Listening to the History of Popular Music - Music

alelsupreme

Awful.

Gender: Male

Age: 27

Do you intend to go all the way to present day with this?
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Romanelli wrote:

We're all fucked, lads.

sp4cetiger

alelsupreme wrote:

Do you intend to go all the way to present day with this?

That's the hope. Who knows how long it will really last, though. My obsessions come and go.

alelsupreme

Awful.

Gender: Male

Age: 27

In which case ohhhh man, you're gonna have so much to listen to when you reach the 60's and beyond.
_________________

Romanelli wrote:

We're all fucked, lads.

sp4cetiger

alelsupreme wrote:

In which case ohhhh man, you're gonna have so much to listen to when you reach the 60's and beyond.

Yeah, I already started making lists up to 1965 and it's a bit intimidating... but also really exciting. I figure I should live at least another 30 years, though, so that should be plenty of time. Think

sp4cetiger

Here's 1959, separated (roughly) by genre to make it a bit easier to parse:

Jazz
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Kind of Blue (Miles Davis) - most acclaimed jazz album of all time, breakthrough in modal jazz
Time Out (Dave Brubeck) - first platinum jazz album, experiments w/time signatures
Mingus Ah Um (Charles Mingus) - national recording registry, acclaimed post-bop
Mingus Dynasty - grammy hall of fame, acclaimed post-bop
The Shape of Jazz to Come (Ornette Coleman) - national recording registry, free jazz landmark
Jazz in Silhouette (sun ra) - Penguin core collection
Sing along with Basie - grammy hall of fame
The Music from Peter Gunn (Henry Mancini) - first Grammy Album of the Year, jazz+rock score to TV series
Very Saxy (Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis) - Penguin core collection, four tenor saxophones
Blowin the Blues Away (Horace Silver) - Penguin core collection, jazz piano
Moanin’ in the Moonlight (Howlin' Wolf) - first full-length from blues legend
Cannonball Adderly Quintet in San Francisco - launched soul jazz
Moanin' (Art Blakey) - acclaimed hard bop recording
5 By Monk By 5 (Thelonious Monk) - acclaimed Monk recording
Byrd in Hand (Donald Byrd) - pioneering soul/funk with jazz
The Amazing Nina Simone (Nina Simone) - representative recordings from Grammy Hall of Fame artist

Rock and Roll
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Chuck Berry is on Top - most acclaimed album of rr hof artist
Ritchie Valens - only album from rr hof artist
Go Bo Diddley - Rolling Stone top 500
The Fabulous Wailers - early garage rock band

Blues
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Down and Out Blues (Sonny Boy Williamson) - Blues Hall of Fame

R&B
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The Genius of Ray Charles - acclaimed multi-genre album
Please Please Please (James Brown) - debut

Country
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Lightnin Hopkins - representative recordings from guitar legend
Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (Marty Robbins) - landmark country album

Traditional pop
-----------------
Come Dance with Me! (Frank Sinatra) - his most successful album, Grammy album of the year
No One Cares (Frank Sinatra) - Sinatra at his darkest

Gospel
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Satan Is Real (Louvin Brothers) - controversial and acclaimed gospel album from country duo

Other
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Belafonte at Carnegie - grammy hall, "calypso" pop
Chega de Sauda (Joao Gilberto) - first bossa nova album
Blind Joe Death (John Fahey) - first important indie album, guitar pioneer
Exploring New Sounds In Stereo (Juan García Esquivel) - king of "lounge" music
N° 2 (Serge Gainsbourg) - representative recordings from renowned French popular musician

Last edited by sp4cetiger on 10/11/2013 01:47; edited 1 time in total

Guest

You're missing a few things:

Moanin' by Art Blakey.
5 By Monk By 5 by Thelonious Monk
Other Sounds by Yusef Lateef
Byrd In Hand by Donald Byrd
No One Cares by Frank Sinatra (far superior to Come Dance With Me)
Exploring New Sounds In Stereo by Esquivel

meccalecca

Voice of Reason

Gender: Male

Location: The Land of Enchantment

I've basically been doing this same project for the last year or more too. it's taking forever and you'll never be satisfied with how many records you listened to. there will always be something you missed.

for 1959 i would also suggest

Nina Simone - The Amazing Nina Simone
Serge Gainsbourg - No. 2
Louvin Brothers - Satan Is Real

all 3 are albums you'll likely return to for the rest of your life
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http://jonnyleather.com

sp4cetiger

So great, thanks guys. I'll do a little research on those. At the moment, quantity isn't a problem mainly because I'm always looking for things to listen to while my wife isn't around. She tends not to like jazz, so we skip over most of that for our together listening.

meccalecca wrote:

it's taking forever and you'll never be satisfied with how many records you listened to. there will always be something you missed.

Yeah, I'm trying to keep the mentality that I don't need to hit everything on the first run through and that the "historical" albums are just a starting point for future listening. For example, lethal suggested a Thelonious Monk album that wasn't on my initial list, but I probably would have listened to it anyway because I was already a fan of his more famous albums.

Regardless, I hope this thread will be useful to others interested in early recorded music. Also, I made a chart compiling some of my favorite stuff from the pre-album era here:

Best Recordings 1920-1949

It's far from complete, but I don't see a natural stopping point for it, so I figured I'd share it now. It includes detailed notes for some of them, with more to come. I'm also updating my year charts as I go.

meccalecca

Voice of Reason

Gender: Male

Location: The Land of Enchantment

sp4cetiger wrote:

Yeah, I'm trying to keep the mentality that I don't need to hit everything on the first run through and that the "historical" albums are just a starting point for future listening. For example, lethal suggested a Thelonious Monk album that wasn't on my initial list, but I probably would have listened to it anyway because I was already a fan of his more famous albums.

Yeah, that's the right approach. it's just impossible to listen to everything. And even if you could, it's exhausting. But I think you're probably already at the point where you're seeing artists from a completely different perspective because of the historical context of time. It's incredible listening to a specific time period and hitting an album that totally breaks down walls and creates something new.
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sp4cetiger

meccalecca wrote:

Yeah, that's the right approach. it's just impossible to listen to everything. And even if you could, it's exhausting. But I think you're probably already at the point where you're seeing artists from a completely different perspective because of the historical context of time. It's incredible listening to a specific time period and hitting an album that totally breaks down walls and creates something new.

Perfectly put, that's exactly the effect I'm looking for. I did a similar thing with horror films over the course of the last few years and it was a blast. I remember seeing "Night of the Living Dead" after the scads of '60s Vincent Price flicks. It made the movie extra special, even though I had seen it before and enjoyed it.