A couple of seemingly unrelated threads came converged in my head one recent evening. I’ve been considering buying an ebook (the Sony Daily Edition is the target of my current interest). Getting actually close to purchasing the device, I’m now considering just what to put on it, which rekindled my interest in the old concept of the Great Books… that list of fine literature which some academics in the early or mid twentieth century determined to represent the epitome of Western civilization, and which several major universities built their liberal arts curriculum around.
In an originally unrelated event, I received from my parents for Christmas a boxed set of CDs of the original Columbia recordings of Simon and Garfunkel; 5 great albums, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM; Sounds of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Listening to these albums again (I already owned a boxed set of the albums on vinyl, but rarely fire up the turntable anymore) I was struck by the thought: “What are the Great Albums that one simply cannot be fully “literate” in Western culture without the knowledge of?” After all, the idea of the Great Books was that they are relevant to the great ideas and issues that have occupied the minds of great thinkers through the centuries. Isn’t music a part of that conversation as well? Rolling Stone has compiled a list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, but their criteria are not the same as mine, they are more interested in the musical influence than the greater cultural influence. Of course, recorded music is a phenomenon of only the past century or so, with Johannes Brahms being perhaps the first recorded musician, and his wax cylinder recording (made by a representative of Thomas Edison) being barely recognizable today. Still, a century is long enough for the medium to have an impact on the great minds of the recent past, and certainly on those of today.
So what are the great recordings? Here’s a short list of albums I consider to be worthy of cut:
- Tapestry (Carole King, 1971)
- Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (Simon and Garfunkel, 1966)
- Revolver (The Beatles, 1966)
- Dust Bowl Ballads (Woody Guthrie, 1940)
- Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartet, 1959)
- Bringing it All Back Home (Bob Dylan, 1965)
- Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan, 1965)
- Déjà Vu (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, 1970)
- Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould, 1955)
- In the Wee Small Hours (Frank Sinatra, 1955)
- Getz/Gilberto (Stan Getz, João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, 1964)
- West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast) (1957)
- Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)
There are many other important albums I’ve not mentioned here, either because my poor memory fails me, or they are of a genre I’m not much familiar with, or because, although they are beautiful, excellent albums, they haven’t contributed to the greater conversation in Western culture. And there are single songs that rise above the rest of an album to reach that level (Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones quickly comes to mind). But as far as I’m concerned, this baker’s dozen albums is unquestionably a part of the conversation. Your thoughts?