25 Albums – #25-21">25 Albums – #25-21
I was recently tagged in a number of memes. So many were the “25 Things About Me” meme, but as anyone who’s been to the blog knows, I already have a list of 68 Things About Aaron list.
When Jim posted his list on Facebook of 25 albums, I resolved that I’d respond with a list of my own, and after being called out by Brooks Andrus on Twittter, I realized that I needed to respond right now. That’s why you’re getting five, because, as you can tell, I’m taking this seriously and I want to explain my selections.
Here are 25 Albums I Love Now That I Didn’t Listen To in High School. This doesn’t include the stuff I listen to now that I caught onto in high school, so the perspective you get from this list will be a little bit skewed perhaps. Let me just say that if you’re thinking I was a Top 40 Pop/Hip Hop/Hard Rock kinda guy in high school, that’d be about right. Big fan of Phil Collins, Sting, Steve Winwood and Peter Gabriel — and Prince. Go figure. So this list is what I dig now that if I could reach out to 14-17 year-old Aaron, I’d put on the iPod that I would give to him as a gift.
In order…
When Suzy and I went on our honeymoon to Amsterdam after being married seven years, I put together playlists for our trip and went through my then-burgeoning library to find stuff that would entertain but open us to the new experiences, since I’d never been to Europe before. The song “Lost in a Supermarket” was suggested on an Art of the Mix playlist that came up when searching for “Amsterdam.” It turns out that it was a song Mick Jones wrote about Joe Strummer, but Suzy has maintained that when she hears this song, she always thinks of me. When you take into account all the great songs on this album, added to this one very personal song, London Calling made me wake up to the Clash starting in 2003, and I’ve kicked myself for never really giving them their due when I was young enough to have maybe seen them.
My brother, even in 7th grade, was a diehard fan of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Hearing the Bosstones coming out of his crappy boombox in his bedroom was my first exposure to “Ska” beyond the radio-friendly solicitations from Madness and “Our House.” I was first introduced to Bob Marley in high school but it wasn’t until my roommate Ben in my freshman year of Miami that I truly earned a love for reggae. As I grew into my own skin in college, I looked for more upbeat soundtracks to the legendary parties I threw in my sophomore year, and that is when I discovered that Fine Young Cannibals used to be General Public, who used to be The English Beat, who were on a record label called Two-Tone that produced Madness and this other band called The Specials. When I first heard this album, it instantly became an album I could play over and over again, on repeat to be the soundtrack of almost any part of any day. Not that it was that bland — it was just that necessary. “Nite Klub” has that great line I won’t dance in a club like this, all the girls look like sluts and the beer tastes just like PISS. They are telling stories throughout this album and the older I get, the more into narratives I embrace, the more resonant this album becomes.
Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast
When I was in High School, real metal was for the metal heads and the guys who were in the smoking lounge. I was surprisingly square in that regard — I didn’t drink (at all). I didn’t smoke (anything). I was busy trying to have relationships with (and make out with) girls. If there were metal girls in my school, I would’ve listened to a lot of metal. Homestead was notorious for LSD (not the crowd I hung with), which left me with pop music. I digress. My first mentors in the E-Learning industry, Dan and Justin really schooled me on metal and influenced my development with heavy doses of Nu-Metal (Disturbed, System of a Down, Deftones, Fear Factory, etc). It really wasn’t until I worked with Kevin Reed where I started to appreciate the roots of aggression. You take a listen to “The Number of the Beast” and those mad riffs, or the galloping rhythm of “Run to the Hills” — don’t tell me you’re not moved to take on invading hordes with your bare hands! Iron Maiden makes me want to kick a 14-year-old Aaron’s scrawny lack of an ass.
The Cramps – Bad Music for Bad People
After reading Please Kill Me, I became very interested in Punk. This was, of course, like two years ago. Before then, I was mildly interested in a few songs or acts, but my appreciation for Punk and its Rockabilly offshoots really never gelled until after college. Sad and pathetic as this is, I could not have named you a Cramps track until after Lux Interior died a week ago. Listening to even this compilation of their earlier tunes, I’m mesmerized at how raw and how fresh it sounds right now. You take “Garbage Man” or “The Human Fly” or “Some New Kind of Kick” up against anyone who dares call themselves punk these days and it would kick their lilly white suburban all-star asses, collectively. The Cramps is like Iggy Pop glam, tied with southern fried rockabilly. Everyone who loves rock & roll should love this band.
Judas Priest – Defenders of the Faith
Any album called out by Tipper Gore back in the day should have deserved my attention. The riffs on pretty much every track on this album are sickly good. If Iron Maiden was pure metal, then this is the album that in hindsight took metal’s values to a wider audience. Rob Halford makes metal sexy, and songs like “Jawbreaker” still make me bang the head, even lacking the length of hair to do so legitimately. This album has slower songs, but you could never call them power ballads. Ever.
