But what about this other condition, “the vinyl era?” There are no specific starting and stopping years to define when this was. It could be argued the vinyl era started when records existed, which went back into the 1800s. I think the easiest definition would be the years between the 1950s and 1980s when records were the primary way to buy commercial music.
For me, the vinyl era stopped in the summer of 1986, as I was getting ready to move to college. I believe the last records I bought were “Please” by the Pet Shop Boys, and “Fahrenheit” by Toto, both of which I picked up during a trip to Musicland at the Northtown Mall just weeks before moving into my dorm. Because of that, no album on my list is more recent than that. Not to mention that my musical tastes were pretty much cemented by the time I finished high school, so anything coming after that wouldn’t be appropriate.
I began leaning more toward cassettes once I started driving, since they were readily portable and lent themselves to the creation of actual mix tapes, of which I made so many my parents should have invested in Memorex stock. I still own one mix tape called “Summer of 87” which is pretty great. It was about this time that brought in the different forms of Walkman personal cassette players we loved desperately since they let us bring our music everywhere. Because of my experience with Walkmans and the many cheap generic knock-offs I’ve owned in my day, I’ll occasionally feel half a beat of nostalgia when I hold a pair of AA batteries in my hand.
Anyway, here’s my list. As always, even though the blog has been on life support for a number of months, the rule of listing things in no particular order still stands:
*REO Speedwagon: Hi Infidelity
The biggest album in the world when I entered junior high, which was about the time I first began discovering music on my own. A great pop-influenced rock album which I argue still holds up today.
*Styx: The Grand Illusion
My first exposure to Styx was when my mother bought Paradise Theater because of that pretty “The Best of Times” song. “The Grand Illusion” had more songs on classic rock radio than any other Styx album, so that was one of my earlier purchases. Close to forty years later, I will still turn up “Come Sail Away” when it comes on the radio.
*AC/DC: Back in Black
My first rebellious album, since my parents were convinced there was something at least mildly satanic about the band. (Granted, they did name an album “Highway to Hell.”) My introduction to hard rock.
Asia: self-titled
This was where I learned what a supergroup was. The members were all formers from major prog bands of the 70s, which automatically gave the band a respectable pedigree. It was much more of a pop album than a prog album, but it was my first touchstone of progressive music.
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
The record that helped me figure out so much about life. The “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” of rock albums.
Def Leppard: Pyromania
It’s impossible to explain to people who weren’t following music in the early 1980s what a cultural behemoth of an album this was, especially to the junior high/high school crowd, right down to the urban myths about what was really being said in the foreign-language four-count at the opening of “Rock of Ages.”
Rush: Moving Pictures
The first modern progressive album I owned. “Asia” was a bunch of prog dudes who didn’t get along that well trying to cash in on their names and reputations. Rush was pure.
John Mellencamp: Scarecrow
I grew up in a rural bubble surrounding the outer ring of Minneapolis suburbs, which was just rootsy enough to relate to the sensibility and sound of this. I’m not saying it would hold when measured against something like “Born to Run,” but it fell into the same straightforward, storytelling rock sound.
Journey: Escape
Another record initially bought by my mother, this time for that pretty “Open Arms” song. I loved “Don’t Stop Believin’” before it was a national treasure. I loved “Stone in Love” even more, because it rocked so much harder. I thought “Still They Ride” was the superior ballad on the album by far. And the title song was just the anthem someone fighting his way through junior high needed in his corner.
Queen: Live Killers
I actually didn’t own this on vinyl, but had the cassette. It was perfect: a double live album with what amounted to a separate LP on each side of the tape. This was my frequent Walkman companion, drowning out the surrounding idiocy of a thousand school bus rides, and providing me with the first epiphanic moment of my life, when I really, really heard Brian May’s layered “Brighton Rock” guitar solo during a high school football game.
So there you have it. If you’ve ever had questions about where and how my lifelong music obsessions began, those ten albums had no small role.
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