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Okay I have now finished my challenge to myself. I must admit to struggling toward the end of this. I had written about four posts before I shared here so it seemed I had a big buffer for writing. But as often happens, life got in the way and my brain decided it wasn’t going to cooperate. The last two posts were stewing for several days and I couldn’t get anywhere with either of them. I wasn’t sure if I was going to include Led Zeppelin or not. But as I had trouble writing up Peter Gabriel it was possibly going to be used instead. But I finally got it all out, even if it wasn’t all quite as I wanted it to be. I’m pretty satisfied.
I might try some variations on this challenge in the future. I am a bit bothered that aside from Fleetwood Mac, there are no female performers here. Not to mention more cultural and ethnic diversity. I do like a lot of different types of music so I think it’s something I might explore at some point should I find enough to make it work.
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Peter Gabriel: Us
My first memories of Peter Gabriel are mostly connected with mentions of his previous association with the band Genesis, and then with some of his early solo work, like “Solsbury Hill” and “Games without Frontiers”. Most of what I heard was was good but it’s not like I sought out his music. Then in the mid-80s he put out his most successful album, So, and became more of a mainstream star, partly thanks to that legendary video animation for “Sledgehammer”. I was listening right along with his music at this time and I did like it a lot although it wasn’t one of my priorities when it came to the record store.
It was 1992 and I’d been out of college and working for a few years and I guess you could say I was out in the real world by now. No it wasn’t my ideal plan to work in a call center, but it was a full-time job and I was pretty good at it and it did allow me a bit of space to indulge myself in my own interests. The Scientist and I were sharing an apartment and sometimes we would travel off together. We’d made three trips to Florida to Disney World within a few years. The Scientist’s parents were in Maryland and I would drive us to visit occasionally.
There was one instance when the Scientist went to Maryland separately and I joined them later on. I’d had to work so the plan was for me to drive up after my shift. I can’t recall specifics on the occasion but maybe it was around Christmas time. It was definitely winter time. My hours went until around 1am but I was a night owl and so I took off after work one night and drove. It just happened that there had been ice and snow on the roads going up through the top end of North Carolina and into Virginia. I particular recall getting close to Lynchburg and the roads being really slick and slippery. A truck had jackknifed along the way and traffic was held up. It was slow going the whole way. I didn’t have a car phone and I was on my own. Not an ideal time to be driving.
My only company was the radio and I remember hearing a few songs during that drive. One of them was the Spin Doctors’ “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” which I really liked. I think there was also a U2 song in there and then there was “Digging in the Dirt” by Peter Gabriel. I already knew the song but it has stuck in my mind that it played that night/morning. It was a song I really liked and the video for it was pretty cool too and it came to mind when it played, evoking thoughts of Peter Gabriel being buried alive and then covered with foliage and so on. The song kept me going in the middle of that night. I obviously did make it to my destination with great relief on my part and for those waiting for me.
At some point I came to own the album and it was an oft listened to cd. The song “Steam” became another big hit single and had another popular video. This song was more reminiscent in sound of “Sledgehammer” and I think was more successful than “Digging in the Dirt”. For my part I prefer “Digging in the Dirt” for the video and the song although I do like this song too.
“Kiss that Frog” is another interesting song that was released as a single. I don’t remember the video for that one but the song sticks in my mind as being one of my favorites from the album. It’s mainly a pop song with catchy tune and lyrics, obviously taking some inspiration from the fairy tale frog prince.
A lot of songs on this album are about relationships with others. “Come Talk to Me” is about a difficult time Gabriel had with the relationship with his daughter. It’s one of only a couple songs I know that features bagpipes. Another favorite for me is “Love to be Loved” which is kind of straightforward in its meaning. It’s filled with that very human longing for love and need.
I listened to this album again before writing and I remember why I liked this so much. I don’t have a lot of Peter Gabriel music in my collection but I like his music and this one is surely my favorite. I think the feelings expressed are kind of universal to people and their relationships. The music is also filled with nice little touches like the bagpipes and chill rhythms that you can relax into.
