CANON FODDER

The way people intake their music has traveled full circle since I was a kid. When I was growing up (as if), my music world was AM radio, cheap 45rpm record players, and a smidgen of TV. My music was gobbled up one song by one artist at a time for lotsa years. Today, it’s cherry-picked streaming and self-made or corporate playlists. The average music consumer is back to wanting one song by one artist at a time. It’s the years between I want to focus on here, what I like to call the Album Age, popular music's highest peak to date. (fight me)

The rise of FM radio and home stereos in the 1960s and 70s, hand-in-hand with the arrival of illicit substances, led to the rise of the “album as art” concept. If you were a “serious” artist in those days, meaning you were a proven (or potential) commercial asset to your record label, you could get a studio, a producer, time, even some of the illicit substances, to try and create your very own 40 – 50 minute masterpiece of musical concept and execution. Double-sized, if everybody involved was stoned enough. Triple, if the label lost all control.

And the thing is – it damn well worked. A widely accepted canon now exists of albums from the Album Age, and there are lots of them. The LPs regarded by most music fans as game-changers, ground-breakers, and life-changers; the revolutionary and artistic long-form music that changed popular music and created a worldwide subculture. Created an explosion of great music writing, too, but that's a different post. The songs and albums that define the Classic Rock radio stations (remember those?) come from a list that hasn’t changed much as the years speed on. Fans love to argue around the edges of it, but the core remains solid. I don’t think you need me to run down the list, you know what’s on it.

The point of this post is that even as an above-average type of listener, in terms of time and effort put in, there are several on that hallowed list I’ve never heard. There'll never be enough time to hear everything. I've chosen to let these go, or they've chosen me.

When I say never heard, I don’t mean I haven’t heard the songs on these records. On many of them, I’ve heard it all in pieces – on the radio, at friend’s houses, jukeboxes, television, etc. – sometimes to death. But I’ve never owned them in a physical format, never streamed them, never planted myself somewhere and listened to the entire record front to back; in sequence and uninterrupted. I don't have these six albums in my mental discography because I don't know them as complete works, in the order the artists intended. They all seem like I should, right?

• Led Zeppelin - I can recall all of these songs when I look at the track list, but they're all among my least favorite Zep songs. I bought everything after and played most of it to death, but the debut's sluggishness has never pulled me back. Do I need to hear these songs in order? I'm skeptical.

• Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced? - The only Hendrix records I've heard front to back are Electric Ladyland and a posthumous one called Crash Landing that a record-listening buddy owned. The reason is gonna sound like a lame one, but it's true - I don't enjoy Jimi's singing voice. Never have. To my ears, it has a tuneless quality I can't ignore. I can't defend that opinion, but I can't deny it, either. It always gets in the way of fully appreciating all the other creatively genius aspects of his music. My bad.

• Pink Floyd, The Wall - This one is in the "tried and failed" category. I was all in on Pink Floyd from Meddle to Animals when The Wall dropped. I heard the singles, saw the MTV videos, heard a side or two at friends' houses, extended radio bits - I was ready to commit. Didn't make it all the way through. Duller Pink Floyd than I would have thought possible at the time. I've tried two or three more times over the years, never made it to the end of side four. There's one really fine guitar solo, though. I forget which song.

• Michael Jackson, Thriller - Well, I doubt there were any songs on the record that weren't singles. I seem to recognize all of them now. The world's most inescapable record when it was released. The radio airwaves and MTV buried us with it. I quite liked most everything I heard, but in the end, I escaped. Maybe it was just on principle.

• Prince, Purple Rain - Serious commercial overload on this one, too. MTV was an unstoppable force in its heyday. I always meant to dive into this LP, I like every song I've ever heard from it. Some are even occasional earworms. It just never made the top of the heap, was never "next." It still isn't.

• AC/DC, Back in Black - All of the AC/DC records I like have Bon Scott singing. All the ones I've heard and don't care for have Brian Johnson singing. From what I've heard, this one kind of walks a line between the two eras. Still enough of the younger, brasher AC/DC in the songwriting and playing to get over with different vocals. I'm guessing I could be persuaded, just don't know when that'll ever happen.

How about it? Any classics you've skipped? Any omissions you won't confess to your friends and family? Time to come clean, the world feels lighter after, trust me.

(CK - See? I got you something. Adios, amigo.)