May 2: The Starter Pack

Not long ago, I saw a question posed somewhere online that asked people to name five albums that were popular back when they were in high school, or something like that. It got me thinking, and I followed that rabbit hole even further: What would be the five albums that were probably responsible for my becoming the music fanatic I am today? I looked through my music library, assuming that albums so fundamental to my history would still be there somewhere. I think I found them. I started with a list of about twenty, then narrowed it down to these five. Here they are, and the reasons they made the list. As always, in no particular order: 

“The Grand Illusion” by Styx
It would almost be fair to put Styx’s album “Paradise Theater” here instead, since the argument could be made that it was my true introduction to rock music. My mother actually bought the album when it came out, because it had that pretty “The Best of Times” song on it. "Paradise Theater" isn't a bad album by any measure, but it’s pretty representative of the poppier direction the band was taking in the early 80s. I liked it, but I was never rabid for it. That didn’t happen until I went back into the band’s discography and found “The Grand Illusion.” 

The title song was one of those gems you always felt lucky to hear if you were listening to KQRS at the right time. I’d call it the band’s best album. There isn’t really any filler there, and even though Styx was already being knocked around as a corporate rock band when it came out, a lot of the songs here are constructed with such an eye to detail they approach a progressive feel. Back in junior high, having an older album by a band with a hit song made you look like more of a fan, so I was never shy of telling people who liked “Too Much Time on My Hands” how much better of an album “The Grand Illusion” was. Plus it has “Come Sail Away.” I mean, come on. To this day, that still makes any list of favorite songs I have.

“Escape” by Journey
This was another album my mother bought for a pretty song, or I guess in this case two of them: “Who’s Cryin’ Now” (which I’ve never really liked all that much) and “Open Arms.” “Open Arms" was the kind of song guys at my school would play for their parents if they wanted to see Journey in concert, because it was the safe example that didn't really convey what a blistering rock show Journey was putting on in the early 1980s. 

“Escape” is full of deep cuts. It opens with “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which I loved before anyone had ever heard it played on the radio. “Stone in Love,” Still They Ride,” and even the title song were all great. It also had the distinction of having an album cover that was really fun to try and draw on the inside cover of my 7th grade math class notebook.

“Hi Infidelity” by REO Speedwagon
I was listening to Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” radio show back then. “Hi Infidelity” not only had the distinction of an almost unheard of FOUR singles that made the Top 40, but the album itself also sat at the Number 1 position on the album chart for a then record-setting seventeen weeks. It was huge. "Keep on Lovin' You?" "Take it on the Run?" "Don't Let Him Go?" You still here these in rotation on classic rock radio now. The whole album is filled with criminally underrated musicianship.

There’s a scene in the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” when Queen’s manager is telling them all the acts that were going to play at Live Aid. While he lists off legendary act after legendary act, he includes REO Speedwagon in there with the same gravitas as everyone else. I’m sure lots of people saw that movie and wondered why REO was even mentioned — after all, they’re just a casino-touring oldies band now. But if you were around back then and owned a radio, they were inescapable. 

“Back in Black” by AC/DC
Besides being an undeniable classic, one of the best selling albums of all time, and one of the cornerstones of hard rock and heavy metal music, it also has the distinction of being the first album I owned that my parents actively disapproved of. Yes, every song on the album basically sounds the same. And the whole album probably only uses seven or eight chords in its entirety. And Brian Johnson’s singing sounds like vocal sandpaper. But for months on end, I could not shake the sound of that guitar buzz. In one way or another, almost every other hard rock album I’ve bought in my life could probably be traced back to this. 

To this day, it escapes me why there’s never been a hip hop/rap artist (to my knowledge) to sample or all-out cover the song “Back in Black” and get a gigantic hit. It seems like such a no-brainer. 

“Moving Pictures” by Rush
First off, I think it’s worth pointing out that the whole world didn’t really start going to hell this year until Neil Peart died. I’m not saying there’s a correlation there, but I’m not saying there isn’t.

At the time, at least in my corner of the almost-suburbs of Minneapolis, Rush was about as close to an alternative band as my peer group had encountered. They were truly progressive, as proved here with the inclusion of the instrumental track “YYZ” and the more than 10-minute long epic “The Camera Eye.” Everyone who grew up with “Moving Pictures” even peripherally in their cultural awareness knew it was appropriate, if not expected, to stop what you were doing and air-drum along with the solo if you were listening to “Tom Sawyer.” 

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And that perhaps serves as my musical origin story. There would still be several key artists for me to discover in later years, as well as a broader variety of genres, but that’s where I was. If it’s true that the music you listened to during your formative years turns out to be the music you end up loving for your entire life, I think I could have done much worse than this.