I’m nearly 30.  When a person gets to being nearly 30, they tend to reflect on exactly what it is they’ve been doing to occupy their time for slightly longer than a quarter-century.  You know who you are at the present time, but how exactly did you become who you are right now?  Even who you are right now can be a tough concept to pin down.  You’re never again going to be precisely the same person that you are at this exact moment.  Everything you’ve done and experienced concocted a specific and time-sensitive brew resulting in you, right now.  You weren’t the same yesterday, and you won’t be the same 10 minutes from now.  A very young and very wise man once said, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss yourself.”  Or something like that.  You get the point.  You could get up from your computer right now, trip on the cord and shatter your leg in 3 places – leaving you with a crippling limp for your remaining years and forever altering the way you look at the world.  You could also jump in your car, push the scan button on your radio, and stumble haphazardly across the first single of what will become your favorite band of all time.  That shit is right around the corner every instant, lurking, waiting for you open yourself up to it.

There is an actual point here – as you reflect on what makes you you, certain things remind you of specific points in your life.  Music tends to stand out when we’re reminiscing and people tend to benchmark their formative years by the music available to them, constantly retroactively ‘soundtracking’ their lives.  With this in mind, I’ve decided to compile a list (a genuine fucking original I am, I know, but stay with me here).

Here are the parameters – one album for each year I’ve been alive.  1980 through 2009.  No band can have more than one album entry.  The selections will not necessarily be based on what I was listening to at the time, but based on release date.  I figure if anyone is actually reading this, you’re likely about the same age as I am, and I was probably drinking with you last night.  We’re in this together.  Some choices will be easy, some choices will be difficult. The twist here is that we will also attempt to develop ‘divisions’ – loose categories under which each year’s record can be classified.  Each division will be a band or person who, without which I probably would be spending most of my time listening to old Men At Work records.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  The Safety Dance kicks ass.

And the bands / divisions are…

Bob Dylan;
The Allman Brothers;
Miles Davis;
Led Zeppelin; and
The Ramones.

Now that we've set the groundwork, stay tuned for the year one entry from 1980.  Until then...
 


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