Old Enough to Forget

I already have this one ... but when the dollar bin spit out a classic you take a chance. Yeah, 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 shot 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 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 "Shooz" by...

The year was 1980, and disco was dead, but there was Xanadu shambling around groaning and looking for brains. The good thing about Xanadu was it was the head shot needed to finally put things right with the universe. The soundtrack was a big hit - and the movie, the swansong for the late Gene Kelly, was a hit spelled with an "S" at the front. I have a copy the movie and I'll likely watch it a month or two after digesting the soundtrack so I can try to emulate the experience of those that first found themselves exposed to the magic of Olivia Newton-John's latest movie. "Why get this if you're just going to dump all over it?" I'll tell you why. Because when I was 13 the cover for her 1976 album Come on Over was enchanting, and the picture from her 1974 release If You Love Me, Let Me Know was enthralling. It's embarrassing to think about now, but at the time I would sing along to the radio belting out "I Honestly Love you" and would wond...

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 and when I got older I would 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 over from the o...