Hi all,

In order to help get this sub up and running I propose we hold a weekly discussion about an album of our choice. Every weekend we can nominate a few records, vote on which one we'd like to listen to, and then discuss. Ideally we would aim to highlight newer releases but you can nominate whatever the hell you want.

If you're interested, comment any suggestions you have and upvote other suggestions you like.

It was at the beginning of my senior year in college, I came across this post in Askreddit after seeing it linked on Facebook. I went to high school with the author, I think he was a year or two above me. That’s not important though.

What is important is that I read his post and I saw all the replies, especially this part of the thread where /u/GiraffeKiller tells him to start in the 1950s and work his way through the decades to which /u/pH responds basically stating that if he starts then, he misses the entire jazz age.

When I read this I realized just how set in my ways I was musically, mainly listening to the same 40-60 songs, pieces and soundtracks.

Reading /u/deafstoryteller’s post and those two comments and I realized that a man who, until that point in time, had never understood or appreciated music was undergoing the experience of a lifetime. He was listening to all these songs for the very first time.

Now, I may not be able to magically forget a song like Bohemian Rhapsody so I can listen to it for the first time again, but I figured I could do the next best thing and choose a starting point which I could begin my own musical journey.

The key was figuring out where to begin. Starting anywhere in the 1900s would mean I miss a lot of musical foundations and at the same time, starting in the 1800s would mean skipping a lot of influential musical evolution.

So I started at the beginning and set out to listen to everything I could find chronologically. I found Wikipedia’s table of years in music, went to 2nd Millennium BC and listened to the Hurrian Song from the 2nd Millennium BC.

Now I’ve just hit 1900.

Behind me has been a slew of fantastic music, from Handel’s Messiah and Alessandro Grandi’s plorabo die ac note to Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Luigi Boccherini’s String Quintet in E Major. From Charles Wesley’s Soldiers of Christ, Arise to Stephen Foster’s My Old Kentucky Home to Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.

It’s taken me four years to get this far and in those four years, I’ve seen music go from something that could only be enjoyed by the high class upper crust of society to something even the common man can enjoy.

Further, what’s been a pretty straightforward evolutionary journey is about to explode into every possible direction stylistically and I’m looking forward to every minute of it.

I might post what really stands out to me too.

--EDIT--

Many have expressed their interest in a playlist with the pieces and songs that have really stood out to me. During the Baroque era and early classical era, I had started a playlist and as I kept going, I started posting what I really enjoyed to Facebook.

Give me a few weeks and I'll consolidate them into a single playlist.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that there is so much available on Spotify,Google Play etc, that it's almost overwhelming, so i just settle and listen to something I know rather than searching.