Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
I bought it as a curiosity. I’m not that familiar with Lorde’s work (actually confusing her with Madonna’s daughter Lourdes at one point) but I understand each of her albums has some gimmick factor. In this case it’s being released on a “clear” CD. I was kind of surprised it actually worked, but after listening to it my reaction was a definite “Meh.” I’ll give it a few more listens and see if it grows on me. It happens.
Alan Parsons Project: I, Robot (1977)
Verve Remixed (Vol. 1 – 4)
B-52s: B-52s (1979)
Grace Jones: Portfolio (1978)
B-52s: Cosmic Thing (1989)
Prince: Purple Rain (1984)
One of my grails is to own this on purple vinyl, but sadly prices on the resale market remain astronomical.
Alan Parsons Project:Â Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976)
And thus began my love affair with the music of APP…
I first heard this at my buddy Gary’s house the summer immediately following our high school graduation. He had, in my mind, an absolutely killer system: a Kenwood KR-7400 receiver, Infinity 1001A Speakers, and a Technics SL-1400 turntable. I remember sitting there just mesmerized as this album played.
Gary and I had been friends since grade school. I remember him being a brilliant kid and we shared the same dry sense of humor as we moved into high school. We stayed in contact for years after graduation. He worked in high school as a stock boy for one of the local supermarket chains, and as I understand it, he went onâfollowing the American dream of oldâof rising up in the ranks, eventually becoming storeâand later regionalâmanager.
We lost touch after I moved to Tucson in ’85. Though a mutual friend we briefly reconnected via email a couple years ago, exchanging photos and a brief outline of what had happened in our lives over the past 40-odd years. I never heard back from him after the second round of emails, but he seemed uninterested in rekindling our friendship. I have a feeling that in the intervening years heâlike so fucking many of my absolute best friends from that periodâhad found religion and/or taken a political hard right and judged my lifestyle unacceptable. (There’s a reason you can never go home again.) But I’ll always be grateful to him for introducing me to the Alan Parsons Project.
*There are a couple different dates on the internet as to when this album was officially released, but I’m going with this one.
As a newly minted gay in the spring of 1977, I first heard this album in the dorm room of one John…McGuire. He was first man I ever did the deed with, and he was shockedâshocked I tell youâthat at the time I had no idea who this Bette Midler was, and quite frankly her music did not appeal to me in any way. (I know, right? Should’ve turned in my gay card then and there.) But ya know, over the years it grew on me to the point that as I said, I know every note forward and backward and can now quote from it as effortlessly as I can from Personal Services.
I was just texting my old friend and housemate Michael (who shares my love of Bette and Personal Services) and in discussing Miss M., he said he was now going to have to dig out his copy and give it a listen because heâlike most of us these daysâneeds some cheering up.
Giorgio & Chris: Love’s in You, Love’s in Me (1978)
Never one of my favorites, but looked back upon fondly, especially Burning the Midnight Oil.
I get the totally unsubstantiated feeling that Giorgio was fucking Chris at the time and was hoping to make her the next Donna Summer. Unfortunately, Chris didn’t possess the vocal talent of Summer and this is why I think this was a one-off album…
…from our friends at Verve Records. Available on both black and colored vinyl, as well as CD.
Carpenters: A Song For You (1972)
Grace Jones: Fame (1978)
Highly recommended. Well known renditions, but definitely not just “greatest hits” albums.
Well apparently they are again! I thought that I’d been whistling past the graveyard for the last two years with my purchasing, but apparently CD sales are actually on the rise again. It seems GenZ is discovering them for the first time and everyone else is rediscovering them.
Despite my current obsession with MiniDiscs, CDs are still “where it’s at” as far as I’m concerned, andâwhen I really want to get into my music with no distractionsâmy preferred method of listening. (See: Japanese Jazz) Still, I was surprised when I went down to the library a few weeks ago and discovered that yes, Virginiaâthey still have those shiny plastic discs available to check out.
