Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 417] 987 Album Listens: One Fan’s Quest to Rank His Classic Rock Favorites

Transcript

[EP 417] 987 Album Listens: One Fan’s Quest to Rank His Classic Rock Favorites · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: That's not really a Zeppelin guy. I mean, I like
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: some of their stuff, but I was worried on this
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: project that it was going to be too loud, that
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I was going to get Robert Plant fatigue. I know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: all the radio hits, you know, I'm not sure I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: could hear Stairway to Heaven again. And I'll tell you,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: they are number two on my list right now. And
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: they are only a fraction of a point behind the doors.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Not only would I not have expected Zeppelin to be
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in my top 10, I wouldn't have expected them to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: be my one or two. But we're totally booked. Rock
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and roll! Wow. I think I'll leave you to your reading.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll. Rock
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and roll!
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: We are totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: classic rock's greatest songs, albums, and artists. A big thank
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: you to Nick Hanson. He is our most recent Patreon supporter.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Nick is now a Backstage Pass member. He will get
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: every episode in both audio and video completely commercial free,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: along with early access to new episodes. If you would
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: like to grab the backstage pass, it's just $ 5 a month.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Click the link in the show notes or go to BookedOnRock.com.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Now onto our guest, Aaron Belansky. He has taken his
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: lifelong love of classic rock and turned it into an
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: ambitious experiment called The Review Board. Listening to the complete
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: catalogs of 29 artists, three times each, scoring 329 albums
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: along the way to determine his definitive personal top 10.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And he's doing all 987 listens while walking, roughly 740
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: hours of music and an estimated 2,000 miles, combining three
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: of his passions, music, walking, and storytelling. Aaron, welcome to
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: the podcast.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, positively, my pleasure. Thank you.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Wow, this is amazing, man. When did this idea begin
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: for you?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say it began 2024-ish. I was doing
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: one of my long walks from Boston to New York City.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And in preparation for that, I created a 17-hour playlist.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And I was listening to it pretty religiously as I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: trained for that walk. So in training, I listened to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that playlist while walking from Boston to New York City.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I listened to that playlist. Then I did another walk
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: from Washington, D.C. to New York City, trained for it,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: listened to the playlist. So by the time I finished
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the D.C. walk last year, that 17-hour playlist, I was
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: already bored and sick of it. I just couldn't even
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: fathom listening to it anymore. So it was probably midway
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: through one of those walks that I thought about, you know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: what can I do to continue to listen to music,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: listen to it at length, and do something so that it's,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it's fresh and new. One thing led to another,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and this is how I kind of happened on this.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: You have spent your life listening to classic rock, but
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: you see you've never been able to definitively rank your
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: 10 favorite artists. Why was answering that question important enough
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: to take on something this ambitious?
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe at the beginning, it was important to figure out
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: who that top 10 is. And now, not so much. Now,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it's just kind of sitting with each of the artists.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: listening to them grow from their debut album to the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: artists that I recognized from when I happened upon them.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So it's more of a listening experience. Now the top
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: 10 is sort of secondary to that. Now, having said that,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I bet you, you, me, and the vast majority of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: your podcast listeners could probably sit down and jot out
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: their top 10. And it's mostly a gut thing. Given
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the amount of hours I spend on the road walking,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: so I have the time to do it. So given that,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and I just wanted to not go by my gut.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: You know, I could probably tell you who my top
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: 10 is. And I bet you at the end of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: this thing, I come pretty close. But I want to,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to go through the process. At
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the very end, I want to say, you know what?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I listened to my 29 top artists. I listened to
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: their albums from their debut all the way to 1980. 89,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: which is my cutoff. And I listened to them three times,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and I feel reasonably confident that my top 10 is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: my top 10.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: And you started in mid-May, right? Or started sometime in
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: May and expect to finish the listening phase maybe mid-January,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: but you were saying before we started, that might go
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: into February or March?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's more likely going into March. I've already started making
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and posting some videos. When I originally... reached out to you,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that January date was pretty firm, and I was right
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: on track to hit it. I just didn't account for
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: some of the things that I'm doing. You know, life
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: kind of takes over sometimes, and I can't get out
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: there and walk every day, so.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Do you have a particular walking route?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: My short route is nine miles, and it's around the neighborhood.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: It's an extended walk around the neighborhood to get it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to that mileage, but it's around the neighborhood. And I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: can augment that walk to 10 miles, 13 miles, 15 miles.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So on the weekends, I'll do 13, Saturday, Sunday. And
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: on the weekdays, I'll do nine. And all told, call
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it 60 miles a week. You would think it would
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: be boring. I put something on. I'm invested in it.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I'm deep in it. It's taken over. Even though I
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: know where I'm going and what the route is, I'm
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: not really paying attention to it. Next thing I know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it's 40 minutes, 45 minutes later, the music's over and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I've got my seven questions that I've got to answer.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: And it's on a phone app that I had built
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: for me. I go through it. I put on the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: next album and I'm off to the next, you know, 40,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: 45 minutes.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: How did you choose the 29 artists and who was
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: the hardest artist or band to leave out?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I started with 75 and I wanted to pare it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: down to 20 because I figured half of them will
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: reach my top 10. And try as I might, and
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I tried, I couldn't get it any further down than 29.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I could tell you, I think you're a Van Halen guy, right?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I've listened to a couple of your podcasts. I can