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Pat on the back
A few days ago, my bike ride turned into a particularly long one due to circumstances. One of those circumstances was that the final section of road on the nearby highway finished. This meant the bike path was open all the way to the end of the new highway. I will point out that it’s unlikely I’ll be travelling the whole way any time soon but it was kind of neat to know it was open.
The other circumstance related to an incident with a family member where I knew I had to speak up about something and it just made me ill to think about it. I was stressed and anxious when I went out and the other conditions were kind of right so I went off with expectations of turning around at the former end point of the path. I found, however, that despite playing my music while riding, I definitely wasn’t hearing it at all.
On that ride I travelled almost 40 kilometers round trip, which was pretty huge. It was kind of good for me to ride hard and long that day even if it didn’t make as much of a dent in the feelings I was having. On the other hand it was also kind of foolish since I had to make a return journey and I was cutting it close to dark. Not to mention I was expected to be back before a certain time so we could “play” a Zelda video game that evening. Anyway, I got back okay but the following day, I was feeling a bit wiped out, physically and emotionally.
Now after missing a day or two of exercise, there’s always a chance I will allow myself to fall back into old habits where I skip it altogether for to long. And with the cooler days it’s even easier to slip more often.
So there I was yesterday and I had spent a good part of the afternoon playing Animal Crossing. That issue I spoke about above was still ongoing although I wasn’t feeling quite as terrible as I’d been before. Procrastination on days that are getting shorter is never a good thing and I finally did get myself read to go out for a ride. The day before had actually been quite warm so it’s a shame I didn’t go out then. Yesterday was somewhat cooler and by the time I went out, the winds had picked up.
I had worn two shirts to keep warm and at the last minute decided to bring along a ratty light jacket just in case. Boy am I glad I had it as I had it on within the first five minutes. It was chilly out there. At this point I thought to myself that I would lower my expectations and just make it about halfway to my original destination (which made for about 65 minute ride). The winds were really strong so I wasn’t making much progress.
I got closer to that point but decided I shouldn’t be so slack and should push on and reach my usual turning point. I was moving rather slowly despite my efforts. I was tiring a lot and my new thing of pedaling while standing up were making it worse. Eventually I started to avoid the standing and just lowered gears to make it the ascents easier.
Thankfully my music was helping to drive my efforts. But I was well behind my usual time based on how far into the playlist I was. I did make it to that turning point and stopped for a couple minutes to recover and to rehydrate. Turning back, I found it even worse and I ended up zipping up my jacket this point. The sun was lower and I was getting chilled despite extra layers.
I ended up dropping to the lowest gears and just focusing on moving continuously rather than at any speed. That was pretty much all I could do and the trip back seemed to go on forever. In the midst of all this, my anxiety would return occasionally and I guess it was distract with the agony of the ride or the agony of the anxiety. I figure I must have passed it back and forth mentally most of the way home.
I did get home okay but I definitely didn’t feel any better. But I did pat myself on the back for making it through. Here’s hoping the next ride or exercise will be a bit easier to handle. :)
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Zero cases
I thought I would post that there have been no new cases of Covid-19 in Western Australia today. Yesterday there was only one. Three states in Australia record none over the weekend. Talk about flattening the curve. I just don’t want people to become complacent and start increasing interaction too early. There haven’t been any lifting of bans as yet and I suspect there won’t be any changes for a few weeks still.
Also good news is I went to the shops today and discovered toilet paper on the shelf, much like it was before the crisis. This was in both supermarkets in the shopping center so I don’t think it’s a fluke. I think people the rush to buy has finally passed and now people are back to buying as needed. Well, at least I hope this is the case.
In our family we’ve started watching new seasons of two reality series. The first was Masterchef which started last week and featured Gordon Ramsay all week. He seemed to love being there and was really a good mentor for the contestants. In this season all of them are former contestants who didn’t win from about eleven seasons, I think. The judges have changed for the first time and it seems to be working fine so far. It’s got to be one of the better reality shows out there. Even if they seem to bring contestants to tears on a regular basis. The other show is Lego Masters and that started last night and was excellent and it seems they are all quite likeable. I like this show for the Lego content but also because they seem to like to skewer reality shows on a regular basis.
