Old Enough to Forget

I'm not sure if musical PTSD is a real thing or not, but I think I have it. I lived through disco and lived to tell the tale - over time I think I developed a pretty serious case of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to a lot of stuff that made me want to puke or change the station when I was a teenager. Over the last couple of years I not only bought Saturday Night Fever , I kind of liked, in some cases really liked, a couple of the songs. I also have more than one album by The Village People. Back in the early '80s, after Michael Jackson single-handedly took over the world, it was pretty much impossible to not be exposed to his stuff on the radio, and goodness gravy that guy had a lot of songs on the radio. They were the worst of times. Now to be fair, "Beat It" with Eddie's solo was awesome, and it certainly didn't hurt that Steve Lukather was the sonic glue that held the whole thing together. However, the world in those turbulent years was divided into the w...

David Cassidy was striking while the iron was cooling. Rock Me Baby followed several months after his previous album Cherish went gold domestically. Rock Me Baby would stall just outside the top 40 at 41. His solo career would fare better in the UK and Australia but in North America but it certainly seemed like the gold run for The Partridge Family and David's solo career had come to an end in the first half of '72. It must have been incredibly perplexing for a young 22-year-old David, who seemed to be trying to step out of the bubblegum pin-up world he was confined to. Like a lot of people who grew up in the '70s, The Partridge Family was essential television, but actually listening to the music outside the confines of the show was a lot to ask. I liked The Osmonds, but I wouldn't be caught dead listening to Donny. Icky ... germs. When I found a copy of Rock Me Baby I snapped it up. Why not? The album cover looked cool, although the back cover was goofy. My oldest ...

I bought this album for my dad because it was supposed to be a "jazz" album. I thought he'd like it ... maybe he did, maybe he didn't. He did, though, keep it, and recently when my mum was packing up her place to move, she asked me to go through the records and I should take anything I wanted. Years earlier, when dad was still alive, he'd let me pillage his collection and I "borrowed" quite a few classics from early Ray Charles to Harry Belafonte, and those albums would be lost on my watch. So I went through again and picked out a bunch of stuff, mostly stuff I'd given him over the years and a few old gospel albums that looked interesting. It's kind of weird listening to More Than a Feeling now after all this time and recognizing bits and pieces of songs I'd not heard in decades. I don't think I played this more than a few times back in the early '80s, but not heard it since. What drew me to the band were the players. I'd seen gu...

By 1974 Andy Kim was already a pretty established writer and performer. Most of us kids knew "Sugar Sugar" but couldn't have told you who wrote or sang it ... it was The Archies and that was that. Of course, everything is processed through a lens, and there's a huge difference between what I was able to process as an eleven-year-old who was obsessed with the radio and music and the knowledge and trivia I have accumulated over the intervening decades ... decades . Good lord, when did I get old? Andy Kim was his eponymous release on ICE Records in 1974, and it was distributed here in Canada by London Records. The song everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, knows is "Rock Me Gently," a song that was made to sing along to. Like so many others back in the day, much of my record collection was comprised of K-Tel anthologies, and there were two that I played until I almost wore the needle through the vinyl. Canadian Mint . 22 songs that were carefully edited and condensed...