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: see the banner right behind you. They were on the list.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: That was a hard one. I mean, that's classic rock.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: That's great rock. And it kind of meets some of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: my criteria. It allows me to explain. I know their hits.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Everybody knows their hits from listening to the radio, but
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I've never spent any time with the albums and that's
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: really what I wanted to do. So that was a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: real hard one. I don't know who the hardest one was.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I'll give you two examples or stories. One, I just
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: posted a video of Boston area bands. I grew up
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: outside of Boston that were hard to cut because they
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: were part of my childhood. Aerosmith, Boston, and Jay Giles.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And the soft rule that I had for myself was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I had to have some sort of personal relationship with
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: each band, right? I had to have an album or two,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: seen them in concert, and in some way identify with them.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of the first pass. With Jay Giles,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: that was easy. I didn't own any other albums. Boston
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and Aerosmith was much more difficult, but I had to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: make tough decisions. Oh, the other one was when I
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: started this thing, I didn't have the Rolling Stones on.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I broke up with them in 1980, 81. They had
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a live show that they simulcast on the radio. And
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: like everybody else at that time, you know, I had
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: my Maxell tape and it was in my tape deck
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and I was in my room. I had everything set
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: up and I started recording. And I don't think they
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: were through their first song. And I realized that Mick
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Jagger just cannot sing. And that everything that I heard
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to date, and I fancied myself a Stones fan. And
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: at that young age, I must have been 16, I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: realized that everything I was listening was studio trickery. So
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't put them on. And I was in my
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: first week of walking and I kept thinking, how can
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you have a classic rock experiment like this? How can
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you go through classic rock artists And not have the Rawlings.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: You just, you can't. So reluctantly, I put them in.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And so that was not exactly answering your question, but
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: they were the only example of somebody I had cut easily, easily,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and then had second thoughts and put them back on.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious, what is your feeling on the Stones
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: now after listening to them?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I am so glad that I put them on. I
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: struggled through their early albums. So one of the things
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: that I'm enjoying most about this project is I get
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to hear a band mature from their debut all the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: way to, you know, the band we know them from.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And I had never really thought about it. I had
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: never given it much thought that bands, you know, don't
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: come onto the scene with their voice intact, right? That
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: they don't come... as you would expect them. So, you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I assumed that the Kinks and the Rolling Stones and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the Beatles, they were who they were and you put
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: on the first album and, you know, you get the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: hits and it wasn't like that. And I struggled with
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the early Stones album so much so that I kind
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of was, you know, patting myself on the back saying,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you're right not to include them. But I stuck with it.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And I got to, I think, um, I guess it
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was beggar's banquet and that just blew me away. I mean,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: each album progressively got better and better. Right. But not,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and I got to beggar's banquet and I'm like, Oh,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I am so glad I am doing this. And while, um, um,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I finished Get Your Yayas Out recently, and that was live,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and I did some research, and sure enough, they did
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: some overdubbing on that album. So I think my original
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: thesis is intact, or remains, but I'm really glad that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I put them on and that I stuck with them.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And now you'll continue right up through the most current album?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: No, my cutoff is 1989. 1989 is when.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I graduated college. I moved to California. I got married,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: mortgage kids. And I just kind of stopped. Really, there
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: was no time to listen to music. So 89 was
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: kind of my cutoff. So anything beyond that.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: You'd go up to Steel Wheels.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: That would be the, okay. How did you figure out
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: that you could realistically get through these 329 albums three
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: times in roughly eight months? How did you do the
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: math on that?
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: It kind of went backwards. I didn't choose eight months
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and then try to fit it in. You know, I
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: don't have the math. No, I do have the math.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: 740 hours of listening. I do a mile every 20 minutes.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: If you do the math, that works out to about
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: eight months. And then if you, I think what I
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: did when I originally did this was I discounted maybe 20%.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So whatever timetable I had, I backed out 20% figuring
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: out you know, life.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: So that, that worked out to eight months.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: What does a typical week look like? How many albums
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: do you listen to? How many miles are you walking
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: to stay on schedule?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: On average, I'm doing about 50, 60 miles a week.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Does weather play a factor? Are you, where do you live?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: On the West coast or?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I'm on the West coast in California.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Not, not, not until, not until late December, January, do
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: we have to worry about rain?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, And I can get out there
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to 2.30 and walk until 5.30, quarter to six, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I got sunshine. So that'll change too. So if you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: figure to listen to an album, I got to listen
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to it three times to call it complete. So on average,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I'm completing eight and a half albums a week. I'm
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: listening to 26 listening sessions. So I always have seven
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: albums in my rotation on Spotify. And I go through
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the seven once, I go through it again, twice, go
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it again, three times. That's 21 listens. And given how
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: much I walk and the amount of time on the road,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I'm doing about 26 album listens. That equates to about
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: finishing eight albums.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: And you're listening to every catalog chronologically up through 1989.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: What do you learn about an artist by hearing their
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: career unfold in order that you might miss by jumping
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: straight to the famous records or the popular records?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Right. Or even the compilations and greatest hits, which I'm
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: guilty of owning, right? So I'll take an example of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the Eagles. The Eagles aren't doing too well. I think
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: they're number 25 out of 29. And they're a fantastic band. But,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I only know their greatest hits. Apart from