I’ve been hard at work trying to do my album commentaries and have now finished four. The Scientist did his own version on Facebook and just finished yesterday. He wants me to share my posts there so I will start posting tonight with a few edits along the way. I’m still not sure what all the albums will be but I have settled on all but two of the artists now and the albums are mostly whittled down to a couple. I’m kind of going with the theme that these were albums associated with periods of time or events in my life so it’s not exactly favorites and it’s not exactly just influences. Anyway, I will have to write an introduction to my version and post the first album tonight. I think the good thing about posting here first is I can read them over a few extra times to make sure they make sense.
My exercise has been a bit more sporadic the past few days. I did do a long bike ride a few days ago that went pretty well. I normally ride to a further point but decided to stop after forty-five minutes and that seemed to work well. I’m glad I did because the last few kilometers tend to have a lot of hills to climb on the way back and I find I am done in by the time I get to the turn around point for my shorter rides. Yesterday I did an 8 kilometer walk in Whiteman Park near us and was fine until the last few steps to reach my car. That’s when I twisted my knee and bit and slightly injured some muscle or tendon or something. It’s nothing serious but I found it kind of funny that I lasted all those kms and was taking it easy those last steps and that’s when something happens. Today I didn’t go out as there were sporadic showers and I didn’t feel like getting stuck in it. I plan to use the spin bike at home and do at least 45 minutes and possibly up to an hour later on. I’m hoping to go out tomorrow and do a proper ride again.
The Scientist made an origami heart with an arrow through it a few days ago and it was lovely. Unfortunately I’d left it on our coffee table and for some reason one of our dogs got hold of it and chewed it up. Not sure what caused the dog to do that as they don’t tend to remove that sort of thing from the table. The Scientist did a new one for me this afternoon in purple and I’m keeping that in a much safer place.
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Duran Duran: Rio
I’ll be honest and admit I don’t remember when I first heard Duran Duran’s music. I’m guessing it was near the end of high school but at the time it didn’t make a solid impression in the way it later did. I do recall that I first heard the Culture Club song “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” on BBC’s World Service radio, probably my junior or senior year of high school. I thought it was a woman singing at the time I heard it first. Boy was I in for a surprise when I finally saw the video months or maybe even a year or so later. :D
Duran Duran was part of the movement referred to as new romantics, a sort of off-shoot of new wave and featured mostly pop songs, many lending themselves towards dance mixes. Kind of funny since I was not much of a dance person and felt pretty self-conscious dancing in public, something that hasn’t changed much.
Rio isn’t the first album released by Duran Duran but I think it was the first to get much traction in the US and the one that came to my notice first. I suspect this may have had as much to do with their video releases as the music at the time. I think this was near the beginning of video as an art form and this band took advantage. The band did a video version of the album although I don’t remember ever seeing it. I’m going to include links to the videos on this one since they form an essential part of my fandom.
The first song that caught my interest was “Hungry Like the Wolf” and the video almost always comes to mind when I hear the song. I later came to know the video was filmed in Sri Lanka, birthplace of the Scientist. I didn’t know him then but I was able to make that association with the video later on. The video is done in a sort of Indiana Jones theme and features members of the band searching for Simon LeBon (lead singer) while Simon LeBon was hunting an exotic, tiger-like woman through the jungle. It’s very much a dance song and I recall there were quite a few different mixes available for purchase back in the day.
Rio was the second song I remember and I also associate this to some extent with its video. There’s a yacht with the band members dressed in suits and there are lots of beautiful women, some painted in bright colors, presumably referencing carnivale? The song is about Rio, a beautiful woman with a smile too difficult to resist.
Save a Prayer was Duran Duran’s first ballad of sorts. It features a strong electronic presence and the persuasive voice of Simon LeBon. I think even this song had some alternate mixes, I guess for the extended slow dance? The video is another I saw quite a lot back in the day. It was also filmed in Sri Lanka and is very much worth a look for the beautiful scenery of the country as much as the “story” of the song.
