Album Tagging

So, Mando Mama tagged me with the task of naming the 7 best albums. I don't have my list yet but it's shaping up. As I've been thinking about this, I've imposed my own set of rules on it. First, there are certain types of music I've excluded. For example, while someone could certainly pick the best or most influential rap/hip-hop album of all time, that someone is not me. I don't listen to that genre enough to have a qualified opinion. Classical is also tough because deceased classical composers like Chopin and Bach did not put out albums. If you're going to list a favorite classical recording, then you have to get into things like which orchestra, which conductor, etc. For example, I have a recording of Orff's Carmina Burana by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell that I'm particularly fond of. I don't think that counts. My final rule is that the list cannot contain any album by Led Zeppelin. Partly this is because I like to piss people off but also because this is not a list of the 7 most overrated bands of all time.

So I've basically decided that I will only pick my seven from albums I actually own. This seems fair because it makes sense that if I considered an album to be one of the best of all time, I would have it in my possession. Of course, considering that I only own a couple hundred albums, this will limit things a bit and in addition to the aforementioned Led Zeppelin, it will also exclude the Rolling Stones, The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and a number of other bands whose music sounds decidedly better while one is actively hallucinating.

I know that these criteria will offend some folks who consider themselves music purists or have more of an appreciation for the history of recorded music than I do. My goal is not to offend anyone else's choice of music. But hey, if you are offended, fuck you. It's my list.