Minnesota Public Radio’s rockin’ radio station, The Current, is having a music trivia contest right now — I highly recommend entering each day for the $500 shopping spree at the Electric Fetus music store (nobody said you have to live in Minnesota to win).
The DJ that is hosting the contest announces in his ad that he will accompany the winner to advise them on how to
best spend the winnings. I’ve been entering the contest the last few days and would love to win, and have been thinking about how I would spend the money.
As I’ve always felt like my music education lacks history, I think I’d like to have a sampling of the very best albums from each important “genre”. My question is: what genres would you deem important enough to include, and any thoughts on the 2-3 albums I should buy to represent that genre (should I win, of course)?
3 Comments
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
- himay on Strangely Applicable
- himay on Malcom Gladwell
- himay on Malcom Gladwell
- jb on Malcom Gladwell
- bstop on Happy People Don’t Watch As Much TV
- himay on Malcom Gladwell
- bstop on Malcom Gladwell
- himay on Malcom Gladwell
Recent Posts
- Cooperative Blog Needs YOU
- Strangely Applicable
- Happy People Don’t Watch As Much TV
- Malcom Gladwell
- A picture is worth a thousand words
- Belated Election Elation
- Sarah Palin is a dipsh*t
- Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
- DJ Spooky will blow your mind
- The Election, Democracy, nasty politics …
That’s a tough one…especially because you would have to determine your organizational structure first. Would you go with the classic store-style organization: Classical, Opera, Rock, Blues, Country, Folk, Latin, Techno, Rap & R&B, or would you go with a chronological method:50-55, 55-60, etc…
Based on $15/CD, you can get approximately 33 discs which would equate to 11-12 categories (depending on the situation). In some ways, if you’re going for a survey, it might be good to get a boxed set: The Johnny Cash Legend or Unearthed discs come to mind.
If it where me, I’d go with this organization:
3 boxed sets ($120)–Early Blues being one of them
25 discs
Classic Rock: 3 discs
Indie Rock: 3 discs
Early Country: 3 discs
Alt-Country: 3 discs
Classica/Opera: 4 discs
Folk: 2 discs
Rap: 3 discs
Techno/Beats: 2 discs
Jazz: 2 discs
I didn’t include easy listening or swing or anything else like that mainly because it would take up discs that could be included in other genres…in some ways though, it might be more fun, to choose two or three of your favorite genres and really get a good sampling of them…
Anyway…just my thoughts…
This question has been tying me up in knots as I write and rewrite my answer in my head. Hours and hours of driving/thinking time…but my answer just continues to degrade. Mostly because the more I think the more I realize I don’t know shit about music. In fact, to tackle this question, I feel that I have to adopt the legitimate disclaimer that I am an average American who doesn’t know dick about any peoples’ history (including that of art and politics) other than our own, and nothing about even that before WWII, and even that is probably pressing it…before ~1968-1972 I’m about as deep as that Billy Joel song. Awesome.
This question is very hard for another reason. There are a lot of musicians that I think one should know about and be able to identify but that one maybe need not own. These musicians range from Count Basie to Kiss. Blah blah blah. This is not a productive/constructive paragraph.
Please zoom in on
http://www.historyshots.com/rockmusic/
I have a soft spot for the soul bit on this chart (vein at the bottom), but of most note is the Beatles hump and what followed (at the top, though avoid pre-1965 Beatles). I mean, fuck, check out 1969 on that chart from top to bottom. Or just look at these m-fing gems: http://dpg.knuftcom.com/1969.htm
In fact, start with those in your purchasing extravaganza. What a beautiful list.
After that, I mean really, do we need hair bands or mall rock or anything? I would even argue that you might not need to shop for anything later than the ’70s, unless you want to start in on the whatnot found on this really sort of facinating list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_alternative_rock
You may really good points…especially about not knowing peoples history…there’s probably a large contingent that would say the list should include pre-1900’s bluegrass, folk and work songs…that’s definitely a genre I missed…
I would argue that you need to shop for stuff later than the ’70s purely for the punk/hardcore and hip-hop influences. From a rock point of view you could be right though…