I am going to start a new project today. It is more for me than for you but, should you care to join me as my project evolves, you are more than welcome. It all has to do with my writing. You may have noticed that I don’t post many blog pieces anymore. During the first two years of my retirement, I posted nearly 100 times from my blog. In the past eleven months, since the pandemic started for us in Ontario, I have posted 6 times. That’s it! I’ve gone from averaging one blog post per week to one every other month. In that time, I am finding the days blending together with me not having much to show for any of them. As the old saying goes, in order to cure a problem one must first admit that there is a problem to begin with. This post is my admission.
So, here is what I am going to attempt to do in order to kickstart my writerly mind and rediscover the vast reservoir of creativity that used to exist for me not too long ago. I am going to write about the Top 500 songs in modern music history. I am going to write about two songs per weekday until all 500 songs have been covered. I am not sure if I can keep up the routine over the course of many months but, routine is what I crave right now. I need to get back to researching with a purpose and waking each day with a writer’s mindset. Hopefully, this challenge will do that for me. How I came to choose this challenge is, as follows.
When the pandemic began and artists first started promoting “at home” or “in studio” concerts, one of the first I stumbled across was an NPR Tiny Desk concert by a British band called Idles. NPR stands for National Public Radio, for those who don’t know and serves as comparable to some of the CBC music channels on the radio, here in Canada. Anyway, I watched this Idles concert on Youtube. If you know anything about Youtube, you will know that when you watch one type of video you start establishing an algorithm that causes Youtube to fill your page with similar choices. So, I got to see lots more Idles videos. One of the next videos of theirs that I watched was a live concert in the studios of KEXP Radio in Seattle. KEXP is an independent station and, because I watched that concert, I began to get more KEXP in-studio videos. And guess what? I really liked what they were airing. Lots of indie-type artists, lots of artists that I wasn’t really seeing or hearing via mainstream sources. Eventually, I checked out their webpage and it was there that I discovered this list of the Top 500 songs in Modern Music History. Apparently, this list was the result of an exhaustive survey of their listeners from all over the world. KEXP streams worldwide via our friend, the Interweb.
After checking out the list, I found it to be my favourite countdown list out of all those I have heard/read in the past. There are lots of fabulous songs that span all age ranges, all musical genres and that have interesting stories to go along with them. I like this list a lot so, I am hopeful that I will self-motivate myself simply because of the quality of the music I will be discussing each weekday. If you care to come along for the ride, I promise you won’t be disappointed. You will recognize most of the songs. For the ones that aren’t to your taste or that you are unfamiliar with, keep in mind that those songs are definitely to someone’s taste….that’s why they are on this list. So, there you have it. My musical countdown project starts today. Here I go from dull-witted, soft and creatively flabby, to a leaner, meaner more bulked up version of myself by the time we reach song #1. I wish myself luck. I fear I may need it.
I look forward to this series!
Thank you. I hope that you end up finding some songs that you like.