15 January 2013

The Top Ten Lists


In 2005, I saw the future of personal music was going to be carried on an MP3 player.  I had a vast collection of cds.  I always wish I had kept track each time I did an inventory as to where I was.  So when I wrote something like this, I could say something smart like, “in the summer of 2005 I had 1,328 cds in my collection.” 

The Rasselas, 2003-2006
 
In my car, I had a 72-disc case that I filled with burned cds.  Mix cds of my favourite songs from my favourite artists.  It was a great collection.  But I knew of the size limitations on MP3 players.  I knew that I couldn’t fit everything I owned on one.  I probably couldn’t even fit all 72 of those mixed cds, plus everything else that was missing from those onto an MP3 player. 

I came up with a plan: I’d make a list of my every song I liked from my top artists, and then pick a top ten.  That way, at least I’d get ten of those songs on there.   I had seventy-nine top ten lists.

Flash forward to the summer of 2012.  While browsing on Craigslist, I happened to find a seller practically giving away a new 6th Generation 8GB iPod Nano.  I got it, but then wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.  As I said in a previous post, my main iPod is a 160GB iPod Classic.  It’s got everything I cherish musically on it.  While going through a box of old stuff, I found the old composition book from 2005 with the lists in it.  I decided to do a current version, and put that music on the new iPod. 

I didn’t even look at the old book when I made the new lists.  I flipped through my iPod and listed the artists that would be included.  I came up with 134 of them.  As I started the process, I realized there were other artists that I needed to include, that I had forgotten.  I’m currently at 167 artists, with at least six more in the “research” mode.

So, the question becomes, who’s your favourite artist?  What are your top ten songs of theirs? Why?

I'll start going through mine, and even comparing and contrasting the 2012 lists with the 2005 lists.  It's amazing how they've evolved...