Song of the Year: 1954

Fun with iPods! Anyone with an iPod will tell you how much easier it makes their music-listening experience. I basically listen to music throughout my entire work day not to mention every other chance I can find (the other day I was curious to find out how much music I listened to in one day. The iPod allows you to discover this quite easily by using the "Last Played" function. I found that within the last 24 hours I had listened to 11.5 hours of music--almost half my day!)

Anyway, because of the volume of music I go through in a week, I have come up with ways to make my listening even more fun and enjoyable. Due to the idea and influence of a friend of mine (Matt--you smart man!) I went through every album/song on my iPod and added the year before the album title (I prefer this to just putting it in the "Year" category of the info). A few months ago I started listening to every year I have and selecting my favorite song from each year. Having the obsessive compulsive personality that I do required me to make up a very complicated set of rules that I won't attempt to document here. Suffice it to say that I have reached the year 1954 in my project and I am reporting to you all which song from that year I have chosen as my favorite.

1948 was the first year that included music that was not classical. However, the genre then exposed was a near-relative to contemporary classical music: Jazz! Therefore, the 1954 big winner is the song Le Souk (Live) by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Dave Brubeck is an amazing Jazz pianist and is considered one of the founders of the art. The quartet consists of a piano, tenor saxophone, upright bass, and a nice drum kit. As is customary for such Jazz quartets, Le Souk starts with the main theme of the tune (in the sax) and metamorphoses into an improvised solo which is then taken over by the piano before finally returning to the main theme. The piano solo in this track exhibits amazing repeated chords that would give even the most strong-wristed among you a stiff arm.

In the coming weeks I hope to include you in my favorites from each year. I'm excited to get into the 60's and 70's when rock n roll really takes off. I'm sure you'll be more interested in my choices for those years.