Believe Beautiful... Because

Day 9:  9/29/10 - 94 songs
First song 8:11AM:  "Be My Lady" by Booker T & the MGs from The Complete Stax-Volt Singles: 1959-1968
Last song 3:53PM:  "Beside You" by Van Morrison from Astral Weeks

Highlights:

• Six versions of "Before You Accuse Me"
• Four from Eric Clapton
• Journeyman
• Unplugged
• Blues (Two versions)
• Two from CCR
• Cosmo's Factory
• Outtake from Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Two versions of "Bell Bottom Blues"
• Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs
• 24 Nights
• Two versions of "Because the Night"
• Bruce Springsteen from Live 1975-1985
• 10,000 Maniacs from Campfire Songs
• Nine "Beautiful" songs

Notes:
I found out I don't have "Because the Night" by Patti Smith...  However, to me, that's no big loss. 
I had forgotten about "Because" by the Dave Clark Five - which is a great song. 
I also got to listen to the Serendipity Singers' classic "Beans In My Ears" from a folk collection.  A real winner.
It's a short day for me tomorrow, so I'll try to update the blog later in the day.  If not, you'll have an update on Friday.

Be Bad Ballad

Day 8:  9/28/10 - 83 songs
First song 8:08AM:  "Bad News" by Johnny Cash from Essential 1955-1983
Last song 3:58PM:  "Be My Guest" by Fats Domino from Legendary Imperial Recordings

Highlights:

• Three versions of "Badlands" by Bruce Springsteen
• Darkness on the Edge of Town
• Live in New York City
• Live 1975 - 1985
• Four versions of "Ballad of a Thin Man"
• Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
• Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Live 1966 - The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert
• Dylan - No Direction Home: The Soundtrack - The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 
• Stephen Malkmus & The Million Dollar Bashers - I'm Not There soundtrack
• Four different "Ballad" songs by Bob Dylan
• "Ballad in Plain D" from Another Side of Bob Dylan
• "Ballad of a Thin Man (see above)
• "Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" from John Wesley Harding
• "Ballad of Hollis Brown" from Times They Are A-Changin'
• Four versions of "Be-Bop-A-Lula"
• Gene Vincent
• John Lennon
• Everly Brothers
• Jerry Lee Lewis

Notes:
There were lots of fun and interesting things today.  There was the 17:21 track "Bangla Dhun" by Ravi Shankar from The Concert for Bangladesh.  Also there was a combined 21:03 of two versions of "Bat Out of Hell" by Meat Loaf.  Additionally there was also 9:07 of The Battle Of Yavin from the Star Wars soundtrack.
Got to hear a few really great songs today (some that I haven't heard in a while), so here are my personal favorites for the day:

• "Bad Things" by Jace Everett
• "Bald Head" by Roy Byrd & His Blues Jumpers
• "Ball and Chain" by Janis Joplin
• "Ball of Confusion" by the Temptations
• "Batdance" by Prince

Bad Baby Back

Day 7:  9/27/10 - 81 songs
First song 8:22AM:  "Baby Driver" by Simon & Garfunkel from Bridge Over Troubled Water
Last song 4:01PM:  "Bad Neighborhood" by Dr. John from Mos' Scocious:  The Dr. John Anthology

Highlights:

• Three versions of "Baby Please Don't Go:"
• Big Bill Broonzy
• Muddy Waters
• Van Morrison (Them)
• Four Versions of Bob Dylan's "Baby Let Me Follow You Down"
• Two from The Last Waltz (one was a reprise)
• Bob Dylan
• The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Live 1966 - The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert
• "Back in the USSR" by The Beatles followed by "Back in the USA" by Chuck Berry
• Two versions of "Baby It's You"
• The Beatles
• The Shirelles

 Notes:
Pretty solid day of songs. I'm into the "Bad" songs which I'll finish off tomorrow.  Three different songs were back to back with album & live cuts.  "Backstreets" by Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run & Live 1975-1985), "Bad Love" by Eric Clapton (Journeyman & 24 Nights), and "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR (Both from Green River - 40th Anniversary Edition).  It's stuff like those that makes this project all the more fun.

