Subjectivity Homesick Blues

I just wanted to mention again that I'm not any sort of professional at this. I'm not educated in music criticism, I can't read music and I don't play any instruments. I'm a total novice, but I'm interested and I'll probably get better at writing and thinking about music as this whole thing progresses.


In case anyone's interested in my own biases and experiences with music, here is a list of some albums that I have considered My Favorite at some point in the last ten years, in roughly chronological order:

• The Beatles - Abbey Road
• Operation Ivy - Energy
• Crimpshrine - The Sound of a New World Being Born
• Fifteen - Allegra
• X - Beyond and Back: The X Anthology
• J Church - One Mississippi
• The White Stripes - De Stijl
• Bright Eyes - Lifted, or, The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
• Pavement - Terror Twilight
• The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
• Various Artists - Kindercore Fifty: We Thank You
• the Olivia Tremor Control - Singles and Beyond
• of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
• The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
• Negativland - Negativland/U2
• X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents
• Dean Gray - American Edit
• They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
• Girl Talk - Night Ripper
• the World/Inferno Friendship Society - East Coast Super Sound Punk Of Today!
• Arcade Fire - Funeral
• Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

(Obviously that's chronological order of when I heard them, not when they were released.)

Here's the pitifully small list of the albums from this mission that I had already heard before starting:

• Air – Moon Safari
• Arcade Fire – Funeral
• Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
• Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night
• Beatles – Revolver
• Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Beatles – The Beatles (aka White Album)
• Beatles – Abbey Road
• Beck – Odelay
• Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
• Flaming Lips – Soft Bulletin
• Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
• Green Day – Dookie
• The Kinks – The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
• M.I.A. – Arular
• Moby – Play
• Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
• No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom
• Pavement – Slanted & Enchanted
• Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
• Radiohead – OK Computer
• Rage Against the Machine – Renegades
• Ramones – Ramones (1st Album)
• Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness
• Soundgarden – Superunknown
• System of a Down – System of a Down (1st Album)
• Various Artists – O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack
• Weezer – Weezer (Blue Album)
• Weezer – Pinkerton
• White Stripes – White Blood Cells
• White Stripes – Elephant
• White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
• X – Los Angeles
• X – Wild Gift
• X-Ray Spex – Germ Free Adolescent
• Zombies – Odessey & Oracle

My first entries will probably be lamentably poor in terms of my ability to think about the music and especially the historical and musical context of each album.  I expect that there will be a lot of retrospective consideration given to the earliest albums on the list as I get farther along into the albums.  Since there has to be a first item, I won't be able to bring up anything I've heard so far when I write that entry.  Later on the entries will likely include thoughts on what brought us to that album, what the album is like, and what influences it may have on future records.  

Bear with me, I'm trying to structure this scientifically but I don't have much background on all of it.  That's sort of the whole point to doing it, I guess.