My old pal and brother-in-arms, Evil Greg, is currently undertaking a Tumblr Blog Project in which he revisits 52 albums of his youth through the brutal lens of the present. It’s an eye-opening experience he’s sure to regret, and he’s not even halfway through. Check it out, then come back, because I’m stealing his idea.
I can’t do an “Old 52,” though, not the way Greg’s doing it. The total library of What I’ve Heard is comparatively small to that of Evil Greg and probably most serious music listeners. Oh yes, I’ve done terrible by my religion. I have seldom if ever been a “fresh” music listener, despite my passion for the medium. I get stuck in phases of bands, usually old ones, sometimes for years. Meanwhile, the assimilation of new stuff (“new” most often meaning “new to me”) is more an IV drip than an injection. When checking in with fellow music junkies, I inevitably have to cover for the fact that I’m not keeping up with anything at all.
Not to say I never find new stuff or move on from old stuff. It happens, but moreso on a geological timetable than a standard one. Having been inspired by Evil Greg, though, I think enough eons have passed to put my own spin on the music of my youth.
I give you the archives of Mr. Brick’s Top Picks.
Mr. Brick was one of the first internet handles I used, mostly on ICQ. No surprise, of course, the internet will play a crucial role in this series. I made permanent internet residence in the banner Year of 2000, at the age of 13. My vessel was a Compaq Presario, boasting a mammoth 6 GB hard drive, USB ports in the front, and…a CD-RW drive. I got my hands on this rig during the very zenith of Napster, and the novelty of gluttonous music piracy would not wear off until long after Napster was buried. Over the first few years of high school, I made a total of 14 mix CDs from my plunders. I rarely made mixes tailored to a theme; rather, I just burned stuff into a coherent list so I could play them in the car. (And before that, the Discman. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long, long time…)
I’ll do a post for each volume with a full tracklist, track-by-track breakdown (concurrent with what I am sure will be a mental breakdown), and any relevant media I deem fit to share. I will rate the music using my Words. To paraphrase Mr. Ebert, these albums live in a world without stars.
I don’t know that we’ll learn anything, but maybe we’ll have some fun. See you at the door.