by release date and post thoughts/musings/comments.

Starting tomorrow.

how many do you have?

This would be like a decade long project for me.

this would also take a long time to organize, unless you already have all your albums in some sort of database and can sort them by release date.

I've done this and it is pretty awesome. Currently, I am listening to every album I own by artist and in chronological order.

This is a worthy project.

But what does ITT stand for? Are you enrolling in that crappy tech school on TV?

Only 412.




Sure do. Sure can.




Correct. This is my ITT Tech term paper.*





*Actually, it stands for 'In This Thread'.

001. Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (1956)




A legendary debut. I'm afraid to say anything because anything I have to say about this album can be responded to with a cutting "Obviously." comment from someone else.

The first track is 'Blue Suede Shoes'. That means something. Obviously. Like a lot of older debuts, it seems to be made up of almost entirely covers. Some of them -- Tutti Frutti, for instance -- don't seem to be all that different from the original.

That said, it is Elvis Presley. The problem with this album is that I can't help but compare it to his later stuff. And no matter how good a vanilla ice cream cone can be, it's nothing next to a hot fudge sundae.

What do you mean his older stuff? That was his first studio album. You mean the '54-'55 singles? I don't think they're any better or worse than this album.

By 'older stuff', I mean 'oops, typo'.

I meant his later stuff. I guess I just can't help but refer to anything by Elvis as older stuff.

Are going to post about all 400 of them? Just curious...

We'll see.

It's very likely that I'll post about five or six then give up. But the intention is for each.


If that doesn't up my postcount, what will?

You can go ahead and give up now.

what? everyone doesn't already have their music collection sorted by release date and maybe even date of purchase?

I disagree...keep plowing forward. I think it would be incredible if you gave your thoughts on the albums you own. Even if you don't fancy yourself as a critic thoughts about albums from people are cool to read. Keep going.

So you're gonna post comments on 412 albums?

...Damn

What he said.

even at 400-ish albums, i think this'd be a ridiculous effort. good luck. but for me and my 1200+ albums, i'd probably have at least an additional half to 75% of that by the time i finished.

That's the best part. By the time I finish, I'll have a ton more albums. So I'll have to do the appendix in chrono order. In theory, this could never end.


Unless I listen a lot and buy a little.

I like doing stuff like this. It'll take you a long time, and you'll probably have to do it intermittently. It's always kind of cool to make yourself go back and listen to all of the albums you own in a particular context. I'm currently going through my entire collection (1000+, I think) semi-alphabetically, listening to everything in single-artist (and related/similar artists sometimes) blocks. I've even been trying to download albums I don't have by some artists so that I have more complete discographies. In some cases I've gone so far as to download 5 or 6 albums by bands that I really only own one album by. At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky to be half way through by the end of this year.

It's gonna be hard to maintain the high degree of insight you achieved with that first one.

If Sufjan can do the States project...

f*ck the naysayers- this is a worthy project- it can help you figure out holes in your collection and weed out CDs that you will never listen to again not to mention see a progression of music (is this going to be "rock" only?) My opinion is that you get a increased level of appreciation for it if you see how it grew chronologically. The comments are interesting but I would lay off a 'critique' approach (as you said, the record store clerks would then get on your ass etc) and instead post something more subjective- just what music-related thoughts the albums provoked etc.