That's the number.
I didn't know what it would be when I started but that's where it came out.
968.
Albums.
I don't know how long in minutes or hours but I know that I started this listening project in 2015 and only just finished today.
So, what is this?
I was a teenager in 1978. I turned 13. It's in those teen years that we develop our musical tastes. What speaks to us. What we relate to. We become possessive of bands that we "discover" and think they are "sell outs" when they become popular and sell millions of records.
Life was different in the days between 1978 and 1982. Not just for me. Every teenager goes through changes and those stories are unique and boring and I'm not going to write my autobiography here.
Life was different for us growing up in that era inasmuch as we had some access to new music or popular music but it was from varied and, sometimes, veiled places. It was just plain hard to hear new music, underground music, different music. Not like it is today. On our phones. And I'm thrilled about that. I LOVE the access we have today. But it was not the same back in the old days....
First there was, of course, top 40 radio. I didn't JUST listen to WNBC in the afternoon to hear the hits of the day. I put my boxy tape recorder next to the speaker on my Technics stereo, held down PLAY & RECORD and just walked away, making sure to return in either 30 minutes or 45, depending on what length tapes I had lying around. Then I would listen back, over and over, and decide, with great and delicate precision, which song represented the album I would fork over cash to own.
When I was just a little older I discovered Trouser Press. This was after a dalliance with CREEM (which seemed to pander to the stadium rock that already had legions of fans) and Rolling Stone, which was fun in 77 when it featured Star Wars on the cover (and an interview with George Lucas where he said that there would be NINE movies in total! 3 sequels followed by 3 prequels where Mark Hamill would play his own father and then 3 sequels to the original 3 where Mark would play the older Luke. It was a glorious idea. I never forgot it. Unless I imagined it.)
No. Trouser Press was the one for me. One issue (I don't recall which) and I was hooked. I subscribed so I could get my "flexi-disk" singles. The first one I got was Adam & the Ants "A.N.T.S." to the tune of YMCA! And it was in the back of TP that I heard of bands like Romeo Void and X. Although X was written about in Time in 1981 along with The Blasters as having the Album of the Year. But I had already discovered them so it was vindication. And, since X never really got out of cult status I never had to call them sell-outs. Bands I had never heard of plus stores. Stores! Like Trash & Vaudeville in that mysterious "Greenwich Village" in NY. And Sounds records. And what were "Beatle Boots", anyway? And somewhere, I just knew it, in the caverns of the lower part of Manhattan, I would find an import copy of Adam & the Ants' "Dirk Wears White Sox". (I did and my father could not believe I would spent $14 on a record!)
Later, in the confines of the unfinished attic I had converted into my bedroom I would listen, deep into the night, to college radio. Where "The Kid" on WFMU played the entire album of Martin Briley's "Fear of the Unknown", an album upon mentioning it, caused Robbie Rist to run to his van and show proof that it was among his favorite "rekkids". The Kid let me come in an spin a couple records once. He promised me an entire show but, when I arrived, platters in tow, he had forgotten that he did that and let me sit and spin ONE record. His. David Bowie's "Andy Warhol". A resentment of Bowie festered throughout my life because of that event.
But that's where I heard R.E.M.'s "1,000,000" for the first time. And all of Gary Numan's "The Pleasure Principle", an artist I had already fallen in love with because my friend and crush, Toby, loved Gary. And turned me on to him, Human Sexual Response and The Dickies.
My buddy, Pete and I would go to the record store in Maine on our way to the Pizza Parlor to play Defender, or on the way back and we would chug through the new releases. His faves were Ozzy Osbourne (We went to see him in concert at the Bangor State Fair. I stood 3 people from the stage and Randy Rhodes looked right at me! Def Leppard opened...when the drummer still had both arms!), Van Halen, Sammy Hagar. He got The Stray Cats album when I picked up Elvis Costello's "Imperial Bedroom". I picked up Dead Kennedys "Plastic Surgery Disasters" when he was air guitaring to Iron Maiden. (We both air guitared to that, actually. It's where I developed my air guitar chops)
I could go on and on. But the point is that I loved music. But, who could listen to it all?
Me. Now.
Thanks to streaming and some rudimentary Wikipediaing, I compiled a list of as many Rock albums released during 1978-1982, those teen years and got to listening.
I created a spreadsheet to catalog release dates along with links to Allmusic reviews, Pitchfork, if they reviewed the album, and my own blog, www.septenary.blogspot.com, if I covered it in a Listening Post.
Anal. I know. But, who would expect anything less from an obsessive compulsive project such as this?
Of equal interest to discovering if the stuff I already loved, the music that formed me and informed me, still held up, there was the archeology of the entire affair. Would I discover music that I might have missed? Would there be something I might've loved that went unheard? Might I have newfound affection for music I had disregarded or dismissed back then?
The answers to those questions are resounded Yeses.
I liked Punk less than I thought I remembered. Anything outside of what I already knew was grating. Annoying.
But the Post-Punk, The Pop Group, Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, John Foxx, Captain Beefheart and The Residents all surprised me, excited me, made me wonder if I would've loved it back then or if I had to be the person I am now.
I waited 30+ years to listen to Glenn Branca's The Ascension, even though I'd read about it and loved him in theory. It was worth the wait. Brilliant.
Anvil? I thought they were a joke. Turns out they shred.
Demon? I never heard of them. Too bad. I would've probably air guitared to them as well.
I heard the name Mink Deville but never gave the Springsteen-esque guy much due. Too bad.
And Bobb Trimble? Who knew? Almost no one since he only released two albums and only about 500 copies of each.
Saxon, Willy Nile & Young Marble Giants. The Ruts, Magnum, New England.
Great stuff.
And there's a lot, a LOT, of bad stuff out there. I won't go down the list but I will say that The Beach Boys...Rick Derringer....Cocteau Twins...I will never forgive you for that time you took for me.
Oh. And regardless of Pitchfork, I fucking HATE The Raincoats.
Anyway.
Here's the top 210 albums. The first 59 are 5 star records. The rest got 4.5.
In addition, I listed "Heart Songs" or "Starred Tracks", which is how you let Apple Music or Spotify learn what you like and profile you.
If you want the entire spreadsheet, complete with links, let me know and I will send you a link.