My Ears Are Already Tired, And I Haven't Even Started
Entering this for the record:
The Project
Listen to every album in the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. Ai yi yi.
The Background
I took a stab at this once before, years ago, when I was trapped in a cubicle, bored off my bustle, and desperate for distraction. That, sadly, was a half-assed stab at best, and the attempt beached itself rather quickly after my job requirements and attention span both drifted. I return to it with renewed vigor, bolstered by recent reading and an obsessive deep-dive into Abigail Devoe's YouTube channel.
The Reasons
1) Fun
2) Filling in major gaps in my own cultural history
3) Shaking up my stagnating listening habits
4) Giving artists and genres I dislike a fair shot, with hopes of gaining appreciation
5) Self-betterment (more on that in a bit)
6) Because I can
The List
Yes, the Rolling Stone list is controversial and problematic with a generous helping of "...I'm sorry, what now?" but I'm going with it because it casts such a wide net-everything from Billie Holiday to Nine Inch Nails to Merle Haggard to My Chemical Romance to Mobb Deep to Earth, Wind & Fire to James Taylor to John Coltrane to Metallica to Taylor Swift to gods know what else. As an ending point, open to criticism; as a starting point, it'll do fine. I'll be using the 2020 version of the list, i.e. the last time they did a full survey, but I'll also throw in the nine or so titles they added for the 2023 "revision" (and hoo boy, do I have a few words on that nonsense).
The Preparations
Because this is me, I started by cobbling together a massive spreadsheet, then decided I also needed a massive stack of index cards to go with it. If it's worth engineering, it's worth over-engineering. Also, it keeps the voices away.
The Rules
1) Every album must be listened to in its entirety, preferably in one sitting. Even if it's an album I've heard a hundred times. Even if it's an album I've been purposefully avoiding for decades (especially if I've been avoiding it).
2) Albums will be selected in a random order. Hence the index cards. One of the problems I ran into the first time around is that I was going in list order, and when I ran into something I wasn't enthusiastic about I suddenly found I had Something Important to Do Right Now. So, new plan: commit to listening, then randomly select what I'll be listening to, no substitutions allowed.
3) No multitasking-every album will be given full attention. This here's the self-betterment part: I'm using this as a method to force myself away from the flippin' screen and take some meditative time, preferably outside, definitely with good headphones. Feeling the need for that right now.
4) No turning this into web content. This one might not stick, but I'm afraid that if I try to make this into a video series or a new blog or some such it's going to become yet another Thing that I feel guilty about not finishing. So for now, I'm keeping it for me. My output will be limited to the index cards: a star rating, a few lines of commentary, a few choice tracks, and that's it. I might very well change my mind, because in truth it would make a good something-or-other, but I can't finish the video projects and the music blog I already have, and to review, this is five hundred albums.
The Beginning
I'll start as soon as I'm done setting up the index cards, which should be today. Wish me luck.
I welcome input! And also Advil. Plenty of Advil.