'1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die' taunts the completists

In music criticism, depending on who you ask and if that person's editor is listening, lists are either the bane of a critic’s existence, or an exalted platform for organizing one’s thoughts. With “1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener’s Life List,” Tom Moon, NPR's "All Things Considered" contributor and former music critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has gone with the latter, thereby putting the desert island concept to shame. After all, we’re all gonna die, but a little sand never hurt an iPod. His picks cover vast ground -– Bad Brains, Count Basie, Baby Huey, J.S. Bach and Waldemar Bastos, for starters. Making it through all of Moon's 1,000 picks sounds like the perfect OCD-baiting project for the fall. I'll throw a party if I make it to 500.

-- Margaret Wappler

Tom Moon presents and signs his book at 7 p.m. Saturday at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. (310) 659-3110.