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.
And, if you missed the previous installments of our series, just click here to head to the Coronavirus Countdown — 100 Days of Great Music home page.
Here’s Day 47
Journey’s catalog is old enough now to be considered classic rock, and Chuck selected the band’s 1988 Greatest Hits as his Album of the Day.
That was the same year that Miranda Lambert turned five years old, and Kendall picked her 2009 album Revolution for his daily selection.
Make no mistake, though, while Lambert is one of country music’s biggest superstars, she is, without a doubt, a product of the era she grew up in — and that means the rock and roll music of the ’80s as well. She’s never shied away from covering rock artists in her live sets including AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Joan Jett. There’s a rock edge to Lambert’s version of country at times for sure, and Jett probably serves as one of the best touchstones connecting Lambert’s music to that era.
— Chuck Cox and Kendall Webb
CHUCK’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Why I Love It
Talk about the music of my youth. Like Kiss and Queen, Journey has been a mainstay of my rock and roll fandom since the day it came into existence. I vividly remember listening to Journey in my mom’s Nissan 300ZX on the way to school. I have always loved Steve Perry’s voice, which is perfectly suited for the band’s power pop anthems and ballads of the MTV era that I hold near and dear. I felt like I had to include a compilation to focus on all of those massive hits. I was fortunate enough to see Journey inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in Brooklyn, which is a memory I will always treasure. This is one of the biggest classic rock acts out there — and for good reason.
Album Highlights
“Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Faithfully” and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”
Kendall on Chuck’s Album of the Day
I have the Essential Journey collection — a two-disc box set spanning 32 songs that offers a more expansive overview of the band’s hits and AOR favorites. But to be honest, this 1988 collection from Chuck covers the most important highlights of Journey’s career, and it does it more efficiently over the course of 14 tracks. A great way to get straight to the hits, and this collection is loaded with them.
KENDALL’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Why I Love It
Honestly, you could pick just about any Miranda Lambert album here as just about every one of her records has won at least one of country music’s Album of the Year trophies from either the CMA or the ACM.
And true enough, Chuck already tabbed Lambert’s The Weight Of These Wings earlier in our countdown. I went with Revolution because it contains one of my favorite songs recorded by Miranda — “The House That Built Me,” one of those songs that every other artist wishes they had recorded.
Throw in a cover of John Prine’s “That’s The Way That The World Goes ‘Round” and you’ve got my full attention. Miranda Lambert is the rare contemporary country artist who has managed to keep me interested while country radio has trudged through its latest identity crisis that now reaches back more than a decade.
Album Highlights
“White Liar,” “The House That Built Me” and “Heart Like Mine”
Chuck on Kendall’s Album of the Day
Here’s another artist that has two different albums on our countdown. Like I said on my Miranda Lambert selection, The Weight of These Wings, she is the perfect one-two punch of fantastic songwriter and singer that makes her a special artist. On this album, she comes into her own by honing her distinctive style that continues to make her flourish. This is a special album that will get its hooks into you on first listen. She is amazing.
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