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Hotel California and The Long Run, I don't own any
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of their albums. So going back to the beginning, Desperado,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I forgot the name of some of the others.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: The self-titled was the first one, 72, Desperado, On the Border. Right.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I struggled a little bit with it because of not
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: so much the country rock aspect of it. I mean,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I went into it knowing that, right? I think we
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: all know that. It's just that I found a lot
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of the songs that are between the hits, the songs
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that I know, sounded more filler to me, less evolved.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm only a couple albums into this thing with them.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: We'll see how they evolve, how they grow. Um, you know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the Beatles are another one. Um, I would have expected
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: them to be in my top 10 and they're getting closer.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And I think the next one I listened to is revolver.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And so that might push them into the top 10,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: but I, you know, the first couple albums were mostly
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: cover tunes and, uh, you know, they, they didn't become in,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: in my listening experience, they didn't become the Beatles for
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: me until help.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now you're at that point where they're rapidly improving, well,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: rapidly progressing creatively from Revolver moving on.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Improving, I don't think, is a bad word because it's
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: really their songwriting, right? It's Lennon-McCartney improving their songwriting chops.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Do you have a scoring system, like a point system?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: How do you work that? I do. Okay.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Upon the first listen, there are six questions. I don't have, well,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I got my phone. I could, I could pull them up.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But I'm basically measuring, you know, how much did I
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: enjoy this experience? How much did this experience want me,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it's pulling me forward to the next album.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, my questionnaire lists out what the
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: next album is. So how much do I want, want
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to listen to the next album? On the second and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: third listen, there's a question, you know, what was my
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: reaction to the second and third listen? Was it much weaker,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: slightly weaker, no change, slightly stronger, more stronger? And then
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: how much do I want to put this on again?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So there's six or seven questions and then free-flowing comments.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: So while I'm walking, I can dictate to myself comments
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: about that particular listen. And I kind of do that
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: now as I'm listening, it breaks up the album a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: little bit. Uh, but you know, you get thoughts, you
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: get insights and, you know, you hear something you haven't
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: heard before, or a lyric lands differently than it had before,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: or just some other thought. And so, um, I'll, I'll
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: stop what I'm doing. I'll dictate it and then continue on.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: The most you can get, the most an album can
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: get is 26 points based on those criteria. Um, I haven't, I've,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: three-way tie right now at 25 points. Supertramp, even in
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the quietest moments. The Who, live at Leeds. And Bruce Springsteen,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Born to Run. Those three have 25 points, which is
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: near perfect. And then the worst album is Bob Seger's
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Morning It's maybe his second or third. It has six.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Six total points. And I'll tell you what it sounded
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: like to me. Have you listened to Pete Townshend's Scoop? No.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It's a double album. It's just his demos that he
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: did for his solo career and demos for The Who.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting album to hear what he's working on
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in his home and demoing. It's not sonically gratifying and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it's interesting because you could hear the difference between what
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the demo sounds like and what the eventual song gets
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: birthed as. Well, this album that I'm telling you about
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: with Bob Seger, I don't think it's like Scoop. I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: don't think it's purposely a list of demos, but it
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: sure sounds like it. It's him unaccompanied on either the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: piano or maybe the acoustic guitar. And it kind of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: goes back and forth. The songwriting isn't great. It's not compelling.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And the fact that he's unaccompanied, at least as best
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: as I can tell, made it a slog to get through.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, it's Brand New Morning.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Brand New Morning.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It's his fourth album. It is the first solo studio
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: album following the departure of his backing band, The Bob
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Seger System. Released in October of 71. And the tracks here,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: no hits. Brand New Morning, Maybe Today, Sometimes, You Know
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Who You Are, Railroad Days, Luis, Song For Him, Something Like.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Not one of them a hit. And then it even
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: says it here, too. The album has a stripped-down acoustic sound.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: That was a tough one.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Now, having said that, I just finished last week Beautiful Loser,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: which I really enjoyed. And I think Night Moves is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: coming up. Would you say you're a Seeger guy?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I would say, yeah. Yeah, I'm a Seeger fan, for sure.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Hard not to be. Yeah, so many. Who surprised you
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: the most so far? I mean, we talked about the Stones.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Is there an artist whose complete catalog is changing an
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: opinion that you've held for years? Is it the Stones, probably,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: that stands out, or are there others?
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Well, the Stones stand out in a positive way, because
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I had really was reluctant to pursue them. Clapton is
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: actually going in the opposite direction. I thought I was
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a Clapton guy. I'd seen him twice. Once in your
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: neighborhood in Hartford when he was touring with Roger Waters.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: That was great.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: 84 maybe. Yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: 84. And once, uh, I think it was, um, under
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the sun or journeyman.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, behind the sun.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So no, it would have been journeyman.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Journeyman would have been 89.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Right. She's, you've got an amazing, uh, gift. You have
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: an amazing gift. So it was 89. Yeah. Um, and, uh,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I also own, um, Is it One More Night,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the double live album?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, One Night Only?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: One Night Only. Thank you. I have that, and that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: is on full rotation. I listen to that all the time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: It's a great, great double album. So between all that,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I figured, you know, I'm a Clapton guy, and I
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: just finished Slow Hand, what arguably is his masterpiece, and
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I don't mind saying I'm 61 now, and it didn't land.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: The way it had when I was 14 when I
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: first bought it. That's interesting.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It was good. Why do you think that's the case?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I've gotten into J.J. Cale later in life. I was
