You don’t necessarily need to be a grandfather to check your record collection and tot up how many of the 100 Influential albums you’ve managed to amass over the years. In fact, I know people half my age who have a much more comprehensive catalogue than mine.
When I spotted that a Facebook ‘friend’ had completed the exercise and arrived at an impressive 75, I just had to have a go. I carefully scrolled through the 100 and checked the boxes for those I have. My sum total? 33.
A little voice tells me to scurry over to Spotify for a sample of the 67 titles that have passed me by. But it’s the louder voice I pay attention to. It’s telling me that a high proportion of the shortfall will not be worth the effort, and it’s best to let sleeping discs lie.
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Photo credit: Dale Harvey) |
If anyone has a copy of The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu, I’d be really interested to learn in which way it was influential. I’d never heard of it before seeing the list.
Are we allowed to count albums we once owned but have lost/given away/lent to mistaken girlfriends? If so, my score goes up from 32 to about, erm, 42.
ReplyDeleteAnd what do they mean by 'influential', I wonder? I might have to blog about that ...
Oh yes, and btw, downloads don't count!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Tim. Downloads, wonderful though they are, should not be counted.
DeleteI'm very wary of Facebook apps generally and although I'd love to know what the album titles are I'm resisting at the moment. The titles you have listed here have done nothing to change my mind, or make me think that I may secretly be harbouring a collector's item.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Nell, I picked some pretty obscure titles. Alan's right, though, you can easily by-pass the FB app.
DeleteI think I managed 5 which I suspect gives me some kind of inverted bragging power. (Marilyn, you can Google the list and thus by-pass the Facebook App if you prefer)
ReplyDeleteMost of my title harken back to days of yore, Alan. It's still unclear to me, how these albums have qualified as 'influential'.
DeleteThe Modern Dance was first released in the late 70s, moving punk into no-wave. It was intelligent, musically complex, and radically different from other music of the time so got picked up in the punk explosion. The band had a lead singer with a weird voice, guitars bass and drums plus sax and a synth used not as a keyboard but to make industrial type sounds. Pere Ubu, the band, were fabulous live. I think the album's influence extends into electronica, industrial music, the miserablists, and indie music generally. Give it a listen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing that up, Anonymous. Unfortunately, The Modern Dance isn't available on Spotify, but I'll give some of the later stuff a listen.
Deletehi - same anonymous. Found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWjjiITyjNs
ReplyDeleteI haven't checked it all but i can hear the title track playing