Old Enough to Forget

I had seen this album many times and thought it looked absolutely awesome. I loved those old Warren magazines. I had a lot of copies of Creepy , Eerie and The Rook . No, I didn't have copies of  Vampirella  - but I would discreetly read it at the store when no one was looking.  Roger's sleeve was designed by Hipgnosis, the legendary design team from the UK, and it looked like something that could have come straight out of one of those magazines. I knew someone who had a copy and, as I was a big Queen fan, I asked about it. I was told it was nothing like Queen. So I passed. After all, this was Roger, the guy who got the B-side to "Bohemian Rhapsody" to sing about his car. Never my favourite song, but dagnabbit, through sheer force of will Roger earned my respect. Still, the prospect of hearing an entire album seemed to be a bit much. Everything changed in the summer of '84 after I heard "Man on Fire" - suddenly Mister Taylor was on my radar. Generally my ...

Once upon a time, the cool boys would trash Duran Duran, and the cool girls the boys wanted to get to know had Duran Duran posters on their walls. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Begrudgingly, I had to admit they had a few decent earworms, and their videos were like cool mini movies. It wasn't easy to keep shitting on them, but I tried. I remember going to the mall back in 1984 with my buddy Mike - not that one, the other one - who used to date my wife (that's a story for another day). We were talking about new music as we walked into a record store, and there on the wall was a Duran Duran poster for Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I launched into my whole "Duran Duran sucks" thing, and he looked me in the eye as if he was about to reveal a secret. "That's a pretty good album, you know." I can't remember my response, but it was probably really caustic. I think that was the trip I bought the new solo albums by Dennis DeYoung an...