An Album a Day

My year-long journey to pro-up my taste in music, one album at a time

Published in

Good Stax

4 min readMar 3, 2015

I didn’t realize I had bad taste in music until late 2012. I should have picked up on the cues — the multiple requests from dinner party guests to change the playlist, the new “headphone only” policy at work after my Friday DJ-ing. Then there was my general inability to name the classics. And I don’t mean classical. I mean The Rolling Stones. It was a tragic moment, learning that Eurotrash and Reggaeton and Madonna remixes make for great neon-light dance parties, but alas, they’re not part of the musical canon.

It’s not that I thought I was listening to “great music,” I just didn’t understand what great music was. It’s like eating Hershey Kisses your whole life thinking that’s the best chocolate out there, and then biting into a fancy dark chocolate truffle for the first time. I was living in Plato’s Cave.

How did it get to that point? I blame my parents, naturally.

To my family’s credit, as newly minted immigrants they didn’t necessarily have their hands on the pop-culture pulse. First generation has its perks, including delicious food, a tight-knit family, and getaways in Tel Aviv. But I did miss out on what many friends seem to have, namely an indoctrination in Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, and the other usual suspects.

In short, the problem was clear. I had to up my music game, and fast. I enlisted the support of my boyfriend and former DJ Patrick J. Burns, dozens of music blogs, and friends’ Soundcloud and Spotify playlists. I then gave myself the only new year’s resolution I have ever attempted to really tackle: listen to one album a day, every day in 2014.

Here were the simple rules of my game:

Listen to every song on the album
Mix it up — new, old, country, blues, ambient, whatever
Go down the rabbit hole, i.e., if I find something I like, find more music like that. On that note, I started with some of my favorites from 2013:

Some favorites from 2013.

Lofty goal, right? No need to start projecting your own inadequacies. I failed in meeting the target, but I did listen to a whole lot of music.

My Stats

130 albums | 1,927 songs | 134+ hours

Jan and Feb were off to a great start…but alas, I am no marathon listener. And May, well, I probably fell into a work black hole for the month.

August was a bit of an outlier. I was in France and decided to dig into French music while indulging in wine and cheese (highly recommended). This includes Integrale by Serge Gainsbourg, whose 271 songs clock in at 12 hours and 53 minutes. That guy can’t stop.

Some My Favorites

I hate picking favorites, but these are a few of the albums that stuck with me. A lot of these were new releases in 2014.

Albums that make you want to dance dance dance

Albums that take you far away

Albums that can de-stress any day

Albums to get your esoteric on

YES

And my 2013 playlist that helped get me started

Now what?

I can proudly say that I no longer have a horrible taste in music. I’ll take that pat on the back, thankyouverymuch.

This has been one of the more rewarding and fun personal projects I’ve taken on. I became a better listener, better learner, and got to indulge in the bliss of cultivating taste, one day at a time. In addition to discovering a lot of new music, I went to at least a dozen live shows, continue to follow new album releases, and generally have a much deeper appreciation for music of all genres from indie classical to ambient to rap.

I’m also starting to understand the difference between elusive sub genres of electronic and classical and hip hop and soul. I still have a ways to go, though, and wish that Shazam had a feature that would “name the genre” or that Beats Music shared its genre classifications. (Note — If anyone knows of a great reference for genres, please do share.)

Finally, as someone who typically prizes spontaneity over structure, I must admit that I did enjoy having the framework to work towards a crazy goal when it was coupled with the freedom to choose my own adventure.

While I won’t be listening to entire albums a day with as much rigor, I am listening to a lot more music, and welcome recommendations! If you’re feeling generous, leave a note or throw them in this collaborative playlist I made.

The Whole Shabang

DISCLAIMER: Some albums in here are not that great, and by not great I meant — ‘want to make you pull your hair out’. But at least you’ll learn what you like and don’t like. Happy listening.