As far as I can determine, there only seem to be four albums from the 1930's on BEA's database. Now, I'm a huge fan of getting the biggest variety possible on this site, and I don't see why decades should be any different. So I was wondering if it's possible for us to make a concerted effort to expand the amount of older albums on the databse. Of course, it'll never be on par with the 1990's simply due to there not being as many albums being made then, but it's something I'd like to see slightly more emphasis on it.
Also, the 1930's are the only decade to not have any albums represented on the Overall Chart. I'm not going to recommend we all pile 1930's albums onto our charts in an attempt to embellish the 30's standing on the chart, I just want to encourage everyone to give the following albums a listen, and see if we can find enough of us who appreciate them to put at least one of these on the Overall chart.
A large part of the reason that there are so few 1930s albums on the site is that the LP wasn't invented until 1948. Before then, "albums" were actually just collections of singles. Needless to say, this was not particularly popular way of disseminating or listening to music and the album format didn't actually take off until the mid-50s. For music before that time, I would actually recommend listening to compilations. If you're interested, I made a chart to help get you started:
Aside from that Fats Waller collection, I don't know if I ever even found an online version of an original album from the 1930s. The first proper album I listened to was from 1940, Dust Bowl Ballads.
A large part of the reason that there are so few 1930s albums on the site is that the LP wasn't invented until 1948. Before then, "albums" were actually just collections of singles.
That was released as a four-disc set (link). My main point, though, is just that the lack of '30s albums in the database is not due to a bias against old music (at least not primarily). If you really want to encourage people to open up to music from that period, I think compilations are a far better option than original albums.
Now, I'm a huge fan of getting the biggest variety possible on this site, and I don't see why decades should be any different.
Not really the point of the site....
However, you will find that a lot of the music from that era IS on BEA in the form of compilations. Particularly from the late 80's and early 90's, when record companies went nuts with their back catalogs on the new cd format.
These, and, many others, are well worth exploring. Compilations can be good things. _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
The Chronological Classics series (or as it was called for almost a decade because of a misspelling, the Chronogical Classics series) is chock full of music from that time period as well and iirc there are a decent amount of those in the database. What I would be open to BEA doing would be allowing us to add recording dates (or ranges) to albums and then make decade charts based on recording date because it is annoying to be unable to do a list of, say, 100 great 1930s albums.
The Chronological Classics series (or as it was called for almost a decade because of a misspelling, the Chronogical Classics series) is chock full of music from that time period as well and iirc there are a decent amount of those in the database. What I would be open to BEA doing would be allowing us to add recording dates (or ranges) to albums and then make decade charts based on recording date because it is annoying to be unable to do a list of, say, 100 great 1930s albums.
Totally agree. Optimally, compilations would be archived with a range of recording dates that could be searched on, but a simpler solution might be to use the tagging system when it comes online. Albums could be tagged with particular decades, for example.
The Chronological Classics series (or as it was called for almost a decade because of a misspelling, the Chronogical Classics series) is chock full of music from that time period as well and iirc there are a decent amount of those in the database. What I would be open to BEA doing would be allowing us to add recording dates (or ranges) to albums and then make decade charts based on recording date because it is annoying to be unable to do a list of, say, 100 great 1930s albums.
Yeah, this is the primary reason I was hoping for more 1930's original release albums, but this would be even better!
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Romanelli
