As I was preparing our annual Records to Die For feature for 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it occurred to me that at such a moment, “Records to Die For” didn’t evoke the same feelings it once did. That name—for what has become Stereophile‘s most popular feature—had started out light-hearted, derived from a 1980s pop-culture idiom, which eventually found expression in several book and movie titles as well as at least one Death-Metal band. In late 1990, as the 1991 feature was being prepared, it didn’t seem so light-hearted at a time of so much death and suffering. At such times, music is a salve, a source of encouragement, perhaps even a means for survival. Records to Die For officially became Records to Live For.
Today—knock on wood—the worst of COVID well behind us, the new designation seems exactly right. This feature is all about music that inspires, that makes life rich—that gives us a reason to live, in times troubled and joyous. These are records that, if you knew you didn’t have that much time left, you’d be eager to hear one last time. At least.
Once each year, since 1991, we’ve asked all our writers, music writers and hi-fi writers, to name two of their favorite albums of all time—albums that have special meaning. The records may be old or new. There is no requirement that they have particular musical or sonic merit, although many of them do. What matters is that they have special meaning—particular emotional resonance—for the writer. We used to require that they still be in print or at least reasonably easy to find, but we eliminated that rule a while back: A record to live for (or, before that, a record worth dying for) is worth incurring some expense or putting in some work to track down. Today, the only rule is that each writer must not have chosen the same album for previous versions of this feature; it’s fine if it was previously chosen by a different writer.
It is common for Records to Live For to include works by musicians who have recently left us. This year, two of us chose music by Jimmy Buffett, who died last September. Other trends: Two writers chose the very recent collection of Shostakovich symphonies from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, our Recording of the Month for January 2024. Also, two writers chose music hosted at YouTube, reflecting, I’d say, the increasing importance, in the streaming age, of video in hi-fi. Whatever it means, I’m pretty sure this is a first.
Without further ado, here it is: Records to Live For, 2024.—Jim Austin
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