2001-06-12 - 11:56 p.m.

Back in 1998

And here we have yet another entry with more geeky admissions about music.

So I guess that this entry is continued from here.

I mentioned before that I used to do my own record countdowns, but I stopped about 20 years ago. Actually, that isn't 100% true. I occasionally do countdowns now, but I limit myself to only music from one year. I know, I know, this sounds terribly anal retentive, but I do it for a number of reasons.

The main reason I do it is to make more cassette tapes to listen to in the car. I seem to have a pretty high boredom threshold, so usually after I listen to a tape 4 or 5 times, I really don't want to listen to it again for a while, if ever.

So what I've been doing is when I get the Billboard annual for a year, I make a set of tapes for the PREVIOUS year.

What I do is listen to all the CDs from that year, and put all the songs I like in my database, then sort them by how I like them using my database program. Then I put them on a set of tapes in reverse order. I spend a couple of months listening to the tapes while driving my car, and then when I'm done put them in order again, based on how I feel about them after really getting acquainted with them.

This sounds terribly obsessive-compulsive, doesn't it? But the fact is that I don't spend that much time on it, and it can take me months to get all the information together. I maybe only play with it a couple minutes every other day.

I'm just digging myself in deeper, aren't I? You all probably think I'm psychotic now.

Still, I nearly always find some undiscovered gem when I listen to all that music, some song hidden on a CD I bought for some other reason. A couple songs that I found this way were: "If These Walls Could Speak" by Shawn Colvin, "For All That Never Happens" by 10,000 Maniacs, and "Sweet Old World" by Lucinda Williams.

Anyway, due to the fact that I've had a very busy year, I'm a year behind. Since I just got the 2000 yearbook I should be doing 1999, but in fact I am doing 1998.

But thanks to the wonderful world of MP3s, now I'm taking a major detour.

Since I'm always wondering what various songs sound like, I decided to use my MP3 program to download as many of the songs that made the Billboard top 100 that I can get, that I don't already have - which is the vast majority of them.. When I am finished downloading them, I'll listen to them all at least once, and decide which I like and which I don't.

Now I know there is going to be a lot of stuff in there I am not going to like. I detest rap and I don't like Country & Western much better. And yet, how can I say I don't like it if I've never heard it?

And for all the record company stooges that are wringing their hands over the pennies in royalties they are losing by me downloading these songs - cheer up! Knowing me I'll probably wind up buying CDs I never would have due to this listening spree. I'll let you know how it turns out.