I just got this book, and have gone though and ticked off the albums they list in my collection. I have a grand total of 115 of the 1001; mostly clustered between 1966 and 1972. Typical, I suppose of a lot of people my age. The book provides me an interesting touch stone that will help me expand outside of the 'golden era' I think.
Several points trouble me about the book however:
1) It has reminded me that I still haven't replaced a bunch of records that an ex-roommate stole from me - including my entire first release Beatles collection. (My total might have topped 150 I think).
2) While no list like this, however large, is going to satisfy everyone, how anyone could include Britney Spears in this list is beyond my imagination. If they just had to have an obvious example of late nineties bubblegum, they could have picked someone with just a little bit of talent, like maybe Kylie Minogue. I expect 99.44% of all readers could think of several omitted albums that would be more appropriate. I myself can't see how they could leave out the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed, or John Coltrane's Blue Train but find room for Spears.
3) While not actually gathered onto an album until decades after the 78's were recorded, I think a 'special case' should have been made for Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. It is not an overstatement to say that without these recordings, very little of the music on the 1001 albums chosen could have ever existed. And even though the 'LP album' as such wasn't invented until much later, taken together they are very much in the general mode of an album, capturing a special time in the artists development and a turning point in popular music.
4) Although this is "1001 Albums..." not "1001 Artists..." several artists are clearly over-represented (Led Zeppelin is great, but do they really deserve 5 albums here) and other very important artists are completely missing (the above mentioned Louis Armstrong; Robert Johnson; Bessie Smith [actually most Blues artists in general], Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Sam the Sham and the Pharohs).
5) I found a bunch of indexing errors - page numbers and inconsistent group names ("Led Zeppelin" and "Zeppelin, Led").
Items 2, 3, and 4 point to a possibly more fundamental problem. I expect that the contributors felt is important to try to balance the weights of the decades and dropped older stuff to make way for the newer. The problem is that much of the newer stuff is too new to be properly considered a 'must hear' important album. Pop music is in a deep cycle of bubblegum, and very little of todays 'pop' is destined to become important historical records. These days, ground breaking takes place by indies and is distributed via the internet. Not a very easy environment for an album to grab the imagination.
Overall I think it is an interesting - if weighty - tome. Ready made to inspire arguements and the widening of horizons. And much more realistic than its 1001 Books or 1001 Movies siblings.
