Old Enough to Forget

1985 was a hell of a year for cool music. Dire Straits was right there in the mix with some of the best songs of the year. Dire Straits was still Dire Straits flitting on the periphery of what was in vogue while somehow managing to be at the centre of things. A year that saw albums by The Cult, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, John Cougar Mellencamp along with a host of others that are too numerous to mention without taking up most of this post. This album was huge - it would move over a million copies in Canada, nine in the States topping out at over thirty worldwide. Of course to twenty two year old me, it was "Money for Nothing" that floated my boat. Much like "Industrial Disease" did from Love Over Gold . I was at best "a sort of fan" but didn't have their records. My roommate had the band's live album Alchemy (which I heard after Brothers in Arms ) and "Telegraph Road" remains to this day one of my favourite songs by Dire Straits. I...

Sleepwalking is one of my favourite albums ever . Released in 1982 Sleepwalking was a marked departure from his previous album Snakes and Ladders, and the ones before that. So many people think of Gerry as a one hit wonder with "Baker Street" from 1978s City to City , and I suppose depending on where you were, this was sort of true but I remember a number of songs from his first few records on the radio when I was a much younger man. I was on a train in 1982 travelling back from a youth conference or something when my friend Gerry, who had (he may still have) great taste in music, had a cassette copy of Sleepwalking and insisted I listen to it because it was awesome. Being a fan already I listened to the first few songs, and gone were the folk elements, instead the songs were laden with synthesisers (English spelling) but it wasn't like he was trying to be Trio or Gary Numan this was still unmistakably Gerry Rafferty. It was indeed awesome. I think I said it quite loudly ...