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: turned on to him mostly through Clapton. And given the two,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: you know, they're kind of similar. Maybe not exactly, but
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: kind of. I prefer J.J. Cale. His guitar playing, his sensibility,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: his aesthetic. to Clapton's a lot of the early Clapton
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: stuff that I was listening to it's only his incidentally
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it's only his solo career it's not him with Cream
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: or Blind Faith so it's just not doing it for
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: me I'm not sure how to put that into words
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I certainly could put it into a score but.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think any of us can this happens to
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: us a lot I think music fans there are There
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: are albums that I just could not listen to back
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in the day that I can listen to now. And
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a great example is the Beach Boys,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Pet Sounds. It just was like, I don't get this.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Why are they calling this a masterpiece? And now I
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: listen to it and I can't listen to it enough.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I will listen to it constantly. And it just hit me.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Was that because maybe you weren't a Beach Boys guy?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was never a Beach Boys guy, but I
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: think I just... you know, our brains kind of mature
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: over time and maybe we're listening for different things as,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: as we're get older, as opposed to when you're a
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: teenager and you're twenties, maybe I was looking for more
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: of like the good time party rock. And that wasn't
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: what did it for me. I don't know. But now
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: when I listened to it, I listened to it very
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: intently and I listened to each instrument and how they're,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: how everything was put together by Brian Wilson and where
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: each notice place, the percussion, you know, then you find
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: out that you got people like hitting or orange juice,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: plastic bottles to come up with certain sound. I mean,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: all that stuff just, I don't know. It just hit
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: me late. And, uh, and then as a result, going
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: into some of the other Beach Boys stuff, I was like, Oh,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I get it now. I'm a Beach Boys fan now,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: but it just wasn't the case before.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: It's it, like you say, it's hard to explain, but
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Do you do your listening with headphones exclusively?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: No, most of it will be in, you know, in
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: car rides. Well, no, I should say it's kind of
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: split between two. It's, it's really, it's, it's car rides.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And then with the buds on earbuds on, and obviously,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: you know, with the earbuds on, you hear a lot
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: more too. You know, those, those are when you pick
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: up on a lot of little instrumentations and things like that.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Right. I forgot which group and I forgot which song,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: maybe it was the Beatles in any case. I heard
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a cowbell that I had never heard before. It must've
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: been Ringo, you know, or maybe George banging on a
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: cowbell on a song that, you know, I was pretty
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: familiar with.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: What's the biggest change of opinion you've had between a
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: first listen and a third listen?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: On the threshold of a dream by the Moody Blues
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: started out as a nine. That's about, that's pretty low.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And I remember that one. I remember thinking, well, A,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the, The whole psychedelic 60s aesthetic really isn't
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: my genre, isn't my era. That's another thing. I don't
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: score for it, but in my note-taking in my list
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of questions, I note whether the era has any effect
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: on how I score something. If it's in the 60s
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and it gets a low score, I could still say
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it's a high era score because of the era that
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: it came in. It could be Seeger night moves and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: still get a high because that's really in my That's
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: really in my wheelhouse. So Threshold of a Dream for
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the Moody Blues went from a 9 and then to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a 19.5 on the last listen. So that's a jump
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of 10 points. That's a lot. When you consider most
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: albums don't really move around too much from the first
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to the last. They don't move around too much. Then
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: also Led Zeppelin 3, it didn't move quite as much.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: It went from an 18 to a 19 and a
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: half to a 23. And the reason was with the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: exception of presence, I don't own Eddie's Zeppelin albums and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: never heard him back to back. All I knew, all
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I was exposed to was on the radio. So three is, uh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: markedly different than two and one before it.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Sure it is.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And I listened to it the first time and I'm like, ah,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it didn't grab me the way the last
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: two did. And then I heard the second time and
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, it's still not like one or two, but, um,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm enjoying it. And then by the third time, I remember, uh,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I was, uh, walking to my son's apartment. Um, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, I get it. I hear, I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: hear what they're doing. Um, and, um, you know, I
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: took notes for what I thought they were doing, but
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that one, That one surprised and moved a bunch too.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: How great is the back-to-back? Because this is what stood
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: out to me the first time I listened to that album.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: On vinyl, my older brother, right? Tangerine into That's The Way.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: That one-two punch. Those are tracks two and three on
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: side two. Gallows Pole starts side two. But those back-to-back
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: is perfect to me. That's the first thing that comes
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: to mind whenever I think about Zeppelin III. It might
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: be my favorite album, but it's probably a close second
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: behind Zeppelin II.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I would not have put them on my top 10. Uh,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: they are not, um, that's not really a Zeppelin guy.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I like, you know, I like some of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: their stuff, but I was worried on this project that
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: it was going to be too loud that I was
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: going to get. So I was going to get Robert
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: plant fatigue, you know, um, uh, I, I know all
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the radio hits, you know, I'm not sure I could
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: hear stairway to heaven again. Um, and I'll tell you,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: they are a, they are a number two, on my
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: list right now. And they are only a fraction of
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a point behind the doors. I mean, each, each, each listen,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the two of them are kind of alternating. I know my,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: what I not have expected Zeppelin to be in my
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: top 10. I, I wouldn't have expected them to be
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: my one or two.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: How about that?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Uh, and my guess is since I'm now starting, I'm
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: just about to start the back half of, uh, this project. Um,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I don't see them falling very much.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: If at all, you, you fully experienced the range of
