BREAKING THE SILENCE

Yes, I know it has been quite a while since I've posted. But who are we kidding-fewer people follow this blog than follow my My Space blog, so it's not like anyone noticed.

I thought I'd mention, in case anyone accidentally ends up on this page, that my ferret-faced-fascist friend Mr. Stephen T. McCarthy drafted me to participate in a communal blog event.

If you're not familiar with Stephen, you oughtta check out his blogs:

Stuffs
Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends (not for the faint of heart)

Here's the skinny, from the "Tossing It Out" blog

"On Monday May 17th all who are interested can participate in the FIFTEEN FANTASY ISLAND FAVORITES. This is a one day blog wide post in which you will tell us your fifteen favorite music albums of all time--or at least at the moment. You won't be held to this list. And really it doesn't absolutely have to be music--it could be comedy or some other spoken word album or I even suppose sound effects if you're really that weird. It's your list of favorites so you can post whatever it is you would have to listen to for the rest of your life while exiled on Fantasy Island. "


"The FFI Favorites was initially proposed by my blog buddy Stephen T. McCarthy as a comparative blog study of our fifteen favorite music albums-- not just a list, but an in depth examination of the fifteen albums that had significant meaning to us. After the success of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge we decided that it would be fun to invite other bloggers to join us so we could end up with an epic list of favorite albums so we could share ours and find out what the rest of you like. "

"We would like to limit the list to fifteen but if you can't think of that many then 12, 10, or whatever number you can think of will work just fine. It will be your blog post so you can format it in whatever way you like, but if you would like to have a model to go by, you can refer to Stephen's Best Album Cover Post (don't be confused--the sample post is about favorite covers whereas the May 17th post is about the content of the album itself). It would help that for each album you post a photo of the album's cover, the album's title, artist, and date of release, followed by a brief paragraph explaining why you have chosen it and maybe a short description of the type of music it contains. As far as genres are concerned, everything's acceptable: Classical, Country, Rock, Jazz, Blues, Movie & Broadway Theater Soundtracks, "Greatest Hits" and "Best Of" compilations, you name it--whatever you enjoy listening to. "
"Presentation can be in any format. You can be as creative as you care to be. Turn your list into poetry or a short story if you like. Make it an autobiographical account of how this music has influenced your life. Create a video of yourself talking about it or put together a photo or art montage that tells us about your list. It all comes down to one day's post and you can make it as simple or complex as you like. "

"Don't be intimidated by this either. This is not a challenge or any complex thing. It's basically just a list. And if you just want to list your favorites that will work as an entry, but we do hope you will add a bit of your own personal creative touch to this special post. We'd like a few details because after we've all gone through each other's favorites we may want to go out buy some of them."
Now let me add a few thoughts of my own:

(1) Multi-disc sets count as one. If you can go into a store and buy it with them doing one UPC scan, you can bring it. So that fifteen disc Elvis box is ok. This was a topic of some discussion between me and Stephen, so what I agreed to do is disclose in my comments the one album I'd exchange for the box set if a gun were held to my head. Although, if a gun were held to my head, I'd like my chances if I was weilding a fifteen disc Elvis box.

(2) Not a rule, but if you can avoid greatest hits collections, it makes it all the more interesting.

Hopefully, you'll go and sign up, and tell them that DiscConnected guy sent ya!