We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 004

Chandler talks with his friend Aaron about various notes from the sporting world (mainly dealing with the Gophers), and then they digest the end of the Vikings' season and what it means to them.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 003

Chandler once again welcomes his friend Aaron into the studio, but this time, there is no sports talk. Instead, they discuss the 52 albums Chandler listened to in 2017, which of course have already been posted to Ski-U-Blog and can be found here, here, and here.



As said before, I am figuring out when I would like to record the podcast now that the new semester has started. The posting schedule, therefore, might be inconsistent for the next few weeks.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part III: 10-1

Below are the best 10 albums I listened to in 2017. If you want the other 42, they can be found here (with proper context) and here. Let's get right to it.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 002

Chandler comes back from winter break to talk football with his friend Aaron. In this episode, they go over their favorite games from bowl season, take a detour to discuss the quarterback draft class, and then discuss what we want in a college football playoff system.

A few notes:

At around 24 minutes, I say that Baker Mayfield "drunkenly punched a police officer last summer, or something like that." The story was in fact far closer to "something like that." Mayfield was drunk in Fayetteville, Arkansas and ran away from some officers, who then tackled him. Mayfield was charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and fleeing and resisting arrest; and he pleaded guilty to all three charges. However, Mayfield did not punch any officers. I must have mixed up his story with another person's.

After we mentioned that the men's hockey team was still on track to make the NCAA Tournament, they promptly got swept by Michigan. At home. The Gophers are now 13th in the USCHO poll and tied with Michigan for 15th in PairWise, which means they are on the bubble unless they turn things around. I don't have a ton of confidence that they will.

At the end, we say we are going to talk about my rankings of albums I listened to in 2017. Instead, things end abruptly, as the studio in which we were recording would not allow us to go more than 90 minutes. (We started recording a little before we started talking, and I always edit the podcast for concision.) That conversation did occur, but it will be released next week.



The next episode should be released next Tuesday, but as the semester begins, I want to figure out my schedule and what time works best for me to record the podcast, so do not count on Tuesday as being the regular day.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part II: 31-11

I listened to 52 albums in 2017's 52 weeks. In my previous post, I explained everything and began my rankings and reviews of them. Here are numbers 31 through 11. From here on out, I include my two favorite songs from each album.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part I: 52-32

In April, two of my friends constructed, with much assistance from the internet, a list of 365 albums they were going to listen to in as many days. Many, but not all, were considered classics. Some were just albums they wanted to cross off their personal lists. With a few exceptions though, neither of them had heard any albums on the list before, so the whole thing was meant to be an exercise in music self-education. For each album they listened to, they provided ratings, their favorite songs, and brief reviews, which were contained in a lengthy Google spreadsheet.

They asked if I wanted in on this. I told them I had no intention of doing the whole 365, but I agreed to pick those on the list that interested me or that I heard were essentials.

The idea worked longer than you might expect, with one friend filling almost all his cells in the spreadsheet into early August and the other giving his ratings and reviews here and there, but when school started, it became harder to keep up with the list, and the thing just kind of faded away.

However, I kept selectively participating, and on my own, I started listening to other albums I'd heard or read about, or which otherwise got my attention.

I don't pretend to know exactly how many albums I tend to average in a year, but by late November, I started to think that I had to have listened to more than whatever that average was. I created my own spreadsheet where I listed and ranked all the albums I had listened to since the beginning of 2017, and, noticing I was not far away from 50, decided to make that my new goal. When, with a couple weeks left, I reached 50, I got the idea to add on a couple more.

So, I can say that in 2017, I listened to 52 albums in 52 weeks. (Hardly 365 in 365 days, but it's something.) Beginning below, I ranked and reviewed each of those 52 albums. Some I actively sought out, and some I happened to be in the room and heard.

I've divided them into three groups: the top 10; and then the top and bottom halves of the rest. Here is the bottom half, numbers 52 through 32.