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Zeppelin's songwriting skills with Jimmy page and plant and, and then,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and then John Paul Jones steps in and you'll start
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: when you get up to into the outdoor, you know, his,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: his work on the keyboards. Yeah. That's, that's really cool.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: So again, if I can encourage anyone who's listening, maybe
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: three times is a little too much for someone. Maybe
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: 29 albums is a little too much. But pick some
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: number of groups, preferably ones that you're reasonably familiar with,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: that you want to do some exploring, and go chronologically.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Do it in a way. So I don't start an
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: album that I can't finish. So if I'm out walking
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and I know I've got 15 minutes left, I'm not
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: going to start an album because, you know, I'm done.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Well, you need more time than for physical graffiti, double album.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Well, but I've got three hours. So I usually start,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I usually start, you know, that way and I'll have less.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: But I like the three listen theory, right? Right. Give
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: it the three listens. Right.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: So I would encourage anyone to do something like this
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and you really, really discover not only, about the band
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and not only about the growth, which is what we've
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: been talking about, but discover a lot about yourself. You know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I am, in a big way, I am kind of
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: reliving my 14-year-old self. And I'm challenging ideas. I'm challenging
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: conclusions that I made as a kid. And I can
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: kind of feel it. it. It is a huge nostalgia
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: thing going back and re-listening to bands that as a
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: kid you thought really rocked. And you listen to it again,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you're like, eh, not so much. And other bands that,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: like my Rolling Stones example, bands that you never pay
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: much attention to, all of a sudden, you know, maybe
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: as an adult, you can really appreciate what they're doing.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Do you have the list of 29 artists in front
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: of you there? Can you read them off? Are you
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: able to do that? Yeah. I'm sure people are very
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: curious as to what the list is. One of the
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: bands I'm wondering too is Pink Floyd. Are they in there?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Because that's an interesting one. You go from first album
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: to momentary lapse of reason. Yeah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I struggled with that. I struggled with them.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: 10 CC, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Devo, Dire Straits,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Eric Clapton, George Thorogood, J.J. Cale, Led Zeppelin, Little Feet,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Pink Floyd, Santana, Steely Dan, Supertramp, Talking Heads, The Allman Brothers,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: The Beatles, The Doobie Brothers, The Doors, The Eagles, The Kinks,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: The Moody Blues, The Police, The Pretenders, The Who, Tom Petty,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: ZZ Top.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: That's an awesome list. The Police. There isn't one bad album. No.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So the other thing was to do this right, well,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to do this right, I should be listening to some
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of it on vinyl and I'm listening to none of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: it on vinyl. One of the other rules was that
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: each band up to 89 had to have five albums.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I figured, you know, anything less than, you know, what
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: am I, they're going to, they're going to clock out
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: so early. Now, having said that the pretenders only have
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: four on this. So, but I'm in love with Chrissy
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Hine and I can't, I can't not, I can't not
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: have the pretenders. I'm just.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: All right. And I noticed you, no queen.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: No queen. They were, you know, they were on the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: original 75, but this is, And the other thing, 10CC
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: is kind of weird. I had to have one band,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: one band that I could just discover, you know, just
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: be a complete discovery. And, you know, 10CC, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: we know there are two or three radio hits, but
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: beyond that, nothing. And I'd seen a couple of documentaries
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: on them on YouTube, and they seemed like such an
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: interesting group. So I thought, you know, Just for the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: hell of it, one group that I know nothing about,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and I regret it. There's a reason there's only two
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: or three radio hits.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: They're more of a singles band.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I hear their chops. I understand why
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: they're held in such regard. But it just hasn't done
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it for me. I'm sticking with it, and I'm cautiously optimistic, hopeful,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but I just don't think it's going to happen. All right.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Devo isn't really classic rock, but my girlfriend, fiancé, and
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I have such a great time with them in the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: car listening to their albums. We caught them in Reno
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: this last year live, so they're not getting any younger,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and they still put on a fantastic show.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: And I think their work is being appreciated more and more.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: I interviewed the engineer who worked with them. He put
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: a book out and they're, they're a very talented band.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I think under underestimated, underappreciated, maybe. I think they're great.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I really, really enjoy them.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I think they're, they're fun. And at the same time,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: you know, their whole message is a little depressing, but it's,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it's a, it's a fun band. You know, little feet also, I, I,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I owned, um, their great live album waiting for Columbus 1978.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Right. So top 20 album here in the States.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It, um, it is a fantastic, fantastic album. And, um,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I was listening to it over and over again, the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: summer of 2000 and my youngest was born, uh, the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: summer of 2000 and my wife and I, uh, knew
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that we needed a boy's name and it had to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: be two syllables ending in E-L or A-L to rhyme
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: with his sister and older brother. It was between Nigel
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: and Lowell. And because I'd been listening to so much
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Little Feet, we went with Lowell.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Nice. Lowell George, yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: So cool, man. And you're hearing that great, the skills
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: of Ted Templeman, the producer, and the engineer, Don Landy.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Sound quality of those albums. Like the Doobie Brothers. You
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: got the Doobies on there too. Yeah. And they worked
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: with the Doobie Brothers and Van Halen for six albums.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Aaron Balansky is our guest. He has taken his lifelong
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: love of classic rock, turned it into an ambitious experiment
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: called The Review Board, listening to the complete catalogs of
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: 29 artists, three times each, scoring 329 albums along the
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: way to determine his definitive personal top 10. How much
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: musical success comes from quality versus exposure and repetition? In
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: other words, have you caught yourself wondering, do I like
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: this because it's great or do I like it because
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I've heard it a thousand times?
