Saturday, January 10, 2009

A Contest

Today we are going to have a contest. There will be a prize for the winner*. If this goes well, there may be more.

If you had to choose five music albums that encapsulated American Music, both old and new, which would they be?

I will leave this for a week. Winner will be decided and announced next Saturday. Good luck.

*Winner will be determined by panel of judges that may include as many as three and as few as one persons.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

1)Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool"
2)"Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
3)Michael Jackson's "Thriller", not b/c I like it, but it was representative of the era
4)Pearl Jam's "Ten"
5)"Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison", 'cause I felt like I needed a country album

yeah, more of it "old" than new, but it seems like most of the 'new' music I hear is still pretty heavily influenced by the '90s.
The bands trying to be different, just don't seem to be making any headway.

em. said...

Nirvana= Bleach: hello, start of grunge, and, "smells like teen spirit," was only the number one song of the 90's
Beatles= the white album: yes, they are british, but look at what they did for American music, and from that came john lennon's song, "imagine."
Bob Dillion= the Free wheelin: Blowin in the wind...enough said,and he changed the way country music was played
Elvis= he had 16 multi-platnum albums within a 20 year period, but his first christmas album went multi-platum 9 times, and look at the phrases that came with him.
Bruce Springstien= Born in the USA

-I almost had to put 2PAC in there, but i think the first five had more of an impact.

em. said...

wait, also...nirvana started in the beginning of the 90's and for 10 years no song came close to, 'smells like teen spirit.'
-just a side note

Unknown said...

I waffled on Nirvana vs. Pear Jam.
I actually like Nirvana's acoustic album better than anything else they did. It kind of brings up a good question as to whether album sales/popularity are a good metric. The Ramones were never commercially popular, but were vastly influential.
*&^%! can I change mine?

momc said...

I have determined that you can't really encapsulate all of American Music in 5 albums, but you can get close in 10. So, if I HAD to stick to five:

The Essential Bruce Springsteen - nothing more American than The Boss

Will the Circle be Unbroken - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue/An American in Paris - Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic - genius, pure genius

The Very Best of Ray Charles

The Beach Boys Endless Summer

AND Five More to really complete the package:

The Very Best of Peter Paul & Mary

The Essential Glen Miller

My Way: the best of Frank Sinatra

Elvis Live from Hawaii

BB King Greatest Hits

Which still leaves out classic and progressive jazz, true bluegrass, metal (which I confess, I just don't care for), Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, The Eagles, Credence Clearwater, The Allman Brothers, disco, broadway, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkle, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan.....HELP!!

julie d said...

hey friend! took me a minute to figure out who 'i dream of scotland' was on my blog. but alas, i figured it out. i hope you're doing well these days. i have no idea where you're at or what you doing. last i heard you were in arkansas doing habitat for humanity stuff [i think] but who knows what you're up to now (: again, hope you're well!

sara said...

I can't do it in 5. I just can't.

Hey, your movie won last night!

luke said...

dude--are we going to do the year challenge thing soon?