The Chauffeur is the last song on the album and it’s a song I could listen to repeatedly, given the right mood. Apparently the lyrics to this song were written by Simon LeBon as a poem many years before he joined the band and supposedly were a key to him being hired as the singer. It’s a slow number that feels a bit dark and haunted at times. I’m not sure if there’s a definite meaning to the song but I’ve found some amusement reading various interpretations online while looking up information. I should advise the video for this has a bit of nudity near the end but it’s kind of an artsy sort of video. Nothing at all like the band’s famous Girls on Film video from their first album which has a totally different feel.
Writing about this really takes me back to my first year at college when I started buying a lot more music, thanks to the Record Exchange on Tate St. Back when vinyl was still mostly king if you wanted to seriously listen to music. Early in 1984, I found myself camping out for concert tickets on a bitterly cold night. I was with two friends and another girl who I only knew briefly due to that experience. It was the only time I’ve ever camped out for tickets and it’s a fond memory. It can be fond now when I am sitting in my warm house but it really was cold that night. Our tickets weren’t too shabby and one of my friends even caught a bunny rabbit that had been thrown on stage, picked up by a band member and then thrown back out into the audience. He gave that to me and I still have it all these years later. I only saw them once but I still enjoy their music and this is an album I revisit every once in a while. The Scientist even gave me a dvd of one of their concerts, which was a big thing seeing that he is definitely NOT a fan. :D
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Billy Joel: Glass Houses
I was going to start by saying it was another vacation in Pennsylvania but I might be wrong on that, seeing this was released in March 1980. It happens that we were in Pennsylvania a bit early that year as my grandfather had died and we’d gone for the funeral. It was early June and my brothers and I missed out on the last few days of school for the year.
Some time during that visit I had a sleepover with my cousin, who was three years older than me. The next day, we went with my aunt to “town” which was Clarion and we stopped at Jamesway, the only discount department store in the town. Well, as far as I know it was since I didn’t live there and didn’t know all the places very well.
Anyway, for some reason, we were there so I could choose a belated birthday gift. I’m not really sure what this was innate of because my aunt and uncle (who were my godparents) weren’t in the habit of doing birthday gifts for me before or after that year. I guess it counts as a notable gift in that way.
So there we were in the music department and I made the choice of Glass Houses by Billy Joel. I don’t know if there were any other contenders for my choice but I think I was pretty keen on this record due to the radio play it was getting at the time.
That was the first Billy Joel album I owned so it holds a special place in my heart even if it’s not anywhere near the best of his albums. It’s kind of weird to think the album is now forty years old. How did that happen? It doesn’t seem so long ago and yet, it was another lifetime ago.
I think the opening song, “You May Be Right”, is the one that I most identify with this record. That breaking of glass at the beginning of the song always alerts me to the memory of getting the album and the great, catchy song that would follow.
I adore the lovely, Latin sound of “Don’t Ask Me Why”. Without paying too much attention to lyrics, it’s rather a soothing listen late at night when you’re nearly asleep. That is, unless the excitement of hearing it wakes you up.
“Still Rock and Roll” is maybe the best known of the songs on this album and it still stands up well forty years later. It’s a catchy look at a rock and roller’s fame in decline due to the changing attitude of the public.
There were quite a few songs I’d forgotten from this album since I hadn’t listened in quite a long time. The most notable is “C’etait Toi (You Were the One)” another smooth ballad with some verses in French. Maybe it spoke to the French student in me but I really loved this then and it still works for me now. I would add the final song, “Through the Long Night” which is another almost lullaby for me. Good stuff!
Again, this is definitely not my favorite Billy Joel album but it fills a place in my memories and has much nostalgia for those days when I was a teenager in junior high school. In fact, it was on the cusp of my high school experience so very much a period of transition and growing up just a bit more.
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Happy Easter
We had a low-key Easter this year. Well, most years are pretty low key. The night before, Lego Lover colored eggs. He is still staunchly loyal to this ritual. This year he was the only one who did the coloring but most years both the Scientist and I do one or two also. Then there is the egg hunt where Lego Lover searches the house for eggs. We used to do this outside before dogs but he refuses to do it outside now. I was terrible at hiding eggs this time and he found all six of mine easily. It took a bit longer to find those hidden by the Scientist.
