Nothing Has Been Done Before includes a discography within its Bibliography, but the entries are limited to only the most pertinent because I was running up against my word count for the book. So I’ve created–partly because I said so in the book–a Complete Discography that includes pretty much every song or album discussed in the text.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about various music books, especially those by Greil Marcus, is the annotated discography and how it provides additional historical and musicological context. But it can also be a more relaxed place to say whatever can be said. The version I’m building here will be closer to that. Some entries are covered thoroughly in the book itself–Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, for instance–while others are offered in the text as brief examples, like Alabama Shakes’ Boys and Girls. Those will get a little more attention here if I have something more to say about them. My main objective is to fill out the body of music made in the 2000s that informs the book. More obscure stuff–the many sources for Dylan’s songs on “Love and Theft” for instance–isn’t listed yet, and may eventually be added, or added to a separate document. In other words, I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole with this yet.
Eventually I may add a supplemental discography with commentary about songs and albums not mentioned in the book but which somehow connect to various ideas about newness. I may use this just to tackle some of the landmark music of this new millennium that didn’t make it into the text, like Arcade Fire’s Funeral or Frank Ocean’s Blonde. We’ll see.
Robert Loss 