Title: Are you listening?
Description: "This past decade will be looked back upon as a rather significant one for the record industry. It was the era when compact discs would begin to be replaced by digital downloads; thus ending a long line of storage media for music from 78s to vinyl, eight-tracks to cassette tapes. Ironically, it was also an era that saw technology make the recording process easier and more affordable than ever for artists; leading to the development of home studios that could create products equal to the best commercial recordings. The years 2001-2010 may be remembered as the final decade of the recording industry as we knew it. The idea of documenting the best records from the end of the compact disc era to the beginning of the digital era fascinated me. Since this time period was also the first decade in which I was actually able to make a living as a music journalist, I felt a special connection to the albums that I covered. My writings largely dealt with local artists, so I decided to focus on the artists with a strong connection to New Jersey. Since most of the decade followed 9/11, I thought it would be interesting to see how that event affected the music from this area. This also was the first generation in a long time to come of age with America at war for most of their lives. I wondered how growing up with war would seep into the lyrics of emerging songwriters. Looking back through the albums in this book, much of the best work was inspired by 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the years I had amassed a collection of nearly 1,000 records by New Jersey artists released between 2001 and 2010. That was my starting point . I then spent several months searching the web for any mention of artists who might be from New Jersey and tracked down their music from websites like Napster.com and CDbaby.com. By the end, I had listened to and graded about 2,200 records. Each grade was put into a MYSQL database which produced a list of the top 100 records. I listened to those 100 records hundreds of times to come up with the final order. I was looking for great records not just records with a great song or two. Digital downloads of singles harken back to the beginning of rock and roll and 45s. With more and more artists releasing songs one at a time, the concept of the album may be obsolete. These 100 records are the best of an era that we may never see again.-----Gary Wien."
Subjects: Music, History and criticism, Biography, Musicians, Pictorial works, Popular music
Places: New Jersey
Time periods: 2001-2010