Several of my facebook friends have undertaken the arduous task of identifying the soundtrack to their lives via the “top ten” route. I enjoyed reading these so much that I thought I would, myself, jump into the top ten frenzy….with a minor twist.
My self-imposed rule is NO Rolling Stone or Beatles albums as these would monopolize the top positions requiring unwarranted restraint for the remaining slots. It says nothing about me nor my generation if, after a long-winded lament regarding the excruciating angst of choosing my all -time favorite album, I reveal, with a dramatic drum-roll, a tie between “Sticky Fingers” and “The White Album”.
Despite eliminating the Jaeger/Richards and Lennon/McCartney catalogues, this remained a difficult exercise. It was like eliminating the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico from your top 10 latino baseball players.
To whittle the list down to the final 10, I applied a few simple criteria…. 1) it traveled with me to college 2) it got recorded onto a cassette tape 3) I immediately bought the CD format upon availability 4) I listened to the record so much, my father recognized and mispronounced the name of the band for instance, The Led Zeppelins, The Queens) 5) listening with headphones brought me nearer to God.
White privilege, and what I am grateful for, is growing up in the golden era of the record business where vinyl albums were packaged and presented holistically and conceptually. The era when Rock and Roll dropped the “roll” and became just Rock. Producers and A&R execs agonized over the order of each song, debated which song to release as a single, and where as much time and effort was devoted to the album cover as to the actual sound mixing. Today, we download the digitized version and never get to appreciate the artistic genius of the lads peeing on a wall, or a zipper that opens onto Keith Richards’ mangina. Pure genius I tell you !!
Some fantastic records did not make the cut : Born to Run, Moving Pictures, Talking Heads ’77, Aja, Joshua Tree, Hunky Dory…all left on the Editor’s cutting board. My list will be presented, not in order of preference, but by date of release…earliest to latest. 7 of the 10 were released in the 1970’s and 4 were released in 1973…when I was in sixth grade – learning how to protect myself from Russian nuclear aggression on one day, and learning the “Troika” for the May Day dance on the other. Ironic or intentional ?…you make the call.