"Perfection itself is imperfection"

Re: The Perfect Album

The deed is done. All the cds have been loaded into the Powerbook and subsequently fed to The Pod; iTunes 5 has been downloaded and has a couple of nifty additions to it. The new ability to create playlist folders is such a “duh” that I’m astounded they didn’t think of it sooner. I had originally claimed to have found only three Perfect Albums in my music collection--the digital music definition of “perfect” being that the record is uploaded in it’s entirety, with compilations, concert albums, soundtracks, whole records purchased on iTunes, and best-ofs not qualifying. Further research has revealed four additions. My Perfect Albums are, in no particular order:

Prince.............................Purple Rain
Tom Waits.....................Closing Time
Tom Waits.....................Small Change
Paul Simon....................Graceland
Donald Fagen................The Nightfly
Lyle Lovett.....................Live in Texas
Ween...............................The Mollusk
Stevie Wonder...............Songs in the Key of Life
Green Day.......................American Idiot

I had no idea I was such a Tom Waits fan. I was tempted to knock “American Idiot” off the list, not because I don’t think it’s fabulous, but because it follows a vague storyline and there’s all that talk of it being a “rock opera”. Personally, I’ve always thought the term “rock opera” should be banned. I can’t think of a stupider name for a sub-genre. It will stay on the list unless there are any major objections. And, yes, “Purple Rain” is technically a soundtrack, but what other soundtrack can you name where every song was released as a single (except for Darling Nikki, which was too raunchy for 80s FM airwaves…it was still played late at night, though). It was too perfect to leave off. It was so perfect that I remember always having to wrestle it back from my Mom, who kept borrowing it.

Nine. Nine Perfect Albums out of…I don’t know. iTunes doesn’t count albums, which is silly considering all the ways to categorize, organize, search through, and analyze your music. I have 2197 songs in there. There’s a lot of comfort in knowing I have 6 days worth of music. If I am ever stranded on a deserted island with the ability to charge The Pod I can go six days without hearing the same thing twice (with some exceptions which are noted later).

What I lack in perfection I make up for in near-perfection. There are far more near-perfect albums that perfect ones, meaning ones that are only missing one song.

Tori Amos........................Boys For Pele
Radiohead........................OK Computer, The Bends
Bowie............................Bowie At The Beeb
Coldplay.........................A Rush of Blood to the Head
Outkast..........................Stankonia
The Smiths.......................Hatful of Hollow, The Queen is Dead
Bow Wow Wow......................I Want Candy
Cake.............................Fashion Nugget


That’s just a partial list. There are dozens of them. What’s odd is that there still acres of space on my hard drive and on The 20GB Pod, and I can’t remember what prompted me to leave off a song here and a song there. “Under a Blood Red Sky” only has 8 songs and still, I left one off. Why? Why, in God’s name, why? And even more represented than Near Perfects are albums I have always professed to lllloooooovve, but still have, like, half their songs missing. There are way too many of those to list. You’ll just have to take my word for it. And it's not like "Bowie at The Beeb" is his best effort.

Combing through the collection reveals peculiar patterns and musical mysteries that reveal a little bit about what makes my ears happy as well as a little bit about music in general.

Of the 85 David Bowie songs I own, none are whole albums...not even the best ofs. This is primarily due to the fact that there are a lot of repeat recordings between albums...but some songs were left off because EVEN David Bowie has a couple of clunkers. Anyway, I own five different recordings of "Ziggy Stardust" and only one is a cover. You know who else has an obscene number of repeats? The Smiths. But what’s funny about that is that those songs aren’t just plopped onto multiple albums, they actually re-recorded them. Are recording studios THAT much fun to hang around in? Do musicians like certain songs so much that they just want to keep perfecting them? Did they simply run out of material?

Back to the peculiar patterns:

7 songs whose title begins with the word “Big”, 7 that begin with "Little"and 7 whose title begins with “Black”. Only one song actually named “7”.

2 “Everybody”s 3 “Everyday”s 7 “Everything”s.

File the following under “Songwriters Are Overwhelmingly Negative”:

I own three songs called “Alone” that are not the same song. There are three songs that begin with “Do” but fifteen that start with “Don’t”. Three “Forever”s and five “Never”s. There are seventeen “I Can’t”s. Not one single “I Can”. Hmmmm…

I own 18 songs whose titles are numbers, not including phone numbers.

I own two songs that are phone numbers: “867-5309” and “6060-842”

Several songs are a call to action! "Let's Get It On", "Let's Dance", "Let's Go Away for Awhile", "Let's Go Crazy", "Let's Do It" (also...).

All major colors are represented in the music world. Red, blue, white, black, green, and yellow all have songs of their very own. No fuschia, heliotrope or chartreuse, though.

And of course, there are the ladies. There are a lot of songs with girls’ names for titles. Some legendary, some not.

Cholly, Lilly, Julianne, Kate, Jane, Jennifa (Oh, Jenny), Judy, Beth, Eleanor Rigby (she’s just so sad), Debra, Carolina, Sally, Marianne, Polly, Sarah, Sexy Ida, Martha, Caroline, Tallulah, Tanya, Mary, Maxine, Emiline. Hey, does "Bitch" count?

There aren’t quite as many guys in the mix.

There’s Fernando, Eddie, Chuck E., Mr. Jones (One by Counting Crowes, and one by Talking Heads), Mr. Pitiful, Mr. Sellack and Mr. Zebra. There’s Ricky who lost that number, and Rudie who needs to pick up his message.

And I'm sure I missed a few along the way. Nobody’s perfect.