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Not only is that your best question of the night,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: but it may be the best question, uh, posed. I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought about that when I set out to do this,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: didn't consider it. Um, and I was, uh, a couple
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of weeks into this thing. And I started, I was
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: listening to the doors, uh, debut album and I know
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: all the songs, but I've never heard the debut album.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: And I, I stopped in my tracks and I said,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I thought to myself, am I digging this? Because I
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: know all this, or am I digging this? Because it's
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: just great. And I've been struggling with that because, um,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I get a little frustrated when I put on an
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: album I'm going to be sitting with for the next
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: 40 minutes. I know one song and everything else is
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: new to me and it's just not landing. On the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: other hand, there are some albums where I don't know
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: any of the songs. Bob Seger's Smokin' O.P.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Another early one.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That one, It's just fantastic. There are some on
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: here that are effective. There's one that's not on the list.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I'll pull this from left field. Thomas Dolby has an album,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Aliens Ate My Buick. I think the title song was
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a hit, at least in Boston, for a minute, but
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: nothing else. And I put that album on. And it
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: only took one spin and it's, you know, one of
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: my favorites. Wow. I can't get enough of it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Boy, that's interesting timing, Aaron, because my brother Marty does
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: these listening parties with friends and one of the artists
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: was Thomas Dolby. So he's texting me and he just,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: he had no idea how great Thomas Dolby was because
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: everybody knows blinding me with science, but that's it. Or
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: at least, at least here in the States, you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: maybe in Europe it's different, but.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I'm about to record and film and edit a video
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: for my YouTube channel, sort of an update on the kinks. And,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you know, that 14 year old me heard low budget
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: by mistake. You know, I was, I was one of
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: those Columbia house kids. Um, and the album arrived cause
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't fill up my card in time.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Right. Um, and, uh, I put that on, I didn't
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: know any of the songs. And that is one of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: my favorite albums of all times. That's how the Kinks
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: got onto this list, was just on the strength of
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that and give the people what they want. And I
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: would argue that there's some Kinks fans out there who
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: would probably say that those are maybe their two worst albums,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: but that was my gateway. So back to your original question,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I think quality trumps repetition. Repetition will get you maybe
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: to the dance. But what will keep you there, I think,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: is the quality, right? Maybe they go hand in hand.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe repetition alone can keep you interested. But so can quality.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: You could put on an album where you know very
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: little of the songs or the tracks and get yourself
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: really invested. What do you think? What has been your experience?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I think that it is the quality. I think the
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: quality stands the test of time rather than repetition. Repetition
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: is more of like coming from my radio background. Repetition
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: is more towards people feel a sense of familiarity with
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: a song.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Right. There's maybe another podcast that you could devote to...
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: our example with the Eagles, at least as far as
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned. There is repetition in those hits. Those hits
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: are great hits. There are no argument there. And in
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the first couple albums, maybe for me anyways, maybe the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: quality isn't there. And Not the quality of the recording
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: or the musicianship, but maybe just the quality of the songwriting,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: at least as far as I've gotten with them. And
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: so that is why I'm not having the experience with
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: them that perhaps I thought I would have when this
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: thing started.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about critics and whether you agree with critics, right?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Could you compare your reactions with all music ratings as
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: an outside reference point? A friend of the podcast, Greg Prado,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: has written for AllMusic, so maybe you disagree with one
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: of his assessments. What's been your biggest, are you kidding me,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: disagreement with a critic so far?
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: In the database, there is room to cut and paste
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the critics' reviews from AllMusic and put their stars in there.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: It would be tremendously helpful when I'm on the road
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: because I listen to the first time, the second time,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and I've got things to say. By the third time,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'm struggling and I don't have anything else to mention.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: So I put that functionality in so that I could say,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: at least I could agree with, disagree with the critic.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I've been so busy. I haven't had time to cut
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and paste the 329 reviews. And it's not terribly difficult.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's time consuming, but it's not. It's not
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: oppressively time-consuming. So I've only done a couple. My example
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: for you is limited, but it would be The Doors
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and it would be Waiting for the Sun. AllMusic gave
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: it three and a half stars. I gave the album 23.67 points.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: If you do the conversion, that works out to four
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and a half stars.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Interesting. Waiting for the sun is, yeah, it's an overlooked
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: doors album. They don't talk about it a lot. It's
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: got some hits on there.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: It does. Who would you say your friend was?
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Greg Prado. I know Stephen Irwin does a lot of those. Right.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: It was Stephen Irwin. Yeah.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: So, you know, one of the things you didn't ask,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: but one of the things about doing this project is,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Not relying on the repetition, not relying on the reputation
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: of the album, and not relying on what critics say.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: So some critics absolutely love albums that I just can't,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I scratch my head, I just can't figure out. And
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I depart that way. I'm thinking, I'm thinking early Pink Floyd.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: I can appreciate what they're doing. I can appreciate the experimentation.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I can appreciate wanting to try new things and be
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: their own band. I just, I just, I'm not following.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: And some of the critics, you know, hail it. And
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: then I've got, stuff that I like that the, you know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: critics hold their nose and just, um, uh, you know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: can't abide by. So that part is kind of fun
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: forming your own opinions, independent of what anybody else says.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm with you on waiting for the sun, all
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: of side one. Hello. I love you. Love street, not
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: to touch the earth. Summer's almost gone. Wintertime love and
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: the unknown soldier.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Right. With the, my opinion with the unknown soldier being, uh,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: maybe the highlight of the entire album.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Right. And then side two, Spanish Caravan, My Wild Love,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: We Could Be So Good Together, Yes, The River Knows,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: five to one, which is, that's an iconic Doors tune.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Side two, not as strong as side one, but still.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: And if I may, you were talking about how you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: hear things differently as an adult than you did perhaps
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: as a kid, maybe having the patience to appreciate So
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to The Doors. There's nothing really new here
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: for me. I've always been a fan. But I'm hearing
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Robbie Krieger and his guitar playing where before I never
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: really paid attention. It was just part of the mix.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's the earbuds. Maybe it's because I'm out
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: walking and I'm not being distracted by the television or
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the phone or the kids or whatever it is. But
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: his guitar playing is it's something else. Um, it is fantastic.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: And it, um, yeah, never noticed it before.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: So this experiment also not only may have an album
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: or an artist kind of rise up to the top,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: you also have certain members of a band, you know,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: certain musical aspects of a song suddenly kind of rise
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: up through this experiment. And that's what's happened. Robbie Krieger.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: That's cool. Yeah. He's, He's a great guitarist. I mean,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: all those guys were so integral to the sound that
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Jim Morrison would lay his lyrics over. I can't imagine him.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody can ever imagine him singing for
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: any other band than those three guys.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: With the 329 albums involved, you're getting far beyond the
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: greatest hits. So what's the best album you've discovered or
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: rediscovered that you had overlooked before this project? Maybe it's
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Waiting for the Sun.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: No. Okay. It's, uh, I think, I think this is
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting. Um, I also consider myself a who guy, right?
