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Winner and still champion
One of the best things about getting the huge new iPod for my birthday is that it gives me carte blanche to rip our whole huge CD collection. But me being me, I'm going through it all, listening to each disc as I go and rating all the tracks. I don't actually tend to listen to albums much on the iPod: instead, I have three main playlists titled "Good", "Better" and "Creme de la Creme", based on how each track is rated. I leave the thing on shuffle, and pick which playlist I want depending on whether I'd prefer more variety or higher quality.
My musical tastes have gradually shifted over the years -- I do a lot more electronica and metal than I once did, following my fondness for kicky and loud music. But having inventoried something like 500 discs so far, I find that the head-and-shoulders Best Album of All Time in my book is still Between the Breaks... Live! by Stan Rogers. I mean, I am *very* strict about the Creme de la Creme list, but this one album has four tracks for it (Barrett's Privateers, The Mary Ellen Carter, The White Collar Holler and Rolling Down to Old Maui). The best album by one of the greatest musicians ever, still more powerful and beautiful than just about anything else out there.
(Just to drive home how eclectic my musical tastes are, my number-two album is Aqualung -- not nearly as pretty, but perhaps the best channeling of raw anger I've ever heard in music.)
So turning this into a good Friday conversation: do you have a favorite? I mean, the One Best Album Ever?
My musical tastes have gradually shifted over the years -- I do a lot more electronica and metal than I once did, following my fondness for kicky and loud music. But having inventoried something like 500 discs so far, I find that the head-and-shoulders Best Album of All Time in my book is still Between the Breaks... Live! by Stan Rogers. I mean, I am *very* strict about the Creme de la Creme list, but this one album has four tracks for it (Barrett's Privateers, The Mary Ellen Carter, The White Collar Holler and Rolling Down to Old Maui). The best album by one of the greatest musicians ever, still more powerful and beautiful than just about anything else out there.
(Just to drive home how eclectic my musical tastes are, my number-two album is Aqualung -- not nearly as pretty, but perhaps the best channeling of raw anger I've ever heard in music.)
So turning this into a good Friday conversation: do you have a favorite? I mean, the One Best Album Ever?
Re: Yes, but it changes.
CD-Rs in my case -- limitation of the particular laptop I'm using. But it's an automatic part of the process, because I'm doing the ripping on my work laptop, but the iPod is synch'ed to the desktop. So there's a CD backup of the MP3s in the middle, as the transfer mechanism. (I'm coming up on 30 CDs of MP3s already, and the stack is rising dangerously fast.)
Good collection of albums, BTW. I prefer Aqualung to Songs from the Wood, but
"Personality mix"?
Re: Yes, but it changes.
Personality mix -
I came up with the idea of a personality mix back in college. The first one was by accident.
It was the last day of my freshman year at Carnegie Mellon and I thought it fairly unlikely that I'd be coming back. I really didn't want to go home (read "my parents' new place in Connecticut") where I'd have to set up my room and didn't feel like home. I hung out with Zarf, who was also staying late, and we played the music game of "ooh, have you heard this?" and "you MUST know this one..."
That CD reminds me of Zarf, of KGB, my introduction to Filk, and comedy music even better than Doctor Demento had to offer.
Later, at U.Conn, I asked my friend Heather for a mix tape. She asked me what I'd like on it. I said to "make me a mix that's you". She made me a mix called "Read the Words, Dammit!"
Since then, I've asked many friends, near and absent, for personality mixes. For some, the songs describe who they were at the time they made the mix. For others, it's music they can't live without. Some chose to make a history of their lives.
Interested?
Re: Yes, but it changes.
Thanks, but I'll first see if I can acquire a copy online.
Antler Dance, coincidentally, the only album of theirs I haven't heard.
Oh, I recommend it strongly. Some of it's rather goofy (eg, "Hooked on Cow"), but "Drowning" is my personal favorite track of theirs ever -- a very simple electric-dulcimer piece with a very effective earworm. And it's got a lot of great pieces, including "Rasputin".
Interested?
Possible, although I'd have to give it some real thought. It's an interesting challenge...