Back in the 00’s when I found myself out of work and undergoing cancer treatment, the library and it’s music collection was my refuge. It afforded me a cost-free opportunity to explore music that would never have crossed my path otherwise. And yes, while I did rip everything I liked onto MiniDiscs or CDRs at the time, when funds allowed I did buy copies of what I’d checked out because I wanted the complete experience including owning the original discs themselves and enjoying the liner notes that accompanied them (something the library did remove from their offerings).
And I find myself in the same position now. Not undergoing cancer treatment (knock on wood), but exploring new musical venues via the Phoenix Library. Yeah, I still rip the CDs to iTunes and onto MDs, but I also end up buying the original CDs for the same reasons I did twenty years ago. (And it’s not like the library doesn’t know what you’re doing; when you check these out your receipt says, “You just saved $13.99 by checking this out.”
A-Ha: Hunting High And Low (1985)
Tina Turner: Private Dancer (1984)
Roxy Music: Avalon (1982)
IMHO, one of the best sounding albums ever recorded. Even after all these years, if I just need to unwind, this gets put on.
I’ve been looking forward to these!
I’ve had one Buddha-Bar recording (volume VI) in my iTunes for years. Probably picked it up from the Phoenix Library during the summer of 2003 when I wasn’t working and undergoing cancer treatment. I pulled it up a couple weeks ago and burned it onto a MiniDisc and I’ve really been enjoying it, but curiosity led me to explore the other volumes in the series. Sadly, nothing came up in the library catalog search, but YouTube surprisingly delivered! I liked Volume 2 so much I snagged a physical copy from Discogs that arrived yesterday and I’m really loving it, and by the time you read this I probably will have already ordered Volume 1.
Jean-Michele Jarre: Magnetic Fields (1981)
Dead Or Alive: Youthquake (1985)
Sir Elton must be feeling old…as am I.
Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)
This was probably the most-anticipated album release of my youth, and has remained my all time favorite EJ album my entire life. The entire album is pure genius from beginning to end. My favorite song from the album, Better Off Dead, is posted above.
Produced by Gus Dudgeon, it was recorded at the Caribou Ranch in Nederland, CO from June – July 1974. After the successful Caribou album, the prolific musician returned to the Caribou Ranch recording studio in the Colorado Rockies to record his next release. The concept album is an autobiographical account of Elton John and Bernie Taupin and the struggles they faced at the beginning of their musical careers. The single Someone Saved My Life Tonight, is about Johnâs half-hearted suicide attempt while he was engaged to a woman, faced with choosing her over his musical career (and still struggling with his sexual orientation at the time). His friend and former band mate Long John Baldry convinced him to break off the engagement (whom Johnâs refers to in the song as âSugar Bearâ). The album also marks the last time that John recorded with drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray until the Too Low For Zero album in 1983. Captain Fantastic makes history when it becomes the first album to ever enter the Billboard Top 200 at number one. For the original LP release, a limited number of promotional copies are pressed on translucent brown vinyl, with each album jacket autographed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The album is remastered and reissued on CD in 1995 with the stand alone singles Philadelphia Freedom, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, and Eltonâs cover of the John Lennon penned One Day A Time (B-side of Lucy), added as bonus tracks. Out of print on vinyl since 1989, the album is remastered and reissued in 2017. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy spends seven weeks (non-consecutive) at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 3x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.
Alan Parsons Project: Pyramid (1978)
Carpenters: Carpenters (1971)
Damn, I’m old.
This was the first Carpenters album I bought, and in many ways is still my favorite.
Carpenters:Â Now and Then (1975)
Grace Jones:Â Warm Leatherette (1980)
My favoriteâor maybe second favoriteâGrace Jones album. I can never definitively say if this or Nightclubbing is my favorite, followed closely by Slave to the Rhythm in third place. Both Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing are so good they could easily have been released as a double LP.