I'm calling this one right now: If I ever get married, I probably never will be victim to the stereotypical husband pitfall of forgetting my anniversary.
Why? Well, it's just one of the many, many things that makes me such a catch, ladies. Also, and probably most importantly, I'm obsessed with historical dates.
A couple of years ago, this fascination with the past led me to write a piece proclaiming 1971 as the best year for music of all time, based on the debut that year of songs such as "American Pie," "What's Goin' On," "Tiny Dancer" and "Stairway to Heaven." I stand by that declaration, but Wikipedia informs me that March 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. release of The Beatles' debut album, "Please Please Me," the significance of which hardly can be overstated.
Such an inviting nugget begged further digging, so off I trotted to the Internet to root around for other gems that will celebrate significant anniversaries this year.
What else will join "Please Please Me" in the half-century club in 2013? Well, The Beatles, for one. The Fab Four pulled a stunt in 1963 that is almost unheard of today and released two albums that year with "With the Beatles" on Nov. 22. The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan also released sophomore albums in 1963 -- "Surfin' USA" and "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" -- on March 25 and May 27, respectively. James Brown's phenomenal "Live at the Apollo" came out the same day as "Freewheelin'," so yeah, that was a good 24 hours to love music.
What about four decades ago? I'm not budging on 1971 being king of the hill, but 1973 comes awfully close. That year, Aerosmith, Queen and Lynyrd Skynyrd all released their first LPs. By year's end, The arrival of The Stooges' "Raw Power" marked the vanguard of what would become punk rock, and Pink Floyd, The Who and Elton John all released landmark albums in "Dark Side of the Moon," "Quad-rophenia" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."
There's not room enough to list the significant releases that will turn 30 this year, but the CliffsNotes version of 1983 would include ZZ Top's "Eliminator," Madonna's "Madonna" and R.E.M.'s "Murmur."
Is there significance to these anniversaries other than nice, round numbers? Not really, but it does make you stop and think what, if any, albums will be released in 2013 that will be discussed in forthcoming decades with anything like the same degree of reverent nostalgia.
Contact staff writer Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.