Stepping Off the Turntable

Having done this formative-album-replay almost daily since December 3 of last year, and having hit the nice round number of 60 records, and more importantly heading into a deadline iceberg that will take me under if I don't face it head-on, I'm taking a brief break. It's been a huge pleasure and a relief to take the iPod off shuffle, a hard habit to break but glad I did so, and even more than that it's been bracing and illuminating to revisit albums which helped form my taste and advance my thinking about music, as well as my doing about it. Looking back on just the list below, I feel I've formed, or reformed, strong new impressions--new memories that will be a joy to recollect going forward.

The albums I've replayed and reconsidered so far:

The Replacements Let It Be
Michelle Shocked Short Sharp Shocked
The Meat Puppets Up on the Sun
Simon & Garfunkel Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
Violent Femmes
k.d. lang Shadowland
Elvis Costello King of America
Orff Carmina Burana
Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde
Yes Fragile
Vince Guaraldi A Charlie Brown Christmas
Suzanne Vega
Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica")
Jimmy Webb The Animals' Christmas
R.E.M. Document
Rufus Wainwright
Maggie and Terre Roche Seductive Reasoning
U2 October
Janacek String Quartets 1 & 2 (the "Kruetzer Sonata" quartet and "Intimate Letters")
The Talking Heads Naked
Die Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera) 
The Beatles Hey Jude
Public Enemy It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Thomas Dolby Aliens Ate My Buick
Bernard Herrmann Music From Alfred Hitchcock Thrillers
Felicity Lott A Schubert Recital
Fiddler on the Roof (film soundtrack) 
David Bowie Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (film soundtrack)
Sam Phillips The Indescribable Wow
Elvis Presley The Sun Sessions
Dawn Upshaw The Girl With Orange Lips
Tom Waits Nighthawks at the Diner
Los Lobos Kiko
Levant Plays Gerswhin 
Everything But The Girl Idlewild 
Randy Newman 12 Songs
The Police Regatta de Blanc
Beck Mutations
Ravel: Complete Music for Solo Piano
Paul and Linda McCartney Ram
John Adams Harmonielehre
The Pogues Red Roses for Me
Cibo Matto Stereo Type A
Britten Turn of the Screw
Johnny Cash Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 and 2
Marcus Roberts Deep in the Shed
Opal Happy Nightmare Baby
Sondheim Pacific Overtures (original cast album)
Lone Justice
Serge Gainsbourg La Javanaise, Vol. 2, 1961-1963
Jennifer Warnes Famous Blue Raincoat (Songs of Leonard Cohen)
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
Peter, Paul and Mary
Velvet Underground and Nico
Doris Day and the Page Cavanaugh Trio, Vol. 2, 1952-53 
Tito Puente Tambó
Mozart, Symphony No. 40
The Who Quadrophenia
Charles Ives, Symphony No. 4
Squeeze East Side Story