A friend of mine recently decided to part with all his old CDs, and I lucked into all the music by those three for cheap. All three are artists that I absolutely know I love, but have only ever really heard song-by-song before (and in a few cases, an album here or there). So I’m taking this as a chance to actually get to know their stuff, album by album.
I’m also big on obsessing over things, so I’ll probably be taking something of an “annotated” approach; last night I listened to Abbey Road all the way through, then went back and listened again as I “read along” about each song on Wikipedia. (It was amazing, by the way; I can already tell this is going to be an album that I go back to over and over and over). I’ll probably be taking a similar approach to as much of the stuff as possible.
The problem is, this is just piles and piles of music, and it’s all rather intimidating. I’m gonna get through it, I know, but I’m not sure of the best way how. My first thought is chronological: Beatles, then Springsteen, then Waits, moving through the discographies from earliest to latest. It’ll also be dictated a lot by mood, though, I suspect.
For fans of each of the bands, anything I should really be watching out for to make this more enjoyable than it’s already going to be? Waits is the one I know best (Orphans, Mule Variations, Blood Money, Alice, etc.) but the other two are pretty much entirely new ground (other than “Nebraska” for Bruce). I can’t wait. I’ll let you know how it goes.