Just One

Have you ever been playing the question game and someone asks you, "If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?" If so, this post is for you. If not, at least now you are thinking about it.

One of my true passions in life is music. No, not playing or singing, but listening. Now I'm not one of those music snobs. I don't have particulary peculiar tastes or think that anything is below me to listen to, I like just about anything. From pop (there's a reason it's called pop, short for popular) to country to metal to fusion to twang to rock to ska to...ok, you get the point! Music is just something I grew up with. Some of my oldest and fondest memories is riding with mom in the car and singing. Every day she would take me to preschool and we would sing the whole way there.

I was 6 years old and my uncle Brad was 14 and still living at home obviously. I was spending the summer days with grandma and Brad was usually at the farm or at least busy and out of the house. He had a shiny new stereo, with a cassette player. Of course I was drawn to it. One day I worked up enough nerve to hit the power button. I had studied him doing it for what seem liked weeks. It didn't blow up! So I waited a few seconds and pushed the play button. I was instantly hooked. It's a good thing because I was way too nervous to change cassettes.

It was a day I will always remember. The day when I became addicted to good (as I define it, everyones taste is different) music. So this journey you are about to take with me is about the above question. If only one, which one?

When you think of only listening to one album for the rest of your life you better choose carefully. Tons of things to consider. It doesn't necessarily have to have your favorite song, but it better have lots of good songs. It needs to be able to move you in multiple ways, have different moods (life has it's ups and downs). It needs to sound as good or better the 150th time you've heard it as when you heard that first note, otherwise you are going to get bored quickly. One of the things I think helps to determine if it's a good album is when the song ends, you are already thinking and hearing in your head how the next song starts, song after song after song, no matter how long its been since you listened to it.

When I thought of this blog topic, I wasn't sure it would last very long, because I had answered that question before. To myself mainly, but nevertheless, I had answered it. I knew what album I would choose. It had been the same for many years. But then I started thinking, ok, but what others are in contention, so I made a list of contenders and started putting them in my CD player and listening to no other CD for a few days, making notes and monitoring my love for them day one to day 5 at least. Some of them have dropped out at 5, I couldn't listen to them anymore. Obviously they didn't make the cut. A couple so far I almost had a physical reaction when I took them out of the player. I knew I needed to keep going with the "research," but I had really grown attached to them

What I discovered was my love for music only strengthened and I rediscovered my love for some really rich discs. My experiment is still ongoing, but I thought I would go ahead and start talking about what I had discovered so far. So sit down, listen up and get ready to discover music all over again. Have I changed my mind about my answer? I don't know yet, but it's a lot closer than I thought.

What's that? Oh, I didn't say what cassette was in the stereo? You're right, I didn't. But I'm sure you will find out soon enough.

That's nice - MH