A Statistics

Total number of songs: 454
Actual time: 23 hours, 5 minutes

First song: 9/15/10 11:47AM "Abandoned" by Lucinda Williams from her self-titled album Lucinda Williams
Last song: 9/24/10 2:24PM "Aye Davanita" by Pearl Jam from Vitalogy

Top First Words:

All	88
Ain't	47
Angel	21
Another	16
After	12
America(n)	12
And	12

Top Artists:

The Beatles	22
Bruce Springsteen	13
Tom Petty	12
George Harrison	8
Bob Dylan	7
Eric Clapton	7
Jimi Hendrix	7
Tift Merritt	6
Counting Crows	5
Prince	5
Sheryl Crow	5
Stevie Ray Vaughan	5
The Dave Clark Five	5
The Wallflowers	5

Moving Away from A

Day 6:  9/24/10 - 85 songs
First song 8:08AM:  "Are You Happy Now?" by Michelle Branch from Hotel Paper
Last song 4:06PM:  "Baby Don't Run Away" by George Harrison from Gone Troppo

Highlights:

• Four Versions of "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen
• Nebraska
• In Concert - MTV Plugged
• Live in New York City
• Live in Dublin
• Once again, two Dave Clark Five songs back-to-back
• At the Place
• At the Scene 
• I thought these three songs back-to-back-to-back were pretty cool:
• "Astro Man" by Jimi Hendrix from First Rays of the New Rising Sun
• "Asturias" performed by John Williams from Spanish Guitar Music
• "At Last" by Etta James from Women & Songs Beginnings

Notes:
I finally made it out of the "A" songs today.  Also, there were a couple items that made today interesting. 
First there were the two additional remixes of "Atomic" by Blondie that are just unnecessary.  Second, the Great White acoustic cover of Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" was painful at times. 
The "B" songs resume on Monday!

Another Angel

Day 5:  9/23/10 - 91 songs
First song 8:37AM:  "Angel Dream (No. 2) by Tom Petty from She's the One
Last song 3:57PM:  "Are You Experienced?" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience from Are You Experienced?

Highlights:

• Another Brick in the Wall I, II, and III back-to-back-to-back
• Two versions of "Another Saturday Night"
• Sam Cooke
• Cat Stevens
• Two consecutive Dave Clark Five songs:
• Any Time You Want Love
• Any Way You Want It
• Two Eric Clapton songs from non-solo groups back-to-back:
• "Anyday" by Derek & the Dominos from Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
• "Anyone for Tennis" by Cream from Very Best Of...
• Three versions of "Anyone Who Had a Heart
• Cilla Black
• Dionne Warwick
• Dusty Springfield

Notes:
I had to endure my first Abba song today - "Angel Eyes."  Ugh.  Additionally I had to get through "Any Man of Mine" by Shania Twain.  Ugh Ugh.
Aside from that, it was a pretty good day and mix of music. Finished up the "angels," and "anothers" and have now moved into the "are" songs.
Lots of name songs today too.  Angie, Anji, Anna, Annie were all represented.
I was wrong yesterday...  I should finish the A's tomorrow, so look for those fun statistics as well.

Almost Always An American Angel... Amen!

Day 4:  9/22/10 - 85 songs
First song 8:18AM:  "The Allnighter" by Glenn Frey from Best Of...
Last song 3:57PM:  "Angel Band" by The Stanley Brothers from O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Soundtrack)

Highlights:

• Two more Elton John songs back to back
• "Amoreena" from Tumbleweed Junction
• "Amy" from Honky Chateau
• Three versions of "Always on My Mind"
• Willie Nelson
• Elvis Presley
• Willie Nelson & Jon Bon Jovi
• All 8:36 of Don McLean's "American Pie"

Notes:
After a two day hiatus (thank you, stomach bug) I finally made it back to work to resume this little project.  And work, I suppose.  Days like those will certainly extend this further, but it's still fun.
Lots of first-word clusters today.  Started with "almost," then went to "alone," "along," "always," "am," "America," "American," "and," and then wrapped up the day with "angel." 
If I hadn't missed two days this week, I had a pretty good shot at finishing up the "A" songs this week, but it's not looking too likely now.

