilliant. In some ways they are a product of my sampling; the majority of people were growing up in the late 90s or mid 2000s, and so Britpop features, as does a lot of indie music from the last decade. I also seem to know a lot of people who like metal. Some people recommend exactly the album I thought they would. Some astonish me because they give me a band I didn’t expect, and then another band of a totally opposite nature in the next breath. Some people who I have no clue are really into music come up with crackers; and some people who I thought were, can’t think of anything. Some give me their favourite album; others avoid doing so because they don’t think I’ll like it. Yet one thing that’s agreed on seems to be, that people want to know how I’ve got on. Therefore, I’m going to blog each month about the albums I’ve listened to, and my first (and second/third) impressions.

A side note- initially the resolution was ‘one a week’. I then found myself enjoying it so much, and getting so many suggestions, that I changed to ‘one a day’. I was then told in no uncertain terms that this would not do; if I was to do this I had to listen to the albums properly, not as background music, and some of the albums will definitely demand a second listen. I’ve settled therefore on around about two a week, each with two listens; but one can be the absolute minimum. This means that January has an average of 4 or 5 a week, and the later months more like 1 a week! I’m generally picking them by using a ‘random number generator’ (ie ask an officemate) and picking the album that is that number on the list, but sometimes I pick an album that I think will fit my mood. I’m also going to give a mention to a few albums I liked years back and haven’t heard for a while!

So: for each album I’m going to reference the person or people who suggested it (first name and initial only) and the year of the album. I don’t promise to say what the industry would want me to say, or to try to be clever, as I’d fail; my aim is to be as honest as possible. My comments might get better as the year progress, as I didn’t decide to blog my thoughts until a month or two in and so wasn’t keeping good notes. On the other hand, as my year gets busier and the keen New Year feeling wears off, my notes might get worse as I forget to write the albums down!

So, let's go...click to the next post for January's installments.