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Really into the who in Connecticut. Did they have strawberry records?
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: They sure did. Yeah.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Basically 15 minutes from where I live. That's where
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I get a lot of my concert tickets too. And
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: that's where I got so many of my cassettes every
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: week with my hard, harder than 50 bucks a week
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: that I, I got it clean in the, I cleaned
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: the restaurant on the weekends and I spent it all
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: on cassettes.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: There was a strawberry records in the strip mall that
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I worked at when I was 15, 16 years old.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: So all the, the paychecks never really went to the bank, right?
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: They just, I should have had direct deposit for strawberries.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, um, I remember I bought, um, live at
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: leads because it was inexpensive and I can add it
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to my, uh, growing catalog, which I, really, as a kid,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: took great pride in. My friends, the kids I hung
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: out with, were more sports guys, playing it, watching it,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: following the stats. They could, like you, with music, they
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: could recite things from memory about players in all types
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of sports. So, you know, I had a record collection
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I was proud of. I bought Live at Leeds. I
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: brought it home. I unpackaged it, put it on the turntable.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And if I got halfway through side one, I'd be surprised.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: My memory as a kid was, A, it didn't sound
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: very good. And B, most importantly, this wasn't the songs
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: that I wanted. These weren't the songs that I was
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: listening to. My generation maybe, but Substitute and some of
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the others there. And so I own it. I'd never
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: listened to it.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Ever.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: But I did a month ago. I had to. And
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I wasn't dreading it because I knew it would be fast.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: And I was blown away. I was so blown away. A,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: it sounded fantastic. B, maybe my problem as a kid
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: was I didn't have the patience for them extending their songs, jamming,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the instrumentals. You know, I've seen Pete Townsend listed on
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: some people's, you know, top 10 guitarists. And I never
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: really thought he was much of a guitarist. He's singer,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: you know, singer, songwriter, fantastic songwriter, you know, and he, uh,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: good enough on the guitar, but you know, and live
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: leads changed all that for me. He is a fantastic
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: guitarist and, and, Keith Moon didn't stand out on the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: album because he was standing out on all the previous ones.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I already, I could already hear him in the earlier stuff.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: And I don't remember what song it was, but there
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: was a song where, you know, John Atmosel's bass really
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: stood out and just all three of them. And I just,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: that album, I think, I think I said it was
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: one of the ones, if it wasn't tied for third,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't tied for first, then it's number two.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I just was blown away by it. And it's not
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: like I didn't know it, right? I'm sure the people
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: who tune into your podcast know much more than I do.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: But anyways, that one was a big surprise. The other one,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Talking heads remain in the light. That's another one I owned.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: That's another one I owned as a kid. Never really played.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I loved Talking Heads. And I remember when I listened
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: to it the first time a couple months ago, I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: remember kind of kicking myself, thinking all these decades, decades
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: that I could have been listening and enjoying to this album.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: but a waste, but, but you know, it's there now.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Has the data ever told you something about an
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: artist that your gut instinct didn't want to accept because
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: your scoring system measures things like consistency and catalog depth.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Pink Floyd is doing terrible, terrible, but you know, um,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: they had, they had, uh, some albums, their early albums
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: were a struggle there. It's nothing like what I had. Um,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I, I knew, um, Wish You Were Here
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and beyond.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Dark Side.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So they're doing a little better. I think they
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: went from 28. They might be 26, 25. They're not
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: doing great. But I think I just finished Metal or
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the one after it. I finished the one after it.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Obscured by Clouds.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: That one, right.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Metal is where they start to transition into that Dark
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Side of the Moon sound.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: So I enjoy both of those.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those set up Dark Side, which is 73. Those,
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: you know, you get to because metal has one of
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: these days is a very dark sound, but there's also echoes.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Echoes is really like, oh yes, this is the Floyd
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: that I know, right? Right, right.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: So that's exactly right. So Dark Side is next. I've
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: committed that to memory and I'm sure it's going to
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: do well. And then Wish You Were Here was the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: very first CD I ever bought when I bought my
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: first CD player. That and Santana's Z-Bop. The Wall and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: The Last Cut. I'm sure they're going to move up,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: but I'm a little disappointed that... Not disappointed. I'm really,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: really surprised. I thought they were a shoe-in for top
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: 10 based on Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, The wall,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: those three, you know, qualify and alone, but fortunately they've
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: got the, in, in my experience, they've got the baggage
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: of their early stuff. Yeah.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: The Sid Barrett era is a different listen. It's an
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: acquired taste and it's something that only in the last
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: maybe 10 years or so I've, I've really appreciated it more,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: but still I'm going to always go to the ones
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: that most do, which is, all of those we just mentioned,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: you know, and dark side and, you know, even I'm
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: younger and I grew up in the eighties. So to me,
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I love the post Roger Waters era too.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: I love momentary lapse of reason and I love the
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: division bell, but I can see the older fans maybe
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: not digging on that. They want Roger in a band, but, but,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: but I could see the Sid Barrett era kind of
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: lowering the overall score there. It could happen because it's,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: it's not the melodic sound that, that you're hearing on the, um,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: on the air there where Gilmore and waters really are
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: at their peak.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Do you listen to stuff because you feel you should
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: at least to experience it to say, to say to yourself,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: you know, um, uh, I really should know. I really
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: should listen to this album.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And majority of the time I
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: get it and I, and I appreciate it just as much.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I don't, but yes I do because I feel
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: like it's an obligation. I was just a fan of,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: of classic rock, everything from the mid fifties, right up
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: until today, but particularly to the mid nineties, the doors, Skinner, Zeppelin,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: ZZ Top, ACDC, you know, Van Halen, of course, there's still,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: and still to this day, there's stuff out there. I
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: got to listen to more of, and because I've said, boy,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: people keep talking about this particular album. And now again,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: because going back to what I was saying with Spotify,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: you know, it's now, if you, you know, if you're
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: paying the subscription, you couldn't go and listen to them now. So,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah. You're keeping a journal of discoveries, questions,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: and changing opinions after these listens. What's something you've written
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: down during a walk maybe that surprised you when you
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: went back and read it later?
