Counting Down to the New Year

So a couple of months ago my friend Steve L. passed along one of those fun little "do this, tag me" surveys that are always floating around on Facebook. In this one, I was given an artist and an album, and I had to name best track, worst track, favorite lyric, favorite memory of the album. I passed it along a few times and played four or five different times, and it got me thinking about my own vinyl collection.

It won't cost much...
just your soul!

I usually got my records through the old Columbia and BMG Record clubs. For any of you youngsters out there in cyberspace, this was before you could just listen to your favorite song on YouTube. The way it worked for me was that I heard a song on the radio, then watched the song's video on MTV (yes, they actually played nothing else but music videos at one time), then I would order the album through the record club.

The record clubs were great on the front end, lousy in the fine print. You got 12 albums for about five dollars in shipping, but then you had to order at least two or three at regular club prices, which usually meant 20 bucks with shipping, which was a fortune to a teen in the eighties. So a lot of these came to me in that way.

Original countdown?
Top 12 Apostles.

My collection is eclectic—pop, rock, comedy, movie soundtracks, new wave, a little heavy metal, all of it from the '80s and early '90s—and almost all of it is stuff I never bothered to buy on CD once vinyl became an endangered species. What I'm going to do for the next 25 days, starting tomorrow, Dec. 7, is count down my top 25 favorite albums from my collection. Twenty-five albums in 25 days will take us to number one on New Year's Eve—counting down to the New Year, just like Casey Kasem used to do (look it up on Wikipedia, kids).

Like I tell my writing students, criteria are always the most important part of any "best of" or "favorites" list, so here are mine. First, the albums must have multiple "classic" singles—no one-hit wonders allowed. Second, no duplicates on bands; I've got six Rush albums, but I only get to pick one, my favorite of the

Favorite Rush memory: Listening to Rush song on the
radio, youngest daughter Chloe asks, "Who's that old
lady singing?" She's lucky I have a sense of humor.

bunch. Third, I have to have some kind of personal connection, some specific memory of the album that makes it significant.

Don't bother telling me that my order sucks, or some other album in that artist's collection is better. If that's what you think, fine, but if you've really got a problem with my picks, well...get your own blog. They're free right here at blogger.com. I'll throw in with some album art and maybe a YouTube video or two for fun.

Picking my top 25 was a fun diversion on a snow day when I didn't feel like spending all day working. There's a physical connection with the size of a 12-inch vinyl album—that thin, square cardboard jacket, the liner notes protecting the vinyl, the magic of that two-sided piece of plastic to take you back into a past that always seems either better or worse than you really remember it to be. I hope you have fun counting down with me. Tune in tomorrow for #25!