Beginning in 1968, around the age of 13, I started buying albums.  A lot of albums.  I averaged roughly an album a week — about 50 every year — for two decades, amassing a collection of more than 1,000 LPs.

I like to think I had a pretty solid track record of buying seriously great, consistently strong albums.  A precious few were truly flawless; many had mostly top-shelf stuff with two or three throwaway tracks; others were about 50-50 worthwhile/worthless.  But I must concede that there were at least 100 LPs in my collection that qualify as real duds — LPs that turned out to be, at best, clear disappointments or, at worst, dismal failures.

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