I consider myself a music lover. I will also be the first to admit, I only enjoy approximately 5% of the music that I hear. The rest of it falls anywhere on a spectrum somewhere between indifference and hatred. Does that make me a music lover? I’ve heard people say that you’re “supposed to” like all kinds of music. I don’t agree. I believe you can’t help what you like. I listen to mostly soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, and R&B because that’s what sounds good to me. You can help what you allow yourself to listen to, and I’ve failed in that category. I’ve ignored a lot of supposedly good music because I prejudge it and decide I won’t like it long before I actually attempted to listen to it.
Stevie Nicks was the musical guest on SNL recently and her presence there inspired this idea. Stevie Nicks and her beloved group Fleetwood Mac fall into my indifference category. They’re fine. I’ve heard a few of their songs. Probably more than I actually realize. If you played me a list of Fleetwood Mac hits my reaction to most of them would probably be, “Oh, that’s Fleetwood Mac? I’ve heard this song a hundred times. I had no idea.” I don’t dislike them, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to them. I can’t find the exact quote or song so I shouldn’t even attempt to tell the story, but I remember hearing or reading about Prince once playing a song he recorded for Morris Day…in my mind it was “When Doves Cry” after he took out the bass line, but I’m probably wrong and finding the answer would require more effort than I’m willing to exert. Morris listened to the song once and gave Prince the tape back saying something like, “Don’t ever play me some shit like this again. If it ain’t funky, I don’t wanna hear it.” That’s generally my view of music. If you only learn one thing reading this it should be that early-80s Morris Day and I are the exact same person. I’m sure to many people Fleetwood Mac is as important as D’Angelo and Prince are to me. I could name dozens of other bands/artists about whom I could say the same. What are they hearing that I’m not? As I watched Stevie Nicks perform I thought to myself, “I don’t see the big deal. What am I missing?”
I decided that night to make an effort to learn more about the music that I’ve ignored, if for no other reason than to become a better educated music fan. I might not love all music and genres, but you can’t call me closed-minded. I’m willing to give anything a try once. I decided to start this music education by listening to every single album in the recent Apple Music 100 Best Albums list. I enjoyed the unveiling of this list earlier this year. Whether or not you agree with the rankings, I think it does a good job of covering beloved albums from a wide variety of genres.
As I started listening to album #100 – Body Talk by Robyn – I thought to myself, “I should write about this.” People are always posting their reaction videos to the first time they heard an iconic song. I’m going to give a brief analysis of every single album in the Apple Music Top 100. It could be something I’ve heard hundreds of times like Purple Rain or Voodoo, or an album like Body Talk, which I’ve never heard before and would’ve never considered.
So, now you know my next project. A brief, uneducated review of every album on the Apple Music Top 100. I look forward to giving my readers some insight into just how laughably ignorant I am about popular music.
One more thing: This isn’t going to be a record-a-day kind of thing. This isn’t like when I wrote about Prince, D’Angelo, and Amy. I’m going to post #100 immediately. I have no idea when I’ll get to #99. I did already listen to it, but I have yet to write about it. If I had to guess right now I won’t get further than #85. We’ll see…
mookiefantana 