1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (1,000 Before You Die) | Tom Moon

1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (1,000 Before You Die) | Tom Moon | A splendid list of important recordings

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	1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (1,000 Before You Die) Tom Moon Workman Publishing Company, 2008 - 992 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The musical adventure of a lifetime. The most exciting book on music in years. A book of treasure, a book of discovery, a book to open your ears to new worlds of pleasure. Doing for music what Patricia Schultz?author of the phenomenal 1,000 Places to See Before You Die?does for travel, Tom Moon recommends 1,000 recordings guaranteed to give listeners the joy, the mystery, the revelation, the sheer fun of great music.

This is a book both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It's arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners? horizons? it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the '80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos.

Each entry is passionately written, with expert listening notes, fascinating anecdotes, and the occasional perfect quote?"Your collection could be filled with nothing but music from Ray Charles," said Tom Waits, "and you'd have a completely balanced diet." Every entry identifies key tracks, additional works by the artist, and where to go next. And in the back, indexes and playlists for different moods and occasions.

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Very enjoyable book

I purchased this book after hearing it featured on NPR "All Things Considered". Tom covers just about every genre of music and takes an interesting look at everything from classical music to Bill Monroe to the Sex Pistols. I enjoyed the fact that in many cases he highlighted artists best artistic works instead of just choosing to list their most popular recordings, as someone who loves exploring different styles of music, I found myself agreeing with many of his choices, and also found a few recordings I need to listen to before I die. Any open minded music fan will enjoy this book.

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A splendid list of important recordings

This book contains a list of what the author chooses as one thousand important recordings. What is especially interesting about the book is that it takes an historical viewpoint. The author provides superb analysis of what gives each listing its historical importance. All genres are covered in this listing - from opera to metal - so it is a splendid way to fill in gaps in your knowledge and in your collection. The usual pop and classical masterpieces are listed. What really makes the book are the large number of relative obscurities that the author considers worthy of classic status. I found several World music listings that I might have missed without this superb book.

The listings are broad but not especially deep. If you are interested in the full spectrum of music genres this book should interest you. If your interests are narrower and you are searching for the obscure releases of favorite artists, the necessary restriction to no more than 4 entries for any particular artist may make the book less useful to you. That loss of depth is the book's sole significant weakness. For a general overview of the great recordings in all genres it will be hard to improve upon this excellent listing. Strongly recommended.

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Almost too much information

This book is a lot bigger than I originally anticipated. It is huge! It covers all genres of music from rap to classical. At first I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, but it makes for great browsing from time to time. I like to listen to it while on Amazon or Itunes and sample the songs he is talking about. I have been surprised by the range of good music. My only disappointment is that many of the recordings are not readily available.

The only downside I see to this book is that a lot depends on the reviewer's tastes and what he thinks is really good. Some of my favorite music is not listed, though I was not too offended.

The indexes are really good and very helpful. I am very happy with this book and think it makes for great reading.

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The More You Love Music, the More Music Loves You

For any music fan, you know a title of the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die is worth a look. For novice fans, the book makes good suggestions ranging every musical genre you can think off. For the music fanatic you can read it to pick it apart, because even with a thousand entries, certainly everyone can come up with a least of a hundred recordings that should have been included in the list and a few that you make you scratch your head at their inclusion.

From his picture on the back of the book, it should be noted that author Tom Moon is of the Baby Boomer generation so naturally there is an overabundance of music from the sixties while Bob Dylan and the Beatles are more than represented. Okay old people, we get it, you really loved the Beatles, but really eight albums featuring the band members? Dylan landed four while a few ranked twice. Keep in mind Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run) and Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon) and U2 (The Joshua Tree) only made the list once. I would really like Moon to justify just how Usher's Confessions, Britney Spears' Toxic and No Doubt's Rock Steady (which isn't even the band's best work) rank higher than Born in the USA, Wish You Were Here and Achtung Baby.

I also am not sure if I should complain about the exclusion of any Eric Clapton album (seriously, no Slowhand), he does show up with Derek and the Dominos, Cream, John Mayall's Blues Breakers, The Yardbirds, and Blind Faith. Where the sixties is well populated, looking at this book it is as the nineties didn't exist unless you were a grunge band or a dead rapper. That did lead to possibly the best write up in the book for Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chamber) where Moon bizarrely starts up the review quoting poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But enough with the complaints of the selections because if I continued to nit-pick I would write a review that rivals the book's 1007 pages.

116 of those pages are just indexes. But with indexes for Genre, Occasions (like Parties, Romance), Composers, and Performers. Although it would have been nice if they would have thrown in an extra five pages to list the recording chronologically. But each write up is well done even if Moon doesn't seem to really understand any the music he included that release after 1980. Each recording also include Key Tracks, Catalog Choice, other works by the artist worth listening to, as well as Next Stop and After That, two recording that are related musically to selection worth checking out.

Easily the most interesting inclusion has to be The Grey Album by Danger Mouse considering that to listen to it you are technically breaking the law. For those unfamiliar, The Grey Album a mash up between The White Album by The Beatles (which of course is also listed) and The Black Album from Jay-Z (which is conspicuously missing from the list) that launched Danger Mouse into a succesful producer and one half of Gnarls Barkley.

But whatever type a music fan you are, there is plenty of gems to find in the book. And the short segment are perfect to have laying around when you only have short spurts of time to kill, as it is currently taking up space in my bathroom. Just keep in mind the 1007 page thick frame is a little cumbersome to hold at time, so the short spurts of reading is really ideal.

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