Old Enough to Forget

Funny, I thought I'd written about Pat Benatar before ... apparently not. Well, let's make up for lost time and start with her 1984 album Tropico . This was a gear change and an attempt to sort of stay ahead of the curve. Now to be fair, despite always liking some of the songs I heard on the radio - especially those early hits - I'd never picked anything up by her. Over the last couple of years I've found most of her early efforts, and for the most part they were good albums. It was the combination of Pat's vocals and Neil's music that really worked - even when it was a cover, like "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," written by Eddie Schwartz. Considering the treadmill the band was on, cranking out an album a year like sausages from 1979 to 1985, the consistency of the band's output is nothing short of spectacular. This was a band who deserved to be in the hall of fame one day. Seriously. By 1984 the rock and roll of the late '70s was moving toward b...

I suppose a theme driven month would be kind of cool. This sort of happened by accident, but I had picked up a few recently and figured it was worth jotting down some thoughts. Whether the thoughts were cohesive or not is a matter of opinion but there are a lot of words that have been strung together. Some of it may even make sense. If not, there are pictures. Soundtracks are really the original mix tapes, and aside from the K-Tel 20 songs in 30 minutes collections, soundtracks could be pretty cool. There would often be a surprise or two buried in the grooves. Then all of a sudden you'll find a lot of stuff by artists that were never really on your radar. Music really is like a big sweater. You pull on a thread and all of a sudden you start unravelling all of these pieces you didn't think were connected. Five For Fighting No. 9 (number 9, number 9 ...) Various Artists - Roadie Original Motion Picture Sound Track (1980) Various Artists - Urban Cowboy Original Motion Picture So...

REO Speedwagon released Hi Infidelity in the fall of 1980. Through 1981, it seemed like the album was on practically every turntable in the country. Even my best friend Mike, who hardly ever bought a record, had it - so I borrowed his copy for a while so I could have it on my turntable, albeit briefly, as he took it back. Of course, I now have my own copy on CD, a wonderfully loaded remaster, and now this one on vinyl. At the time, what I knew about REO Speedwagon was on par with what I knew about algebra - which was nothing. To my dear old basketball coach and math teacher, Mr. Cameron, who passed me on the condition that I never, ever take another math class in high school. I promised and kept that promise. I needed to get that C- so that I could meet the minimum requirements to graduate. He's passed away since, but he was a wonderful man. So, here was REO Speedwagon catching their big break with their ninth release. They'd been on the verge of hitting it big, but with Hi In...

Funny how things have changed. As a kid I hated Chicago. I mean, I remember hearing "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" and I would think, "Yeah, it's time to turn off the radio." Then, when David Foster unleashed "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" in the early '80s, Chicago would release a series of insufferable ballads that resulted in Peter Cetera becoming bigger than the band. I have to admit I secretly liked some of those songs. I eventually bought my first Chicago album in 1988 when the band released 17 - because I liked "Heart in Pieces" - I even liked it when Tim Feehan put out his version of the song on his 1990 release Full Contact . Yeah, I'm taking a while to get to the point, mainly because this is a weird album for me. I'm trying to process what I'm hearing. I found this for a buck, which means I paid fifty cents a side for this double album. Released in 1974 VII is a bit of an odd duck. Is it a jazz record? Is ...

In 1989 rock was alive and well. Seemingly out of nowhere Alannah Myles was suddenly everywhere, and propelled by "Black Velvet" she became an overnight sensation that took over a decade of hard work to achieve. I may as well get right to the elephant in the room right off the bat. "Black Velvet" is still an amazing song. Considering that musically the song is essentially a generic vamp on a bass-driven 12-bar blues shuffle, the song is immediately identifiable. It was also played to death and while it never got old, it sure did get overplayed. It also became the high water mark that everything else would be measured by. Fair or not, that's how things go sometimes. Hair metal and an abundance of musical excess and fret shredding was the flavour of the day, and Alannah Myles managed to be of the times but a step removed at the same time. The guitar work of Bob Bartolucci, who I remembered from the GNP album (also from 1989, I don't remember which came first),...

My journey with U2 started with the band's second album October , and soon after I picked up a copy of Boy . I put both of those albums on a single cassette. My first car, purchased from my parents, was a giant green 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham that only had an 8-track player, so I bought an adapter from Radio Shack. The cassette lived there for a long time. When the 12" single dropped early in 1983 I eagerly snagged a copy, and then waited for the album. The title track was definitely U2, but it was different too. It was more like what we'd later know as U2, though it was hard to put your finger on exactly what at the time. Whatever it was, it was awesome. Then there was the very rough "Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop)," which remains to this day a lost track for the band. I suppose this was a rough mix, and it was more reminiscent of their first two albums. Stylistically it would have been an odd duck going forward. The second side contains live ...

Aqualung, released in 1971, was the band's fourth album. Jethro Tull would release an album a year from 1968 to 1980, and then they'd slow down a little, but keep dropping albums through the '90s. I started my journey with Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave, which gave the band an odd late career resurgence. I know that record gets shit on for being the fly in the ointment in Metallica's spooge party back in '89. Considering they had been releasing albums pretty consistently since 1968, it wasn't like they came out of nowhere. Were they metal? No, but they were rock enough to warrant being considered "hard rock" by the voting members. Back to Aqualung , the year was 1971, and with the burgeoning Jesus movement Jethro Tull would take a different tack and pose a different set of philosophical questions relating to the nature of God and human nature and which came first, the chicken or the egg. Or in this case, to paraphrase AC/DC, "Who Made Who?...