The Scientist made this cake for us to eat after dinner. It was really yummy and was just finished off yesterday. All that was left were some of the chocolates from on top and nobody else wanted them. So I’d been eating a few at a time. Yesterday I just wanted it done so finished it and consequently ate too many chocolates. :)
Yummy! I had intended on going to Whiteman Park for exercise but the trails were all closed due to extreme heat so I opted to do my usual bike ride. We had record heat that day but it cooled right off on Monday and I did go to Whiteman Park that day.
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April-the start
I’ve managed to go ten days without posting anything, which was breaking up a good run of writing. Hopefully I can get going again.
At our house we are doing okay for the moment. The Scientist continues to work from home and is both lucky and unlucky that he and a coworker are still on full hours due to urgent need of their projects. My work has come to a bit of a halt. I am still supporting my client but we aren’t meeting face-to-face right now. I think we may start up some more minimal activity soon with one of us (support workers) meeting with him each week. I’m still getting paid but it’s not the ideal type of support right now. The boys are doing okay and life carries on fairly normally for them. Except that Lego Lover isn’t doing shopping with me at the moment.
Which leads me to the next thing, going out in public. I was really good over the past week and only went out once during the week to top up a couple of things. But Thursday I had to do the shopping and it was mentally and physically exhausting. Playing dodge-em in the shops was a crazy pursuit. I washed myself down well when I got home as I felt rather icky from being out in the world. I didn’t go to the pharmacy at all during the week, which was good. But I should have gone yesterday as Lego Lover needed a refill of one medication. Just I didn’t know it when I was out. Sigh…Today, the Scientist and I went to see about getting the refill but the pharmacy was closed. So tomorrow I will go back and get that taken care of. We also need eggs so that Lego Lover can do his traditional decorating and then we can do a egg hunt inside as normal. The regular stores were all out on Thursday and most stores were closed today. So tomorrow it will have to be done. Plus there’s a need to start hunting down toilet paper soon. We have about a week’s worth, I think, but in case of increased usage, I’d like to have a few rolls extra before then.
We’re coming into the middle of April and we’re having a heatwave right now. Three days of hot temperatures that are highly unusual for this time of year. Tomorrow is expected to exceed 37C where we are (100F) and then we go back to more normal temperatures. It’s weird because our summer was kind of mild after we had a particularly warm/hot spring. So when there were all the reports about Australia having record temperatures, it didn’t apply here most of that time. But we may well set an April temperature record tomorrow.
I’m keeping up my exercise for the most part. I’m alternating long and short bike rides with some combined bike rides/ walks at nearby Whiteman Park. It takes me close to 30 minutes to ride to a place where I can park my bike and then I walk for about an hour most of the time. There’s one trail that works well for that. My favorite walk goes quite a bit longer so I haven’t done that one much lately.
I’ve been adding to the challenge on my bike rides the past few times by trying to pedal while standing up while I go uphill. It does make for better riding but I need to keep at it a while to build up the muscle and slow down the racing heart a bit. Today I found it particularly tough at a couple points, but maybe that was related to the heat more than anything. I will point out that it was reasonably pleasant but quite dry outside so my main concern was hydration. I pushed through the first half of my trip without stopping and I had to stop for a few minutes to get my heart rate back to normal and to drink one of the bottles of water I’d taken. (I had three with me). I also have managed to start riding using the last set of gears and it’s working out pretty well. I am missing my swimming but that will just have to wait a while.
I’ve been playing my Animal Crossing game every day since it was released so far. This is the fourth incarnation I’ve played and it’s looking to be the best of the lot. I’m finding it amusing to see so many people are getting hooked on this game as though it’s a new thing when it’s been around in other forms for quite a long time. I’m still hoping there will eventually be a restock of the Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch. Thanks to the shortage, there are a lot of scalpers about, getting 3-4 times the true value of the machine. This is the only special edition console that has ever interested me and it figures it would be released at this particular time.
I finally got a message from the airline about a refund on my tickets. It seems they have put through refunds of the seat fees but it might be a while for the regular fare. So long as I know it’s coming, I’m okay with it. It’s weird to think next Tuesday is the day I was supposed to be travelling but now it’s going to be an ordinary day.
