Full of Sound and Fury and Suffering Dave
Dave-FM is running a promotion encouraging people to choose the “Top 30 Albums” of the past 30 years. Good luck with that. Here’s the problem. The chances that they will create a list that means anything are almost nil. First, they have to define what is meant by “The Top”. If they mean purely by sales, be prepared to hear a lot of Michael Jackson and Celine Dion.
If they mean by cultural influence, their going to hit ‘The Velvet Underground’ problem. (For those of you unfamiliar… The initial run of the Velvet’s first record sold about 6,000 copies, but allegedly, “everyone who bought the record started a band”.) It’s unlikely that a choice left up to people will be able to properly address the albums that are heard mostly by other musicians. This is why I guarantee there will be an Indigo Girls album on the list, but I promise that there will not be a Roches record. Even if you asked just the musicians in town, they’re all going to disagree. The albums Ludacris thinks are the most influential won’t be the same as those on the list of Aaron Shust.
The Guardian tried this several years ago. They included the Spice Girls record.
It would be better if Dave-FM had said “Hey! We’re compiling a list of what our listeners think are the most important records”. Instead they are claiming that theirs will be the “quintessential list that defines the 30 Biggest Albums of the Last 30 years.”
There are, perhaps, half a dozen folks in town who could properly answer this question with any authority. I bet Dave-FM has not asked them.