(Re)Introducing Autobiographical Order

In 2014, I started a project that was never really meant to be as big of an undertaking as it became. (Story of my life, right?) I’d been buying records for more than a decade and thought it’d be an interesting experiment to try and write about them all in the order I obtained them—i.e. Autobiographical Order, an idea I stole from Rob Gordon in High Fidelity who, when he presents it, seems like kind of an absurd thing to do. Of course, I didn’t think of it that way but instead more like “Oh, that’s a fun idea!” And here I am, 10 years later, with at least 500 records to go. (And counting…)

It’s not like I don’t have better things to do, like a job or other writing or spending time with my wife and cats. But as silly as it sounds, I like doing this! The original idea was to try and connect records to specific times in my life and that it would be as much not about music as it is explicitly about music, though I’m not always sure that’s how it’s shaken out. I’ve gone through the motions enough times just to try to get something posted and get on to the next thing, simply just to try to keep from getting too far behind. Did I mention this was absurd? Because it is.

After 10 years, I thought I’d refresh things a bit and start off with a new Autobiographical Order blog with a different format. Instead of trying to do three records every day (which I rarely succeed at), I’m doing one post a week with seven records, with the intent of returning to the original idea of the blog: Reflections on not just music but everything, really, through a lens of records I’ve bought. I probably should have given up on this a long time ago, but instead I’m trying to make it better. For now it’ll be a free subscription for anyone who’s interested in this revived attempt at a discographical journey, and maybe if people are into it I’ll come up with some premium posts later on, but I’m not worrying about that for now.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this new era of Autobiographical Order. And if you don’t, well, I’m doing it anyway. I’m still keeping the old site alive so that anyone can peruse the archives if you want. (Which I do from time to time, just to remember what I wrote!) And I’ll link back to it and whatnot. But all new posts will go here. Next week I’ll start the progression back up with post numbers 1,250-1,256. Thanks for reading!