Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music

Who: Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention, Richard & Linda Thompson)
What: Popular music, from medieval England to, well, Britney Spears
Where: New York
When: 2002

"The idea for this project came from Playboy magazine—I was asked to submit a list, in late 1999, of the ten greatest songs of the Millennium. Hah! I thought, hypocrites—they don't mean millennium, they mean twenty years—I'll call their bluff and do a real thousand-year selection. My list was similar to the choices here on this CD, starting in about 1068, and winding slowly up to 2001. That they failed to print my list among others submitted by rock's luminaries, is but a slight wound—it gave me the idea for this show… The idea is that Popular Music comes in many forms, through many ages, and as older forms get superseded, sometimes the baby is thrown out with the bathwater—great ideas, tunes, rhythms, styles, get left in the dust of history, so let's have a look at what's back there, and see if still does the trick". Richard Thompson.

1000 Years of Popular Music