A couple weeks ago, on the way back from Ellensburg, Prairie and I stopped off at a Fred Meyer’s so that she could pick up the Chicago soundtrack. While we were there, I browsed through the racks, and stumbled across a two-disc set of Broadway tunes, from 1932 to 1997. It looked interesting, so I picked it up, and we listened to it on the way back to Seattle.
As it turns out, that set was just one of twelve in the series Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century. Sony has dug into their vaults to compile an absolutley astounding collection of music — ranging from an 1890 recording on wax cylinder of John Philip Sousa conducting the United States Marine Band in “The Washington Post March” up to Lauryn Hill’s 1998 pop hit “Doo Wop (That Thing)” — across all genres, and encompassing a ton of songs, both popular hits and little-known gems.
I’m slowly working on collecting the entire collection, and so far have picked up four of the sets (Broadway: The Great Original Cast Recordings, Pop Music: The Early Years 1890-1950, Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1975, and Pop Music: The Modern Era 1976-1999), have two more held for me at Barnes and Noble (Rock: The Train Kept A-Rollin’ and Folk, Gospel and Blues: Will the Circle Be Unbroken), and will be picking up the rest of the series as I can and where I can. Great collections, and I’ve really been enjoying going through these.