Thursday, April 25, 2019

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: We're Gonna Need A Bigger Book



If an infinite number of records can be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns, why not write a book celebrating a few of that infinite number? That could be cool. I've already written a bunch of such entries over the past few years, so a book talking about, say, 45 of the prospective GREM candidates probably wouldn't even take all that long to concoct.

Right. 

I went from being almost done writing the first draft of my proposed book The Greatest Record Ever Made to being just over half done with it. But the more I thought about this project, the more certain I became that the book needed to be bigger.

At the time of the book's last progress update not even a week ago, I had settled on doing a total of 66 chapters, each chapter devoted to a single song that, in my mind, could be called The Greatest Record Ever Made. This was already quite a few more records than the 45 I'd originally thought of covering in such a book. 45 became 50, 50 became 66. 

It still seemed too short.

I put a lot of mulling and considering into this before finally deciding that a book calling itself The Greatest Record Ever Made needs a hotter number than a mere 66 songs. 

It needs a Hot 100. 

So that's what I'm doing. 100 songs (101 if you split the two-in-one Buddy Holly chapter), plus a closing instrumental. At one recent point, before all this expansion, I was within just five chapters of a complete first draft. Now? 59 down, 41 to go. 

That's a lot of work. But it's fun!

I've made my tentative selections for the 100 songs that will be included, and rest assured those selections will change. The songs span a time frame from 1956 to 2012, with the largest number of tracks coming from the '60s and '70s. I'll probably post that list in a couple of days. Meanwhile, though, it's important to keep sacred these lines from the book's Disclaimers And Declarations section:

"This specific disclaimer is worth highlighting in bold and all-caps: THIS IS NOT INTENDED AS A LIST OF THE 100 GREATEST RECORDS EVER MADE! The chapters in this book cover a number of fave raves, but nowhere near all of my favorites; that's not the goal of The Greatest Record Ever Made. It's not even a list of my all-time Top 100. I mean, not even close. There's no study here of, say, [redacted], no [redacted], no [redacted], no [redacted], and only a passing reference to, lessee, "[redacted]" by [redacted]. Among GREM candidates, I didn't get to [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and...well, it's a long and worthy list. But I did write about 100 fantastic tracks, and then some. These are the 100+ great records I was moved to put under the GREM spotlight for essay and exultation this time around. Always remember the mantra: an infinite number, as long as they take turns."

For those dying for a sneak peak, the monthly private post for paid patrons in May will be one of the completed, unpublished chapters of the book. If you're interested in seeing this, you can become a patron of this blog for just $2 a month.

More hype to come. One other thing to reveal now: while most acts were strictly limited to one GREM entry only, there was one act that had to have two. Why? Because they're The Kinks. Reason enough, my friends. Reason enough.




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