Crate Dig 2012
This past weekend I watched a great documentary about the 90’s hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest called “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest” (which you should definitely watch). One of the most interesting parts of the film involved tribe member Q-Tip describing how he discovered some of the beats, loops, breakdowns, and hooks he used on the early Tribe albums. He described how he would listen to his father’s old jazz records and would discover all sort of amazing sounds.
Which got me thinking; I want to start doing the same. Not so much raiding my father’s record collection (I’ve already done that), but rather discovering new and amazing sounds. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a sizeable music collection, but the problem is that I rarely take the time to actually sit down and listen to what I have. This year I want to change that.
However, more than just that I also want to discover older stuff, along with stuff I might not be inclined to check out normally. And while sure, I could just head online and download a random torrent every week that would be illegal, but more importantly a lot less fun.
So this is my goal for the year: every week (or maybe every other week, we’ll see how lazy I get) I want to head into one of the record shops on my way home from the office (lucky for me there are several), head over to the bargain bins and purchase a random album. Maybe it’ll be a band I’ve heard of in the past but never checked out. Maybe it will be a clever title that I think might be a great listen. Maybe (and more likely) it will be based solely on how awesome the album art is (they say don’t judge a book by a cover, but let’s face it I totally do). I will purchase this random album and take it home and listen to it from start to finish. This, of course, will be easier than usual since vinyl can only pack a maximum of 45 minutes of music onto one disc meaning I won’t be as easily bored, and even if I am there’s no way to skip songs on a record so I’ll just have to put up with it and listen.
Maybe I’ll love it. Maybe I’ll hate it. Either way, picking from the bargain bin will ensure it doesn’t really matter either way. Hopefully I’ll find a few songs I like, but maybe I’ll just find a few cool loops, hooks, or breakdowns. Either way, this fun little project will help expand my musical tastes, while at the same time expand my record collection. It will also hopefully be an impetus to start that vinyl blog I keep planning on creating…
I encourage you to join in. Let’s face it, we all have albums we neglect in our iTunes libraries. There’s probably plenty of songs out there we would love if we just gave them a chance. So let’s do that. Let’s give our music a chance. We might be surprised by what we find!
Photo: duncanh1
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