The List, or How I Stopped Thinking and Learned How to Consume Bullet Points

Tunes. You could say I'm a music lover. I always have a tune in my head that I can barely resist expressing one way or another. Rarely am I not whistling, humming, tapping my toes, or banging out a rhythm with my fingers on a table top. Others (my fiancee) view this as being fidgety, which I suppose isn't entirely wrong. Regardless, music rocks, so I am fascinated by the recent book that just came out, 1,000 Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die.

The list, as a genre, is particularly consuable, which may be why it has become such a popular media format over the past 5 years or so. Most people don't want to read long, fleshed out ideas (Take that, academia!). Our collective attention span has been shrinking for years. Don't believe me? Watch any film from the 1950s and note how even the shortest shots and scenes seem long by today's standards, and they are rarely enhanced by music or sophisticated camera effects.

The list, though potentially long, is really just a series of bullet points, only ranked according to whatever criteria the lister settles on. So not only are our attention and focus not being tested, we are presented with fodder for discussion. Do we agree with the rankings or the methods by which they were determined? VH1 caught on to this and seems to release new lists on a monthly basis. They take it a step further and hire pseudo-celebrity types to comment on and make snarky remarks about each listed item. Many of those personalities have ridden this wave of success so far as to build careers off of it. Hal Sparks, anyone?

So the music list. I don't see myself ever listening to all 1,000 recordings, much less digesting and aprpeciating them for all of their merits. But as a wannabe music snob, I can't resist chasing that white whale. Perhaps what first set me on this path was realizing that I've only listened to no more than five of the entries in their entirety. I'm better than that and should be much more culturally literate. So I've gone and raided my dad's CD collection and pulled out a few gems, from Paul Simon and the Police to Bernstein and Copland. Music is expensive, so my mission is to find the most cost effective way to appreciate as much music as possible.