So What is this?

Up until the age of twelve I didn't really listen to much music. I did in the sense that I enjoyed it, played instruments, and would sing along to the music on the radio but I hadn't really developed my own sense of taste. The only snippet of artistic appreciation I had happened a few years prior with an obsession with Big Band Jazz from the 40's. This is likely due to the terrible midi recording of In the Mood by Glen Miller on the crappy Casio Keyboard we had growing up. There was something about the groove of the 12 bar blues that kept me entranced. From there, with the help of a tool called "Pandora", I discovered Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James among other wonderful artists. However, after a few months of this obsession my interest peaked, and dwindled away into listening to what every other 10-11 year old listens to, Weird Al(More on this genius later). What happened? Well, what other ten year old do you know that actively listens to 40's jazz? While my family encouraged my pursuits of the genre I had no way of connecting to my friends at school. Bringing up the idea to other ten year old boys resulted in confusion, and then of course ridicule. I learned quickly that I would need to drop it in order to be "cool." So while I kept my musical interest to myself, I tried hard to enjoy what other people liked instead of having my own sense of taste. 

SIDE NOTE/SOAP BOX MOMENT Weird Al is awesome though. Without hyperbole, Weird Al is hands down one of the most talented musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries. Without fail any time he parodies a song, not only is it current within the cultural zeitgeist of the time but it also is uncannily evocative to the original. He and his band are able to recreate the music they cover in their own way so that you know what you're listening to but you also know who he is making fun of. I will stop my lecture on why he's the most important musician of our lifetime now but someday you will all agree with me.

I don't recall exactly how it came to be but being a twelve year old who wanted to play electric guitar and having a father who was engrossed in rock music of the mid 1900's led me to Led Zeppelin. For two months I saved my weekly allowance to go to our local music store and I bought the first four albums on CD and then proceeded to spend all day, every day listening to these albums. Not only listening, but reading the liner notes,  reading about the composition on the internet, watching documentaries on the individual members of the band. One of the very first "rock" songs I learned on guitar was Babe I'm Gonna Leave You off of Led Zeppelin I. These four albums led me into a huge rabbit trail of adventure that has produced the smorgasbord of music that I listen to now. 

Where it all started

The rabbit trail of listening to all this classic rock led to me saying things like: "Man, music was so much better back in the 60's-80's than today." Yeah, I was that kid. This thought process culminated when I asked my parents at thirteen for a record player, to which the response was: "why?" I said something along the lines of "I want to listen to the music the way it was meant to be listened to." To which they said " You're nuts." Through enough persistent pestering and pleading  on Christmas Eve of 2010 I opened up my very first turntable and records. If I remember correctly my brother, knowing that my dad had bought me the turntable, bought me Wild Gold by Steppenwolf, Truth by Jeff Beck, and Chronicle by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Soon after this, I began a hobby(some call it an addiction) of finding and buying records that has lasted until today twelve years later. My three records has turned into well over 200 and month by month I add to the collection. 

It's more of a nostalgia thing for me now rather than me claiming it sounds better. There are indeed records that I will argue are sonically more lossless than their digital counterparts because of the historical value of the record (Read up on Tommy by The Who), but for the most part I buy records because it's fun. I enjoy taking the disc out of the sleeve, putting it on the turntable, and placing the needle on the record. I enjoy the culture and the fun of going from store to store trying to find records of artists I like. 

Where I am now.

Where I am now is I feel like I have all this knowledge about music that I like and not enough people to talk to it about. Rather, I could talk about music for hours/days/centuries but regular people aren't insane enough to follow me in that conversation. So, I want to have a space where I can write about it talk about it and if you read it and enjoy it cool, otherwise it's not for you it's for me.

I work from home and every day after lunch I put a record on my office turntable and listen to it. Sometimes it's the same record from yesterday sometimes it's the brand new one I just got. Other times it's a record I've listened to hundreds of times just for me to be able to concentrate on what I am doing. Since I'm doing this every day why not write about it?

What I plan on doing.

The idea in my head is to create a ranking of all the music that I own. Every day I can listen to a record but since there's so much I don't actually remember what I do or do not have, and a lot of times I don't remember what I think about the record if it's been a while since I've listened to it.

So in no particular order I want to listen, critique, and rank all of my records.

Well..

In no particular order after the first one.

Since it's what led me to music and records in the first place, I think it's appropriate to start with it.