They say you can never go home again - mostly because once you move out, it isn't your home. Still, it's fun to go back to visit, raid the fridge and leave without doing the dishes. When I was a kid, there were a couple of acts who managed to become legendary by only hearing about them second hand: Nestor Pistor and MacLean & McLean. When I got a Bill Cosby record, my cousin Jeff was playing George Carlin. One of those was safer than the other ... Over the last couple of years I've picked up a couple of Nestor Pistor albums, and had my expectations dashed. Maybe they were funny once. Not to say there weren't some amusing moments, but on balance I just couldn't figure out how this stuff became the stuff of legend. Here I am with Bitter Reality, the second album by MacLean & MacLean released in 1976, although the copy I have was on El Mocambo and was dated from 1980. At the time I had no idea that Burton Cummings was on the album, although apparently his mana...

John Cougar had been around for a while already when he dropped this one in '82, but for most of us American Fool was his coming out party. Heck, John even made an appearance on the legendary SCTV (I saw it and was suitably impressed) and played "Jack & Diane," which to me was a big deal. It's funny though, as much as I liked the big songs here, "Hurts So Good," "Jack & Diane" and to a lesser extent "Hand to Hold On To," I didn't buy the album. I would pick it up a few years later, and by that time he was hitting his halcyon days and frankly that era was okay, but didn't resonate with me. There was an irritating element to his cock of the walk self aggrandizing posturing wrapped in rockin' Americana that just bugged me. I have softened on this quite a bit over the years, and can really appreciate a lot of what he was doing, and that he was part of what was going on, without being part of what was going on musically. He...

Turn Back is the forgotten gem in Toto's catalogue. It is probably my favourite album by the band. Oh, I have favourite songs from most of their albums - although I never did manage to gack down the four songs Jean-Michel Byron sang on their Past to Present collection. I did try ... man, I really tried - hence the most thing. At the time I had no idea how pivotal an album this would end up being despite being shoved into a corner by most people. After Hydra , an album I really liked, I was pretty stoked when a new TOTO album would drop. Half the fun would be reading the reviews that were often clipped and filed with the records. I have no idea why one of the stores I went to as a kid did this - not exactly a great selling feature but I didn't care. I figured the more hate the better the album. Back in 1980 when Journey dropped Discovery , Geoff Workman was the co-producer, and I happened to really like that album. Didn't hurt at all that Caddy Shack featured "Anyway ...

It's been a few days of albums from 1980. Well, since I'm here I may as well enjoy myself. The Records followed up their 1979 debut, the one that had "Teenarama" and the stellar "Starry Eyes," with Crashes . This is the one where a young Jude Cole, who had just left Moon Martin, joined up with The Records to replace lead guitarist and vocalist Huw Gower. This was really the golden age of that first wave of power pop that ran in parallel to the chaos of punk. It siphoned off the energy and rebelliousness but wrapped everything in starry pop goodness that paid homage to its rock roots but was carving out its own sound. (Don't roll your eyes, I worked hard to work "starry" in, and it's not even on this album.) The Records had managed to get a foot in the door in North America in '79, and a year later when Crashes was released the band came over to support the release, playing smaller rooms, like the legendary Commodore Ballroom in Vancouve...

I found this one about a year ago, and put it in the wrong pile and sort of forgot about it. I was playing The Cry , also released in 1980, and the new wave organ on a couple of their songs reminded me of The Kings, and then it was like, "Hey, I really need to sit and listen to The Kings." Like most people I have a soft spot for their double-sided hit. "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide" is always played as a combo, and they're among a rarefied few who can command that kind of airtime. "Feeling That Way / Anytime" by Journey and "We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions" by Queen come to mind, and maybe one or two others that escape me at the moment. To say this was career defining for the band is sort of an understatement. However, I have always been curious about what else was out there, and I know I could have just gone and streamed it, but I held off. "Why?" you ask. I dunno, why not? The band's sound was a curious ble...

I managed to score a sealed copy of The Cry's 1980 debut. I'll admit I knew nothing about them before snagging the album. It had an interesting cover and the back cover photo seemed to exude some pretty serious new wave vibes. Skinny ties and striped shirts and tight pants. From the first cut this was indeed new wave keyboard / organ pop that was blending the first wave of post punk. That same year The Kings would be mining the same musical vein with their debut. The difference is you've likely heard of The Kings and their one-two punch of "This Beat Goes On" and "Switchin' to Glide," and you have no idea who The Cry were. It doesn't help at all that The Cry are nowhere to be found on any of the streaming sites. This is actually really, really good stuff, and this would have been right at the forefront of what was going on. As expected, there was very little out there about The Cry, at least this version of The Cry. There were a couple of other i...

The Automatix Night Rider . The kids got this for me (along with a box full of other treasures) because: A. It looked cool B. It was sealed C. I wanted it All good reasons. I recently succumbed to peer pressure and subscribed to a streaming service. Yeah, I know. It's an adjustment, especially for me as I'm a tactile Luddite, and although I digitized my CD library a while back (just under a terabyte, and it took a while, and I do find I have to re-rip the occasional album, but it's rare), I still have a wall of shame in the basement, coupled with my regenerating album collection - it's sort of a space problem. One my wife constantly reminds me has limitations ... the box is this big, and only this big. Well there's still room. Although I have had to curb my visits to the store as I found over the last year in particular my funnel was getting to be ridiculously big, and I want to be able to really listen to the stuff I buy. A lesson I never learned in the '80s th...