Which reminds me that our tai chi class is proceeding for the moment using the Zoom platform. It has some limitations but it’s been really good to handle our group so far. We should be able to catch up a couple classes that didn’t happen during the usual break time.
For me, the isolation isn’t too terrible at the moment. I’m still able to go out on my bike and to walk near home so I am not stuck inside all the time. But that suits my personality a bit more. I am mostly affected by limitations on going out to take care of usual stuff and having to think through ways of consolidating on trips. It’s not so easy for some though, like the Scientist, who has a much higher need for human contact than the rest in the this family. I do wonder how I will feel in a month when we start getting cooler weather and more rain that keeps me indoors a lot more.
Here in Western Australia, the numbers have been dropping recently so I think we are “flattening the curve” pretty well. Most of the recent cases seem to be related to cruise ship activity here, which is a frustrating situation which doesn’t seem to get improving a lot. I heard talk of a couple more ships coming here soon. I honestly don’t understand how so many ships carried on after this pandemic was declared. It’s been weeks now, and it hasn’t improved. I remember it was early March when the Queen Mary 2 was here and they cancelled all itineraries while here. The cruise ships aside, I guess the fact we are so isolated in the country really helps a lot.
Anyway, our weekend ahead is going to be a stay at home thing. Well I might go out to exercise tomorrow but otherwise will be home. Hopefully we can engage the family in some games of some sort over the next day or two. Or maybe some other activities.
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Some days
Today was one of those days where things didn’t go quite right. Actually it started yesterday when I went to the pharmacy to get a couple of prescriptions filled. Lego Lover alerted me to two he needed so I took them in to fill. As I was giving that to the pharmacist I suddenly thought I needed to get one of mine done too but then decided I still had one tray of tablets left (they are dispensed in punch out trays here).
Last night I found out that one of the prescriptions was the wrong one as it was for a lower dose of the medication. And I was wrong about my own one and it was totally finished.
So I went back today to try again and to sort out Lego Lover’s medications. It seems that the one that was the wrong dose wasn’t finished after all and he’d made a mistake because his last refill was only a couple of weeks ago. The it turned out they didn’t have my prescription on file. Well they had lots of others but not the one I needed. So it was essentially a wasted trip. I came home and tore apart all the places I could think where I might have left that prescription and couldn’t find it. But a while later it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my purse and that was exactly where it was. Along with Lego Lover’s new prescription at the higher dose.
I had driven there the first time but decided to get my exercise by riding my bike there which sort of worked out. It was kind of chilly by the time I got going and I was concerned I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. But by the time I got there I was feeling a bit warmer and the return trip wasn’t as bad since the wind was at my back.
I noticed there were a lot more people on the pathway today than yesterday. I think timing might have something to do with it as it was late afternoon when I went out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people out there. Well, the number of cyclists was fairly normal but there were lots of people walking so I had to do a bit of maneuvering around and avoiding oncoming traffic too. A bit too congested for me. Tomorrow I’m hoping to ride to Whiteman Park and walk on one of the trails for a change of pace. I’ve been out on my bike the past three days and Saturday was a long ride (2 hours). Besides I need my kangaroo fix. :)
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1977
I bought my first music in 1975 with money of my own. That was just four 45rpm records and I don’t recall my next purchase. I just remember I bought the second Captain and Tenille album and maybe that was my first one? I’m not totally sure.
It was probably more like 1977 when I started to become a more proper music fan. By this time I was doing a bit of babysitting and earning my own money so control of my listening habits was shifting to what might be expected when one is nearly a teenager.
Another thing that may or may not have any influence is that we moved from Atlanta to Charlotte at the end of 1976. I think my understanding of the world really increased during this time period so it may be a by-product of my recognition of what was happening in the world. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence due to my age at the time.
I return to The Eagles again thanks to the song New Kid in Town, which I think must have resonated with me. Not that I was really listening closely to lyrics then but I was a new kid so it seemed an apt song. Another song that I strongly remember was Year of the Cat by Al Stewart.
