One of the great things about the modern age is that it's easier than ever to explore the art and entertainment of the past. Yes, YOU TOO can explore all those cool movies and books and especially music from the past that everybody went wild over then and still talk about to this day.
Of course, this is all nice and fine when it's for, say, a self contained piece of media, like a film or a short story, where if you want to find why its so revered you can just, you know, go read/watch/whatever it. Music, however, can present a little more of a problem.
Say there's a singer or a composer or something. And they're REALLY famous. Even people who don't care about the genre they preform in know who they are. However, for a lot people, they're just famous for being a famous person. They revered because of course they're revered, they're really talented and stuff. Which is fine, but it usually works better if you have some familiarity with their work. If the only reason you know someone is supposed to be good is because they keep popping up on "Best of All Time" lists, but you've gone most of your life hearing maybe a couple songs by them, then it loses some of its impact. And even if you want to correct that, who the hell do you go about doing it? Sure, you might get lucky and try to do it with someone who had a very short career, but most of people who achieve this kind of fame record for year and years. Decades, even. More material than most neophytes would want to bother with, just due to the shear volume of it all.
However, the neophyte does have one thing that can help: compilations. You know, "Greatest Hits" CDs and their ilk. But even then, how do you know if the CD you're getting is even any good, especially when there can be different CDs that cover the same period and ones from different companies with the same title but they have not material in common and why aren't half of these in print any more and oh god its like being stuck in a hedge maze
Point being, even that can get confusing, especially if you're knowledge of said performer is "They're Famous" and not a lot beyond that.
Which is where this series comes in. Iconblivious: where I look at short CD compilations of singers who I know about, but aren't familiar with their material, and see what there deal is. How do they measure up to what little I know about them? What surprises do I find? Are the liner notes any good or do they show that it's just some budget-line release with a famous name on it? And other topics. Compilations are limited to single CD releases, though some 2-CD ones may sneak in from time to time, depending on the circumstances. For now, I'll focus on the kind of material I personally don't know about, i.e. pop and jazz vocalists who's prime started before the 1960s, but that's not set in stone.
Will I find new music that I've been missing out on or will I deiced that these people appear to be famous for being famous for a reason? Only time will tell.
(Special thanks to Mike Anderson for coming up with the title.)
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