Will they all be showtunes?

Pick an Album for Every year You've Been Alive (or, This Oughta Kill Some Time)

A new meme from The AV Club:

You're supposed to pick a favorite album for each year you've been alive. You can pick a record based on what you like now, or what you would havem picked that year assuming you were old enough to care.

Your undoubtedly incomplete reference guide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_music

You can also go to castalbum.org (http://www.castalbums.org/recordings/?date=1976&page=1) and just change the year as needed.

I was gonna keep this private until I finished, but I may save it publicly for the hell of it.

1976: Pacific Overtures (Original Broadway cast recording)

1977: Annie (Original Broadway cast recording)

1978: Ain't Misbehavin' (Original Broadway cast recording)

1979 (tie): Evita (Premiere American recording)
1979 (tie): Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Original Broadway cast recording).

1980: 42nd Street (Original Broadway cast recording)

1981: Merrily We Roll Along (Original Broadway cast recording)

1982: Pac-Man Fever (Buckner & Garcia)

1983: My One and Only (Original Broadway cast recording)

1984: Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway cast recording)

1985: Theatre of Pain (Mötley Crüe)

1986 (at the time): The Phantom of the Opera (Original London cast recording)
1986 (in retrospect): True Blue (Madonna)

1987: Into the Woods (Original Broadway cast recording)

1988: The Premiere Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Compilation)

1989: Batman (Prince)

1990: I'm Breathess (Madonna)

1991: Beauty and the Beast (Soundtrack)

1992: Erotica (Madonna)

1993: Patti LuPone Live! (highlights)

1994: The Threepenny Opera (London Donmar Warehouse cast recording)

1995: Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette)

1996: Rent (Original Broadway cast recording)

1997: Much More (Betty Buckley)

1998: Ray of Light (Madonna)

1999: magnolia.: Music from the Motion Picture (Aimee Mann et al.)

2000: American III: Solitary Man (Johnny Cash)

2001: 42nd Street (Broadway revival cast)

2002: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling (Television soundtrack)

2003: Blackout (Dropkick Murphys)

2004: Fine and Dandy (Studio cast recording)

2005: The 25th Annual Putnam County Speling Bee (Original cast recording)

2006: See What I Wanna See (Original Off-Broadway cast recording)

2007: Legally Blonde (Original Broadway cast recording)

2008: South Pacific (Broadway revival cast recording)*
*This is the only 2008 album I've purchased this year and have actually listened to. I've heard a live boot of Adding Machine and suspect that I will love the album, but since I haven't actually heard the album, it seems unfair to add it to this list.

I was going to add some notes throughout, but decided to let the list stand on its own, with the exception of 2008. The difficult thing with the past few years is that most of the albums I buy have been around for a while. So far, my favorite acquisitions of 2008 is Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen Songs (1957) and Alan Jay Lerner Revisited (1969). Also, much of what I listen to has not been commercially released, including one track of 2008's South Pacific.