Arts & Culture
The Soundtrack of Your Life Decided for You
Columnist
There seems to be an infinite number of “greatest albums of all time” listings in the ever-changing information world. It is nearly guaranteed that at least one album every year will be given this dubious title. However, music critic Tom Moon sidesteps this undue grandeur in favor of something just as frivolous with his book “1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.”
This self-righteous tome is a rather hefty nearly 1,000 pages with recordings listed alphabetically by artist and cross- referenced in no less than three indexes. My initial interest in this book quickly waned as I leafed through the copious amounts of information and quickly realized I had absolutely no desire to listen to even half of these recordings no matter how long I have before I die.
To each their own I suppose, but my suspicions were raised when the first recording listed is Abba’s “Gold.” Sure, it’s a fun piece of disco schlock but would I feel slighted if I didn’t hear this entire album before shuffling off this mortal coil? I don’t think so.
I can admit that I favor rock music and I thought maybe if I only focused on the rock selections I could salvage some respect for this book. However, the inclusion of tired selections like Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” quickly laid that theory to rest. These albums may have been essential to my middle school existence but I can’t go so far as to say they’re among the best that the art form has to offer.
Moon manages to produce an intriguing concept that could make for interesting coffee shop conversations, but I think this one is definitely more suited to paging through in the book store than paying the $32.95 jacket price.
