So I finally listened to Nevermind by Nirvana the other day. I know – you don’t have to say it. It came out in September 1991 and sold over 30 million records worldwide and I never heard it in its entirety. Obviously I knew the big hits but never gave it a listen. I tend to have an aversion to anything really popular which was largely the reason but I ca’t say I ever found Nirvana that amazing.
Regardless, it’s a good album but it got me thinking; how many other really successful albums had I never listened to?
So I went on Wikipedia and looked up the list of best-selling albums. For the top 10 I was ok – I had listened to 5 them. 50% is pretty good considering that we are talking about every genre of music. When I expanded it to the top 75 I dropped down to 33% having only listened to 23 – 25 on the list (there’s a couple I’m not sure if I have listened to in their entirety).
I guess 33% is pretty good but then I thought I would listen to all of them and get to 100% – and then thought better of it after I realized a lot of them I had no interest in which is why I had never listened to them in the first place.
33% is pretty good.
A History of Stupidity 