Halloween is creeping up on us and that means one thing is on the mind of every record collector: in the zombie apocalypse, which albums in your collection would you be willing to throw at the head of a zombie to decapitate, maim, or stun it?
At some point, while trying to behead zombies with records, you are going to run out of bad records. When this happens, you will have to make a decision: do you keep throwing (thinking it doesn’t matter because how much of a chance to listen to records are you going to have anyway in the zombie apocalypse?) or put the records down and start running from the zombie in your backyard?
I would opt to play to the law of averages, which indicates that if I haven’t killed the zombie yet surely a few more throws should yield some zombie death, and throw one more record. And the one I’d pull out would be Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True.
Elvis is my absolute favorite artist of all time and this, his 1977 debut, is one of the best. I’d throw it hoping for hoping for some sort of confidence from one of the best records I’ve ever heard…and I mean, come on. It’s called My Aim Is True. If you don’t think that’s prophetic, then the zombies have already won.
Plus, let’s say there’s a zombie extermination at some point and we all return to our normal lives. In that case, it’s not going to be too terribly difficult to find a new copy of My Aim Is True.
Always factor scarcity in along with your love of a record.
Courtney Smith spent eight years at MTV as a music programmer and manager of label relations where she was instrumental in deciding which videos went into rotation on all twenty of MTV’s music platforms and created launch programs for emerging artists. She specialized in grooming upcoming bands and was an early champion of Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins, Franz Ferdinand, Vampire Weekend, Bat for Lashes, and many more. She writes for Flavorpill and The Daily Swarm. She also blogs about women and music for MTV’s music blog.
