Best of 2007: Music Nerd Mania

As we hashed out our Top 25 Albums Friday night, we Range Lifers started playing one of our favorite nerd games. Categories. We started playing this game years ago on long drunken nights or road trips, and I imagine other music geeks also play some version thereof. The game goes like this: someone states a category, and then everyone goes around in a circle and names a band, song, album, etc. that fits this category (for those of you who ever played the drinking game Circle of Death, or for a more refined crowd, Scattergories, this will sound familiar.) Some of my favorites have been “Bands with More than One Singer,” “Songs or Albums with Colors in the Title,” “Best Titular Tracks,” “Best Concluding Tracks,” “Top Ten Songs to Wake Up To on a Sunday Morning,” “Best Songs About Death,” and so on. Ironically, the more music I listen to, the harder this game becomes.

(This picture is from the "Top Ten Songs to Wake Up To on a Sunday Morning" game, where I tried to connect the word "sun" or "morning" to each song... yes, that's "Afternoon Delight" at the end, albeit crossed out.)

Friday we played a sort of reversed version of the game, where we looked at our list of Top 2007 Albums and imagined categories to describe them. SonicRyan suggested we write a mad lib using these categories. Now, because I’m always up for a challenge, and because I want to draw out this Best of 2007 fun as much as possible, I’m going to give this a go. See if you can guess some of our top albums/artists based on my mad lib. If you’re not into childish/nerdy games like we are, don’t fret. We’ll start posting our year end list a week from today.

(Male Name) was an odd young man. No one knew how to pronounce his name, so they never called him by his name. He didn’t mind. He was too busy collecting objects that had once been beautiful, like a copper (Object) his mother had bought at a carnival in Oklahoma, or a (Animal) hide his father had brought back from one of his hunts.

One afternoon while the nameless boy played by the (Body of Water) with (Animal #2) at his side, he met a mysterious (Description of Female).

“I’ve lived here for (Duration of Time), and I’ve never seen you before,” the boy said.

The girl wasn’t listening. She was opening jars of (Object #2) and holding them up to the sunlight. She said if you held one just right, it was like you were looking (Preposition + Something Beautiful). Just then she reached down and fingered the strange object hanging around her neck. The boy noted how tattered and worn the object appeared. He thought about how beautiful it had once been.

“My father brought me this (Object #3) from one of his hunts,” the girl said.

Her father had been a (Profession) for (Duration of Time #2) years before he died on an expedition to the (Body of Water #2). When they found him, he was clutching the (Object #3) and mumbling (Incoherency). The girl never got to say goodbye.

The boy wanted to ask how she knew that the present had been intended for her. He also thought about telling her his father had been a (Profession #1), and that he had died in one of the (Synonym for Fights) over the (Body of Water #2), too. Instead he sat beside her and ate from one of the many jars she had arranged on the ground. Some of them had bits of grass or straw in them, but the boy didn’t mind. They sat by the (Body of Water #1) and listened to (Something Beautiful Dealing with Senses) streaming past.

“Thank you for this (Chance at Companionship),” the girl said.

The boy thought this was a strange way to describe meeting someone new, but he didn’t mind. He shook her hand, their fingers sticky with (Object #2). He returned home with (Animal #2), musing over the many (Puzzles) his new friend had given him.