CoronaVinyl: A 30-Day Self-Quarantining Aural Journey

Well folks, here in America, I think we've finally reached an appropriate response to the Coronavirus pandemic.  Here in Chicago, schools are closed for at least two weeks, most places of employment have either required or strongly encouraged employees to work from home for the foreseeable future, and bars and restaurants are closed other than for take-out and delivery.  My wife and I are working from home with three kids for at least two weeks, but I'd be shocked if the social distancing measures and school/work closures don't last for at least a month.  It sucks, but it's necessary to stem the spread of the virus.  The last thing we need is a situation like in Italy, where hospitals are beyond capacity and people are dying as a result.

In these uncertain times, we always have music to keep us relatively sane.  Last year at some point, a friend of mine on Facebook posted the following image.

Each of the following 30 days, he then posted a vinyl album he owned in the corresponding numerical category.  As a bit of a music addict, I thought it was a great idea, and I wanted to do the same, but who has the time?  Well, now we all have the time.

Through many trips to Salvation Army, acquisitions from estate sales and garage sales, record clubs, gifts, and just regular plain old purchases from record stores, I have managed to accumulate over 500 vinyl LPs.  Looking at the categories, I think I should have at least one record that covers everything, so among my working from home and telling my kids to get off their damned devices, over each of the next 30 or so days, I'll follow the above guidance and post one album in each of the categories.  I may skip a day here and there, so bear with me.  For any of the categories that don't apply, I'll go with something that is close enough.  And I'll limit it to music, rather than, say, spoken word or comedy albums or the like.  I'll try not to repeat any artists, as well.  In addition to a brief discussion of the album, I'll provide my favorite song off of each side of the album, and I'll try to post an embedded playlist with all of the songs on the album, whether that's from YouTube, Spotify, or some other source, so that you, too, can have something to listen to while you're quarantined.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is CoronaVinyl.

[UPDATE - 4/15/2020]
Having burned through the list above during the first 30 days of working from home and social distancing, I'm going to keep going as long as it takes -- which, for all we know, could be two weeks or six months.  Let's hope it's closer to the former than the latter.  So, I've come up with a ton of new categories that I'll be featuring each day until I go back to the office.  I'm also going to keep adding new categories I think of, so the list may expand from time to time.  Here's how it's gonna go down:

31. '60s soundtrack
32. Illinois
33. Ladies of rock
34. Collaboration
35. Blue vinyl  
36. Duo 
37. New York
38. Funk
39. 2000s  
40. Greatest hits  
41. Septet 
42. British
43. Influential but not commercially successful 
44. Metal 
45. Super group
46. Canadian  
47. Quartet  
48. Folk 
49. '70s pop   
50. Non-square album sleeve  
51. AOR    
52. California
53. Soul 
54. Picture disc 
55. '80s soundtrack
56. Scottish 
57. Album I've never listened to before  
58. Yacht rock
59. Sextet 
60. Tennessee 
61. Second act (second successful band)
62. Purple vinyl
63. Australian
64. Heartland rock
65. One-off album 
66. Family members or relatives
67. '80s pop
68. Trio
69. Texas
70. Oldies 
71. Prog rock
72. Michigan
73. New wave
74. Psychedelic rock
75. Quintet
76. 2010s
77. New Jersey
78. Southern rock
79. Ohio
80. Indie rock 
81. Crooners
82. Pennsylvania
83. '70s soundtrack 
84. Irish 
85. 12" single
86. Washington
87. Power pop
88. Famous for other reasons
89. Singer-songwriter
90. Welsh
91. Comedy
92. Florida
93. Food name
94. Rock opera
95. 10-inch record (non-78)
96. Band with a number in the name
97. CBGB
98. Blind musician
99. Geographic name
100. Haight-Ashbury
101. RIAA Certified Diamond
102. Badass album cover
103. Laurel Canyon
104. Color in name
105. Woodstock
106. Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time 51-100
107. Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time 1-50
108.  Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Songwriters of All-Time 51-100
109.  Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Songwriters of All-Time 1-50
110.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 451-500
111.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 401-450
112.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 351-400
113.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 301-350
114.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 251-300
115.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 201-250
116.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 151-200
117.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 101-150
118.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 51-100
119.  Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time 1-50
120.  '60s live album
121.  '70s live album
122.  '80s live album
123.  '90s live album
124.  '00s live album
125.  '10s live album
126.  Space
127.  Commercially Unsuccessful Solo
128.  Concept album
129.  Rebranded band
130.  Controversial album cover
131.  Animal in name
132.  Memphis soul
133.  Dead by 30
134.  Massachusetts
135.  Sports related name
136.  Abbreviated name
137.  All first names
138.  Big Band
139.  Nautical themed
140.  Famously bald
141.  Hawaii 
142.  Longest album title
143.  Military theme
144.  '80s soul
145.  Love to hate/hate to love
146.  One-hit wonder
147.  Alliterative name
148.  '60s debut
149.  '70s debut
150.  '80s debut
151.  '90s debut
152.  Comeback album
153.  Caribbean
154.  Roman numerals 
155.  '60s compilation
156.  '70s compilation
157.  '80s compilation
158.  Arizona
159.  '50s soul
160.  Self-titled debut

161.  Self-titled non-debut

162.  Two first names

163.  Britpop
164.  Larger than triple album
165.  Most recent album acquired

If we make it this far, God help us all, but then I'll go through the alphabet (starting first with a numbered-artist) with a different artist each day, A-Z.  I'll feature an album from an artist with a different letter each day, A-Z, and then start over.  The way I organize my vinyl, I have collections and compilations by various artists after Z, so once I hit Z, I'm going go with one of those compilations or collections.  Then the next day, I'm going back to A, and we're gonna do this as many times as it takes until I go back to work or run out of vinyl.  I have well over 500 albums, so given that I skip weekends and holidays for CoronaVinyl, it would take us until sometime in 2022 to get through everything.  For everyone's sake, I hope that doesn't happen.

Here are a few things that will guide my choices:

• To the extent possible, I'm first going to go with albums by artists I haven't yet featured on CoronaVinyl.  Obviously, this isn't always going to be possible.
• I'm also going to first go with albums I've never listened to, so if I get to a letter with both an artist I haven't yet featured and an album by that artist I've never listened to, double whammy!
• I'm going to include 10-inch and 12-inch EPs and singles, as long as they play at 33 1/3 RPM.  I have a handful of 78s, but my record player doesn't have a setting for 78 RPM, so I won't be including those.  Likewise, 45s are out.  I have hundreds of those, but we'll save those for the next pandemic.
• And, of course, some letters will have more artists and albums than other letters, so I'll likely run out of certain letters before others.