Almost All "Alls"

Day 3:  9/17/10 - 87 songs
First song 8:37AM:  "Adore" by Prince from Hits & B-Sides
Last song 3:59PM:  "Allison Road" by Gin Blossoms from Outside Looking In: Best of...

Highlights:

• 3 versions of "All I Really Want to Do" (2 Dylan - one live, and the Byrds)
• 81 of the 87 songs listened to today started with the word "All"
• Two Elton John songs in a row - both of which are 5:09
• "All the Girls Love Alice" from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• "All the Nasties" from Madman across the water
• Three different songs with the same title of "All Night Long"

Notes:
I finally made it through all of the "All" songs.  I had to break the order for two songs to start the day, as they had the artist name preceding the title of the song, so I had to go back and listen to "Adore" by Prince and "Ain't That Good News" by Sam Cooke before getting back into the list.  I think I got all the artist names removed from the start of the titles now, so that shouldn't happen again.
I really can't stand Nico's voice, and I had to get through all 6 minutes of "All Tomorrow's Parties"

See you Monday!

And We're Off!!!

I decided to start this experiment not really knowing what I was in for.  I have 13,149 songs in this iTunes library, and I figured I owed it to the music to actually listen to it all.  I know that some songs and/or albums are in the library more than once, so I'm guessing the true number of songs I'll actually listen to will likely be somewhere in the 12,000 range. 
Using 90 songs per day as an average on 12,000 songs, that means it will take 133.33 days to get through all of them.  However I'm only listening while at work, so instead of it only taking 4.4 months (on a 30 day average), I'm using 20 days per month that I might get through 90 songs per day - which means this experiment will take over six months to complete, and I'm not really factoring time off from work, as well as times when I can't listen into that figure, so it will likely take closer to seven months. Additionally, I'm a big baseball fan and when the playoffs begin I listen to all the games.  That'll slow October down quite a bit.  So I'm in this until at least April, 2011.

Day 1:  9/15/10 - 30 songs
First song 11:47AM:  "Abandoned" by Lucinda Williams from her self-titled album Lucinda Williams
Last song 3:52PM:  "Adam & Eve" by Bob Marley & the Wailers from the box set Fy-Ah, Fy-Ah

Highlights:

• Two different versions of Bob Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie" (the other by George Harrison from the 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration)
• Album cut and live cut of "Acadian Driftwood" by the Band.
• Four versions of "Across the Universe" by the Beatles (all different masters)
• Let it Be
• Let it Be... Naked
• Anthology 2
• Past Masters Vol. 2

Notes:
Nothing otherwise noteworthy for the day, really.  Technically it was only a half day.


Day 2: 9/16/10 - 93 songs
First Song 8:19AM: "Adam Raised a Cain" by Bruce Springsteen from Darkness on the Edge of Town
Last Song 4:56PM:  "All Along the Watchtower" by Neil Young from Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration

Highlights:

• 46 different songs starting with "Ain't..."
• Three versions of "Ain't That a Shame"
• Fats Domino
• John Lennon
• Cheap Trick
• Had to endure two versions of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" by Van Halen (one was live)
• Both of Eric Clapton's versions of "After Midnight"
• 6 versions of "All Along the Watchtower"
• Dylan's from "John Wesley Harding"
• Dylan & the Dead - Live
• Dylan & Tom Petty from True Confessions bootleg
• Eddie Vedder & The Million Dollar Bashers from the I'm Not There soundtrack
• Jimi Hendrix from Electric Ladyland
• Neil Young's from Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration

 Notes:
Six versions of the same three chords over and over is a bit much.  It took a half-hour to get through all of those to close the day.