A Musical Retrospective - records to CDs
It's 1982, I'm 4 years old. My record collection (yes, all vinyl, not even a cassette!) consists of Raffi and Sesame Street. Then, I hear Abracadabra on the radio, and I latch onto it and won't let go. Soon, The Steve Miller Band have joined the likes of Raffi and Sesame Street in my collection. Strange taste for a 4 year-old, but I imagine buying me the record was better than having to listen to me sing it from my car seat.
It's 1983, and Karma Chameleon is getting heavy rotation. It's not long before Culture Club has joined the collection. It's several years before I figure out if Boy George is male or female.
In 1984, the first cassette entered my collection in the form of Wham! - Make It Big. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go was really big, and the fact that I had a bit of a crush on George Michael didn't hurt either. It's several years before I realize that he likes boys as much as I do.
Once the Wham! cassette entered my collection, I began procuring others. One of the first cassettes to disappear from my father's collection was a Bach collection, which, for some reason, I became hooked on for a while. Another cassette which disappeared from his collection was Genesis - Invisible Touch, an album I found addictive above all others. It was another five years before Genesis released another album that I could get my paws on, We Can't Dance. My patience was additionally rewarded when they performed a concert in Edmonton. My friends, many of whom were fans of New Kids On The Block, didn't understand my excitement.
Between 1988 and 1990, I managed to demonstrate infinitely poor taste and acquired every single Paula Abdul album that was available. I was narrowly redeemed by acquiring The B-52s - Cosmic Thing and Deee-lite - World Clique. At the time of purchase, I loved all the albums equally, but time has since shown that the B-52s and Deee-lite albums have aged much better than Paula.
While I was coveting Paula Abdul, The B-52s and Deee-lite, my step-sister going through her hard-rocking era, listening to Motley-Crue, Guns N' Roses and local boys SNFU (Time To Buy A New Futon was one SNFU song that did appeal to me at the time, if only for the sheer absurdity of the title.) Being that we were about 12 at the time, however, the era lasted a matter of several months before it gave way to something else altogether.
In high school, when everyone else was listening to Blind Melon and Spirit of the West, I was coveting Sting and Eric Clapton. Not a bad choice of music, but the blank-eyed stares of my peers who had never heard of Eric Clapton and Sting started to wear on me.
Seeing as how even Eric Clapton and Sting could be obscure for some people, I started wondering what sort of music could be found that wasn't being played on the radio. My search led me to find Lucas and Portishead. Portishead turned out to be nothing short of a revelation for me, having never heard anything quite so dark and moody, but beautiful.
Around the same time, the first CD joined my album collection. It was the Guys and Dolls 1992 Broadway cast recording, starring the spectacular Faith Price and Nathan Lane as Adelaide and Nathan. I never did get to see them perform on Broadway, but what little I did see on TV was fabulous.
And so, the end of the vinyl and cassette era in my musical experience, and the very late starting CD era began. The CD era will have to wait for another day, though, since my album purchases then increased exponentially, leaving probably 100 some-odd albums to recall.
posted by Limegirl @ 2:26 PM
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