Update: This is a decidedly more mellow (and quieter) list than I would have made at age 13, which has now depressed me since doing the math reveals 30 years have gone by since I began listening to music. Dang, I'm gettin' old. Fortunately my dad was the station manager for American Forces Radio in Europe, so I was able to escape his Barry Manilow LPs by exploring the world of 70's Top 40 radio, although I do confess one of the first albums my friend had that we played repeatedly was Shaun Cassidy's debut with the classic "Da Doo Run Run" (I couldn't even hum it now if I tried), and the Star Wars soundtrack. The DJs used to make mix tapes for me, or I would sit right up close to the radio, fingers on the Play and Record buttons to record the song the second they stopped talking or before it faded into the next tune.
While I'm dialing down memory lane... first cassettes, received for 10th birthday with the tape player -- ABBA, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; first album purchased with my allowance -- either Earth Wind & Fire's Greatest Hits or The Commodores Greatest; introduction to both the Beatles (was it KPRI that did the "Beatles A to Z" weekends? I taped those too) and Bee Gees -- Uncle Fred's scene-by-scene reenactment of the Sgt. Pepper's movie; the funky phase -- one of very few white boys trying to make the football team and introduced to Bootsy's Parliament, LTD, Con Funk Shun; finding 91X and KGB and the record collections of friends' older siblings (Hendrix! Zeppelin! Joplin, CSN&Y, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd!); the end of the 70's era (musically just temporarily, smoking out more or less permanently) for me comes in 1983 as a girlfriend sends me U2's War...
Which means it's time to put this edition of Best of The Decade to rest:
- What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
- Rocket Man, Elton John
- Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Temptations
- Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Dylan/Clapton
- Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
- Born To Run, Springsteen
- Night Moves, Bob Seger
- Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry
- Miss You, Stones
- Here Comes My Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
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