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Thursday, January 20

I decided I'd have a project this year. A fun project, but still a bit of a sad, geeky one. I was thinking about all the CDs I have, and I thought that it's a shame I don't really listen to albums any more. I tend to just hit shuffle on my iPod. I used to lie in bed with a CD player and headphones and focus all my attention on the music... Ah, those were the days...

Anyway, so, here's my plan: I'll listen to all the studio albums by various artists in chronological order. (Perhaps it's just a sneaky way for me to justify filling the gaps in what I own - I couldn't possibly comment.) Where possible I'll listen to them properly, though I expect I will listen to some on the bus. But the main rule is that I have to listen to the whole album in a day, with no shuffling. (So if I don't manage to finish an album on the way to work I'm allowed to finish it later. And I'm listening to reconstructed versions of the original releases (a lot of the CD re-releases have extra tracks).

The first band I have chosen is The Kinks. I was very excited to find out that they re-issued a lot of their albums last year, so I could finally get my hands on them. Sadly, they haven't re-released their last three, Think Visual (1986), UK Jive (1989) and Phobia (1993). I guess I am let off listening to those, since I can't get them at the moment. (Perhaps if I became obsessed I could get a record player and look on eBay, but...) This leaves me with, I think, 20 Kinks albums to listen to. (Hooray!)

And so, I started this musical adventure by listening to their self titled album, released in 1964. The stand out song on this album, and indeed the only track most people would recognise as being by The Kinks, is 'You Really Got Me'. It's fairly different to the other tracks, a lot of which weren't written by The Kinks. The album really sounds like the 60s - lots of Beatles-esque harmonies and rockin' harmonica. The album doesn't include their other big 1964 hit - 'All Day and All of the Night' - which was only released as a single. ('You Really Got Me' went to #1 in the UK, whereas 'All Day and All of the Night' only reached #2.)

So, that's the first thing I've listened to following this mad idea. I'm really looking forward to listening to things I haven't heard for ages. (And the new things I've bought to fill the gaps!) I'm thinking David Bowie, Blur, The Police, Muse, Billy Joel, hmm, there are so many things to listen to! Maybe there are some other people out there who will join me in this quest.

Incidentally, I don't think it's just me who's become a little saddened by the almost disposable nature of a lot of music these days. Albums are finely crafted works of art, not things where you pick out the couple of tracks you like and ignore the rest. When I make mix tapes (I say tapes, CDs?) for friends I spend ages figuring out what order to put the tracks in. I was heartened to see this article on the BBC website: Are record clubs the new book clubs?. I'm not going so far as to buy £12,000 speakers, but what a great idea! :D

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