Over the last eight years, Dave Kinzer has listened to 16,402 songs. Start to finish. All of them.
No, he’s not a musical masochist – or at least not much of one. There’s a valid reason behind all that ear work. Three books: “The 60s Music Compendium,” “The 70s Music Compendium” and “The 80s Music Compendium.” Each contains every hit that landed on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart in that particular decade.
“The first step in my research is listening to every song. And yes, I mean every song,” says Kinzer, a full-time music teacher in Illinois and a part-time financial coach who helps people develop a plan on how to best use their money.
It’s necessary when you’re putting together lists like “Songs That Use Castanets” or “Songs With Harmoniums.”
In his just-released “70s Music Compendium,” he waded through 5,344 songs, listening closely to figure out which instruments are used in each song or what the lyrics are saying.