America went to the Polls in record numbers to vote for the president this year. Isn’t the Echoes 2008 Listener Poll just as important?
Probably not, but I bet you spend more time listening to the sounds of musicians than politicians. So why not vote on them as well. There aren’t any smear campaigns, dirty tricks or illegal tactics. It’s just time to assess what music we really loved.
Jon Hassell & John Diliberto
Trumpeter Jon Hassell told me about a concept he’s working on for a book called The North and South of You: Making the World Safe for Pleasure. One of his ideas is that while there are many things in life that get approbation from the greater culture, there are only a few that go to the core of our being, that have the kind of gravity that clearly delineates the line between things that are essential to our core loves, and those that are just part of the cultural baggage we carry. In our Echoes Chamber session with Jon earlier this year he said:
Chop off all the cultural baggage that says you’re supposed like this or respect that. What is it that you like when the lights are off and you’re on your own, what do you really like? The more you refine that notion about what it is that really turns you on, that defines what you really are.
As we roll through our 20th year on the airwaves, we’re trying to find the collective core in the Echoes Listener Poll for this year.
Out of the poll will emerge a list of 25 CDs that go to the Echoes core, The Best of Echoes 2008. You can win them all by entering the contest in the Echoes Poll.
If you need some memory tweaks, check out Echoes Top 25 lists in the Echoes Blog, peruse the Echoes Picks and watch for our own personal picks at echoes.org So vote in the Poll and while you’re at it, share your choices here on the Echoes Blog and let us know what music went to your core this year
John Diliberto ((( echoes )))