Old Enough to Forget

I already have this one ... but when the dollar bin spit out a classic you take a chance. Turns out this was in the dollar section for a reason. It looked pretty clean, but hidden in the grooves the Rice Krispie gremlins had set up shop and didn't wait for someone to pour the milk to bring out the snap, crackle and pop and an honest-to-goodness skip. It was mainly the first cut, but it was annoying. I've gotten so used to having a decent experience with my bin diving that I'm caught off guard when there are actually issues. Like I said, I already have this, so the main draw was having the gatefold. True, there were no liner notes, but the cover itself was okay to display if nothing else. The big draw here, of course, was the band's ubiquitous hit, "Don't Bring Me Down," which somehow managed to be incredibly awesome with Bev Bevan's driving drums, and then just as quickly become irritating. The only other song I've ever truly worn out was "Sho...

When I was ten years old I remember hearing "Roll Over Beethoven" and it melted my little brain. This wasn't like anything I'd heard. 1973 was an awesome year for formative rock and roll, and I'd file away names like BTO, Rick Derringer, Ian Thomas, and Alice Cooper for the day when I got older and could buy their albums. So where was ELO on this future list of must-have bands? Not near the top, and as time passed my interest waned. Heck, it was a close thing when "Don't Bring Me Down" and "My Sharona" were vying for the world's most overplayed song, but I managed to NOT get either album. Then in 1980 the band tried to do their own version of The Wiz by releasing the soundtrack to Xanadu and I wrote them off - this was not rock and roll. Then the year I graduated the band dropped Time , and for whatever reason this weird, electronic, cheesy release resonated with me and I played the album until I was pretty sure I could hear bleed-ove...