Day 1: The Coronavirus Countdown – 100 Days of Great Music
The staff of the College Football America Yearbook is on the road every weekend of the college football season, shooting games and gathering information for the following year’s book. That means a lot of driving and listening to a lot of music.
Earlier this year our College Football America Yearbook publisher Kendall Webb and our director of editorial content Chuck Cox put together ‘The Coronavirus Countdown – 100 Days of Great Music.’ Each of them sat down and compiled a list of 100 great albums. Their goal was not to select the ‘100 greatest albums of all time.’ It was simply to select 100 great albums to write about as they passed the time during quarantine and shelter-at-home orders.
This 2020 college football season will be unprecedented in so many ways. It’s very likely none of us will be on the road for games because, like most people, we’re trying to stay healthy. And we hope you are too.
So, for the next 100 days, we’re going to publish their countdown here at CollegeFootballAmericaPR.com (the list was originally published on Webb’s personal site, kendallwebb.net). Consider it the ultimate playlist for the ultimate college road trip — music for every taste, from every genre and from every decade of the modern era of music. When the staff of the College Football America Yearbook is back on the road, you can bet these will be some of the tunes we’re listening to.
Here’s Day 1. We’ll let Kendall take it away …
So here we go … I challenged Chuck Cox to pick 100 great albums, and then I came up with my own list of 100 albums, too. Then we got together and compared them, and it’s a pretty fine list if I may say so myself.
Now, neither one of us is trying to claim these are the 100 greatest albums ever. We are smarter than that. But we thought we’d give you 100 albums apiece that mean the world to us — one hundred personal favorites that bring us back again and again.
Many of them are classics that you know well; some of them are so obscure you may never have heard of them. But they are important records to us on a personal level. In fact, 12 of them meant so much to both of us that they were consensus picks, and we’ll roll those out on their own in the final days of our countdown.
The only rule was we could only pick one album per artist, although certain artists who have been part of different groups made the list multiple times as parts of those separate acts. Beyond that, it was wide open — EP’s, live albums, greatest hits anthologies, you name it. Anything was an option. Our list includes virtually every genre you can think of and spans from the 1930’s all the way through last year.
We hope you’ll enjoy having a little fun with us during The Coronavirus Countdown.
The Zombies
Odessey and Oracle
Why I Love It
I didn’t know much about this record until about 10 years ago. It’s easy to hear why I kept seeing it pop up among influential albums by artists I love. This album is nothing short of a psychedelic masterpiece. But unlike most other albums released in the Summer of Love era, this one still resonates in 2020. I defy anyone to not groove on “Time of the Season.”
Album Highlights
“Time of the Season,” “This Will Be Our Year” and “A Rose for Emily”
Kendall on Chuck’s Album of the Day
I got hooked on this album about 10 years ago, and was listening to it every couple of weeks. And then it slowly slipped off my radar. Thanks to Chuck for re-introducing me to an old friend.
Ryan Adams
Heartbreaker
Why I Love It
Yeah, I get it. Ryan Adams is a jerk, and this selection is not to celebrate him in any personal way at all. This is all about the music, and in this case, the best music Ryan Adams has ever made as a solo artist (and he’s made a LOT).
His career came to a screeching halt in 2019 after his ex-wife Mandy Moore made some dramatic accusations about his control tactics and mental abuse. Other female artists stepped up with their own stories, and by all accounts, he deserves the negative press that has come his way. I still think this album is worth pulling up to listen to with Adams at the height of both his songwriting and vocal powers.
Album Highlights
“My Winding Wheel,” “Oh My Sweet Carolina” and “Come Pick Me Up”
Chuck on Kendall Webb’s Album of the Day
Ryan Adams makes angst sound so good on his debut album. Great choice. This one almost made my list. I’ve listened to “Come Pick Me Up” about a thousand times. I think I’ll go ahead and make it 1,001.
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