My word, you Spectator readers are an education, and a delightfully idiosyncratic bunch to boot. To celebrate this 100th ‘Olden but golden’ column I invited you to send in your all-time top tens, and three dozen entries have arrived so far, some from as far afield as the US and Australia.
In 2002, we confined ourselves to rock and pop. This time classical music and jazz and indeed any other musical genres were actively encouraged, and favourite singles as well as albums were permitted as well.
I particularly like the bloody-minded independence of Spectator readers. One reader’s idea of an all-time top ten was to send me a photograph of his evidently treasured vinyl LPs of Benny Goodman’s famous Carnegie Hall jazz concert in 1938 with the caption: ‘What better introduction to non-classical music (a very long time ago)’. You are quite right, David Lamb. It is a great place to start. At the other end of the spectrum was Graeme Musker, who was so rattled by choosing just ten discs from his collection of 3,800 CDs that he didn’t get beyond those beginning with the letter ‘A’, adding that ‘what horrifies me is that I am stuck in a Sixties–Seventies time warp’. Take heart, Mr Musker. So was I until a few years ago but there is absolutely no need to remain in the same old groove. Just open your ears and your mind and there are endless new pleasures to be discovered, though the music we first heard in our teens will, I suspect, always have an especially powerful pull on our heart-strings.
I was delighted that so many of your top tens juxtaposed so many different styles of music. Miles Davis rubbed shoulders with Vivaldi, Ella Fitzgerald found herself in the company of Brahms, and Vaughan Williams was in the same list as Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. I fear my Amazon bill is going to be even higher than usual in the coming months as I follow up your suggestions. And I’m truly grateful that you devoted so much time and thought to the exercise.
There are so many fine lists that I am going to keep the series running for a couple more months at least. So keep the entries coming — ten selections with a few words on why you have chosen each one — and send them to charlie.spencer@btinternet.com and there will be a prize of CDs or record vouchers for each selection I publish in full.
Like several of you, Roy Beagley broke the rules by not giving specific reasons for his individual choices. But I think he captures better than anyone the agony of trying to come up with a top ten and his splendidly indignant contribution made me laugh. Not so sure about that James Blunt entry, though!
Dear Charles,
Thank you so much for the sleepless night last night, I needed that like a hole in the head — and, yes, you are responsible.
At 1 o’clock this morning I was trying to figure out why Joni Mitchell’s Blue album is better than Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon — I am not sure I actually figured out why, but at 1.47 a.m., I realised it just is.
At 2 o’clock, just as I was about to stop annoying my wife with my tossing and turning, I suddenly thought of Rumours, and so tossed and turned for ten more minutes before giving up on sleep and then listening to the album by Fleetwood Mac (courtesy of my iPod), trying to fathom out how one album could contain so many great songs.
At 2.55, I had moved on to Simon and Garfunkel wondering whether such an album as Bridge over Troubled Water could ever be written again, then I thought of James Blunt and Back to Bedlam and realised it could — it just does not happen so much these days — and I blamed Simon Cowell for that. (I was sleep-deprived, and Mr Cowell seemed a good person to blame at the time!)
At 3.15 Carole King and Tapestry came to mind, and I started the debate again but this time; Blue, Tapestry, Tapestry, Blue — get the picture? Anyway, after a long debate with myself, and as the sun was rising over the state of Connecticut, I think I arrived at my Top Ten, but please do not ask me to put them into order, as I really would like to sleep tonight!
Joni Mitchell — Blue
Carole King — Tapestry
James Blunt — Back to Bedlam
Mika — Life in Cartoon Motion
The Beatles — Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Pink Floyd — Dark Side of the Moon
Simon and Garfunkel — Bridge over Troubled Water
Fleetwood Mac — Rumours
Neil Diamond — Stones
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — The Magic Flute
Charles Spencer is theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph.
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