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: So the journal is for thoughts that I'm having about
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: my experience that is not necessarily tied to a specific album.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: With a specific album, I've got the comments, the free-flowing
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: comments that I record for the album. The journal is
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: for other things. And it's also where I record nostalgia,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: life things, just anything. Maybe, maybe one day this will
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: turn into a podcast. Maybe one day you'll invite me
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: back because I wrote a book. When I enter it,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: it gets put into the database and I don't really
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: see it again. Unless something like this, you ask, you know,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you sent me questions and although I'm fumbling a little bit,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I can query the database and it'll extract
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: things out that I've written. So to answer your question,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: I don't really read it because it's in there and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: when it comes out, it comes out when I'm making
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: a script for one of my videos or if I'm preparing,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: you know, answers for something like this.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Do you know, at what point do you think you're
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: going to know your final top 10? Or are you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: not thinking about that right now until everything's finished?
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Every time I finish an album and, you know, three listens,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: And I go back to the database and I kind
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: of see what happened with that artist. Did they move up?
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Did they move down? I mean, I'm paying attention because
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious. And I've been doing this for a
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: couple months now. My guess is I'll probably know a
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: week or two before I finish listening. because the numbers
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: will have kind of settled. And like you said, it's
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: not the accumulation of scores. So if one album gets
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a 23 and another one gets a 17, together, that's
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: not a 40. It's the average of the two. So
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: those averages are going to get harder and harder to
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: move as the project goes on. What doesn't change is...
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: An album that does better than 20 points, every point
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: beyond 20 gets that added to their score. Consistency, you
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: talked about in depth. Those are scores that get added.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: But I think by the time this thing is wrapping up,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I think the numbers will be pretty much baked in.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: And where can people go and what can we expect
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: from that YouTube channel while the listening phase is still underway?
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, can people go there right now? Do you
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: have a YouTube channel up and running now?
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: I do. I've got four, I got four videos on
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: there right now. I'm just posting three types of videos.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: One we'll call it, you know, the mechanics kind of
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: how the database works, how the system works, my rules,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. I've got another one where I'm doing
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: kind of band updates. I've got one in there with
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. I've got one in there. I'm this weekend.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do another one on the kinks. And
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: then I've got a third, uh, type of video that
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: i'm making which is you know the 75 bands uh
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: three at a time uh that got cut from the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: project okay so what can people expect any one of
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: those three um i'm going to europe in a couple
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: weeks on a rock and roll field trip so i'll
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: probably post some footage i'm going to visit jim morrison's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: grave in paris and we're going to london we'll see
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: uh we'll walk the crosswalk at Abbey roads. Uh, we will, um,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: visit the, um, the power station where animals was shot. We'll, um,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: we'll go to, um, uh, that street where, but we
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: shot Ziggy Stardust, you know, him kind of standing on
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: a stoop.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: So we're going to go there and there'll be some
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone haunts and who haunts that we'll go to in, London,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: so I'll probably shoot some. And in Liverpool, we're going
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: to go to, and that's pretty obvious, right?
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I could put the link to the YouTube channel in
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: the show notes.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll send that to you. I have a website.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: It's not fantastic. I think the YouTube channel is probably
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: more informative.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: 987 listens, roughly 740 hours of music, 2,000 miles on foot.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: When you finally reveal that number one, what do you
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: hope you will have learned about music or about yourself
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: as a music fan that maybe you didn't know when
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: you started?
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think my memory is going to get much better.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to, I'm not going to enter
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: any rock and roll, classic rock and roll trivia with you.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I did something similar a few years ago.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I wanted to watch, you know, I used to like movies.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: So I went one year and I saw 26. I
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: wanted to see one every other week. And by the end,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I saw some good stuff. I saw some, some crap, um,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: But at the end, I learned a lot about just
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: sitting there, about moving making, storytelling, cliches, you know, everything.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: And I hope that kind of happens here. I hope
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: when I finish I have a better appreciation of, you know,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: why did a group decide to put this as track one?
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Or why was track three selected? That to me would
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: be obvious as track one. I just hope that I
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: come away with it with a better understanding of The bands, yes.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: My personal history, yes. But more about the genre and
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: how the genre progressed and matured over time.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Aaron, thanks so much. I'm looking forward to seeing how
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: this is all going to play out, what's going to
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: be number one. So make sure you share with me
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: the links, anything you want, the YouTube. If you want
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: to share the website address, sure, do that. Social media?
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Are you on social media?
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Not really.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am, but not the... not the review board.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Okay. So the YouTube channel is always good too, because
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: they can contact you through there. Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, thanks
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: so much, man. I'm so glad you reached out to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: me and we set this up because it's a, it's
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: such a great idea. It's, I think, I think maybe
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: this will start a trend. We'll get a lot of
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: people start doing this.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I hope so.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a part two, because you got so many
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: other bands too, that you can do.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I want to do one of just pure discovery. So
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: bands that I really know not much about.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Um, I want to do maybe the Rolling Stone Top 100. Right.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: And then, we didn't discuss it, but I'm a huge
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Zappa guy. Oh, yeah. And I have an idea of
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: what I might want to do for that.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Cool. All right, Aaron.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.