Weirdly I got really attached to the song You Light up My Life by Debby Boone. It was hugely popular for many weeks so it was easy to get a bit obsessed. This was one of those songs that I liked then but I am rather indifferent to now. I wasn’t a religious person then so I guess it didn’t really have lasting power. I didn’t see it as religious at the time though, so I guess something about it reached me.
It was in 1977 I was listening to a local pop music station. That summer they sponsored a reading program where if you read a certain number of books they would give you six singles. I don’t recall the reading but I was taken to the station to get my records and I have a vague memory of standing in line with all the other teens. I got my records and I think I still have them today. I can’t recall all of them but I think one was Low Down by Boz Scaggs and Best of my Love by the Emotions. The one I remember the best was Undercover Angel by Alan O’Day. When I find my old records I will have to figure out the other three songs. Everyone got a different set of singles so it was all a random sort of thing.
I carried on doing babysitting jobs in the neighborhood and so continued to have some spending money. It was around this time I bought the first album that influenced me in any big way and it was not even a regular album but a compilation. Love Songs by the Beatles was released in late 1977 and I bought it because I liked some of the Beatles songs I heard on the radio. This was my entry point to becoming a Beatles fan. I used to listen that album all the time and it still is a sentimental favorite of mine even though it’s not one of their proper records. I think I must have the album still for that reason. Well, I think I brought it to Australia but those records are packed away in the closet at the moment. It would still be a few years before I came to know the proper albums by the group in any way.
The Bee Gees hit it big in 1977 too, with the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, a movie I still have never seen even though it’s supposed to be a good one. I have seen a few bits here and there when it’s replayed on tv but just have never watched it. The music, on the other hand is still pretty prominent in my memory. I already liked some of the Bee Gees music at this time although their shift to disco music was a bit of a surprise as it was a quite different from songs from their early days. That said I think they had a couple records before this that were already moving into this style. I have never owned this album but I do have the songs that were popular on a compilation album somewhere. Well, I don’t think I still have the vinyl so maybe I don’t own it now.
This was also the year that Billy Joel became a big thing. The album The Stranger was everywhere and these songs were also being played constantly. Just the Way You Are was the biggest song but I latched onto She’s Always a Woman at the time instead. I think some of the songs got played so much I was a bit tired of it. These days I can appreciate it all much more than I did then, and maybe I will actually buy a copy of the album one day. It almost came to pass that I saw him in concert that year but for some reason I didn’t go. I later became a big Billy Joel fan so I do regret that I didn’t go then since it’s unlikely I will be able to afford a ticket even if I am in the right place at the right time.
Which leads me to considering my first concert, Shaun Cassidy. To be honest I don’t recall much of his music but I think the concert was that year and he was popular and my mom took me and I enjoyed it. Most of his music was cover songs and I did like the songs a lot. But Shaun Cassidy wasn’t my main teen idol. Instead it was Andy Gibb, who I loved and I would have seen a concert by him had the opportunity happened. His album Flowing Rivers was really good and I think even now it stands up a bit on the few occasions when I’ve tried to listen to it. Of course, some of the songs were written or co-written by his older brother Barry, who was able to pen a popular song himself. I will point out that the other idol from that time period was Leif Garret and I never liked his music and I didn’t care much for him either.
I should also add the album Frampton Comes Alive at this point. While I wasn’t a huge fan at the time, I did like some of the songs and I have come to appreciate how great the music was on that record. Funnily enough that’s the only record I know Frampton for and I’d guess that’s the case for many of us. This was a record that was popular with the neighbor girls I hung out with early on when we lived in NC. They were also big fans of Kiss, a band that I’ve never liked much although there are a couple of songs that are okay. I was just never a fan and most of the time these days I am as likely to change the radio station when they are on. I can’t recall if they had an album that year or not but there was a lot of fandom right then so I guess there must have been. Maybe I will look it up. Well it seem there was an album plus a live album that year so it makes sense they were so popular.
There was one other album that was really big that year which I will write about separately as it is a major album with major influence in my musical tastes.
I’m sure there’s heaps more from that year I’m forgetting right now. Until I started putting all this down, I don’t think I realised how much of the music of that year had been such a part of my life.