Why on earth do I do these? They are pretty silly, no?
The bottom line is that I enjoy it. I like lists. I like writing lists – on music mainly, but other things too. I like reading lists. I’ll read lists by complete strangers on music I barely know. They’re prompts, inspirations, conversation starters, reminders.
I don’t think lists have much authority, if any. I don’t think that my lists have much authority even over me. At best, they tell me what I thought interesting at a given snapshot of time, but half an hour later it’s always possible that they’d look a little different. I don’t think others’ lists have any authority either, even lists created by professionals, like critics. They might have greater insights, or a broader view, but again they’re little more that what they thought interesting at a given snapshot of time. I wonder that perhaps aggregates of lists have more authority. If a big-enough proportion of people all hold that a given record is good, then it increases the odds that it is of interest, but I still would be circumspect about holding the view as possessing an authority we are all bound to adhere to.
Anyway – I don’t write lists to assert any authority. They are supposed to be fun.
I enjoy writing lists because the exercise forces me to listen to things I perhaps wouldn’t have done otherwise. Left to my devices, I’ll listen to albums as they occur to me – typically albums I have recently bought, but other things that are on my mind for one reason or another. This will increase the odds that albums and artists are liable to fall through the cracks. I’ve got a lot of records – it’s easy to forget stuff. Writing a list pushes me to try to remember things that correspond to that list. This is very plain in relation to my annual lists – the lists I have done for specific years (the last one I did was 1980 about a year ago), but this list has had a similar outcome. I’ve been listening to songs I have neglected and that’s great.
I had two, quite different, prompts to kickstart this project. One was a list I wrote about 15 or so years ago. My friend Mandi, I think, had asked me to knock up a list of my top 40 songs or something similar. It’s deep in the innards of my Facebook account but I came across it several months back. It wasn’t a terrible list but it was quite out of date. Also, I remembered that I had knocked it up in a hurry. I hadn’t done due diligence and made sure that other songs had been considered. Of course, this is not important, really, but it’s the sort of thing that bothers me a little. I sort of wanted to write a list that was more thorough – a list of my favourite favourite songs – something concise and (sort of) definitive.
The other prompt was the desire to have a longer playlist of songs that I could put on my phone. It had to be long enough that songs would not be repeated too often, but short enough that there would be some enhanced familiarity with them. Vincent is four now and pays some attention to what I play in the car. Not a lot, as it stands, but I imagine that unless I start to bring into the car his own headphones (something I am reluctant to do), he is going to become more and more familiar with particular songs and the possibility that my enthusiasm will become infectious will hopefully increase and that, together, we will begin to bond over some of the songs. I don’t imagine for one moment that we will bond over all of the songs, or even necessarily a majority of them – just some is sufficient, or at least, would be nice.
So I began with a long list of about 4,000 songs. Is that a lot? I don’t think so, but conversations suggest that some do. Anyway, I divided this list into shorter lists of 20 songs. I listened to each and halved them. This halved the overall list, and then I repeated the process; and then again. Anyway, I eventually made it down to 750 – a good number for the second purpose: a playlist for the car. This is the list I’ve been sharing recently.
I dithered whether or not to push for the second purpose. After all, I really loved all of those 750 and to get it down to something like 50 would mean to reject another 700. That is hard. Nonetheless, after a short break, I’ve decided to press on. Again, the 750 is divided into groups of 20, and again, I am selecting 10 out of each 20. I’m being stricter, so 750 will likely become 375 (400 at the max). I’ll repeat and then, 200. Again, and again and we’ll have fifty.
The bottom line, though, is that I think this is fun. Silly, nerdy, unnecessary, redundant even, probably. One thing it isn’t, though, is a waste of time – anything that is fun is by definition a worthwhile use of time so long as it’s not interfering with other responsibilities, which I am being careful to ensure that it’s not.
I hope that you think it fun too, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t.
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