Possibly a thread that’ll die on its arse when I discover people have more to fill their spare time than I do…
Over the age of mp3s (yay!) and streaming (fuckin’ booooo…) have you ever constructed a one-artist album or comp you’re quite proud of? I undertook a music rationalisation process (‘Hi, I work in web management’) a few years back and made a point of making an arseload of fucking top albums so I could get rid of shite that was taking up valuable space on my hard drive.
Top attempts:
Elton John - 1969-1977: I liked a few Elton John tracks from his early years but every existing comp from that era seemed to have fucking Don’t Go Breaking My Heart on it. I started constructing my own and it ended up a 3-CD-equivalent masterpiece covering country, soul, prog-rock and all sorts.
Rod Stewart - First Five Years: He did some awesome stuff as a guest singer with other bands (Python Lee Jackson, Faces, Jeff Beck Group) which, if compiled, I genuinely think would provide a late career resurgence if he hadn’t sung such turgid shite for 40+ years.
De La Soul - 3 Feet High: Sorry, but I fucking hate the skits. Using Audacity to cut them and other bullshit tracks leaves a tight 50 minute album.
Wu Tang Clan - 1994-1996: Possibly my pièce de résistance - an alternative ‘second album’ that collates the singles of all the solo albums of that era. I probably listen to this more than 36 Chambers.
Pulled together leaks of the tracks mooted to be on Kanyes ‘lost’ Yandhi album, did some actual editing of files, worked out an order that kind of tells a story of him finding God/humility… then he scrapped the whole project and everything went tits up.
It still sounds super unfinished, but compared to some of the stuff he’s released since, it’s a masterpiece
This is a great idea. Makes me want to have a go at my own.
Back in my landfill days I made a bunch of b-side compilations, including for artists I liked but wasn’t massively into, with art I either mocked up myself or by other forumers. Most are lost to time, though. I just really didn’t like single tracks on promo releases littering up my iTunes.
Bloc Party b-sides from A Weekend in the City > A Weekend in the City
I did something similar in a Spotify playlist for Wu Tang singles. It’s not comprehensive at all but it was my attempt to pull together my favourite tracks not on the first album.
I still included Protect Ya Neck because I can listen to that … again and again.
I was quite pleased with this Barry White playlist:
I often listen to the Spotify “This is …” playlists but they will miss out things released under different names or groups. Sometimes you just have to make your own.
I am a massive fan of building up playlists while reading biographies. That’s what I did with Barry and just added tracks everytime one was mentioned in the book. Often someone else has already made a list for a particular book.
After I realised on spotify desktop you could make different playlist folders (or at least you used to be able to, although I only use my mobile now) I currently have 144 artist playlists.
I like to think this is pro level playlisting
