5 Albums That Changed My Life
I've been meaning to make this post for awhile, ever since I got one of those My Space bulletins about it. I thought "what a perfect blog post".. so I hope whoever started this doesn't think I'm a complete thief but I had to add my two cents and so should you.
As for me, my 5 are a bit on the odd side, but considering whose writing this piece it will come as no big shocker. First and foremost I have to say my gamut of music really stretches all across the universe so I thought it might be hard to come up with the music that actually CHANGED my life and had some big effect on me but after a few minutes of deliberation I came up with my list - and they are only in order of release, so I guess they are in order of when they affected me. Also note that these are albums that affected me upon their release, there are plenty of important albums that I wasn't fortunate enough to hear upon their initial release and thus I had already been affected by these 5:
Grease Original Soundtrack (1978; RSO Records) - I know you really lost all your respect but hey I was a tee weeny little boy and the soundtrack and the film were the first real adult type of fare that I came across which actually affected me in any way. The film was so exciting to me I made every relative I had take me to see it claiming I had never seen it before. My Aunt Sarah and I listened to it on my Grandma's big record player in the living room - one of those things that look like a cabinet but actually house a record player and in Grandma Ferlie's case an 8 track player. Then I made my mom buy me the 8-track for myself. I sang every song as if it were my own and as if I knew what half the words meant.
"Summer Nights", "You're The One That I Want", "Greased Lightning" - not to mention the 1,2 punch of sassy pants Rizzo with her teaser
"Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee" and
"There Are Worse Things I Could Do", plus the Sha Na Na whole middle of 50's dance music, and the Cindy Bullens sung
"It's Raining On Prom Night", "Freddy My Love" and
"Mooning" from the original play (which I didn't even know existed at the time). The soundtrack to
Grease made me grow up and to this day I still sucked in to both the flick and the soundtrack and it made me a life long Livvie fan.
Stockard Channing - Look At Me I'm Sandra DeeCindy Bullens - It's Raining On Prom Night
Blondie - Parallel Lines -
(1978; Chrysalis) Anyone who has ever heard this album from start to finish should be affected by it as well. Opening with telephone buzz and breaking into the punky new wave
"Hanging On The Telephone" through 12 songs of neon nuances, organ bounces, sultry cooing and downright new wave genius this is arguably one of the best albums released ever, and that comes from other real critics and not just my blonde head. When I first saw Debbie Harry on TV singing I was transfixed. I had to know who she was, what she was, where she was. Once again Aunt Sarah stepped in by having the
Parallel Lines album since they had done a cheerleading routine to
"Heart Of Glass", I stole that record from her and I've never looked back. The rocking jaunt of
"One Way Or Another", the 60's popness in
"Sunday Girl", the gloomy
"Fade Away And Radiate", "11:59", "Will Anything Happen?", "I'm Gonna Love You Too" - there isn't a bad song on this bunch. In fact, I used to act out the entire album from beginning to end in my room. There was also one of Smokey and Evelyn's neices who bought the album and brought it to the Smokey home where I insisted I knew all the words - they laughed at me until they started following along on the lyric sheet while I sang. That's how cool of a kid I was! Just listen to some of the amazing lyrics and the incredible music and you'll be hooked too -
"Your mouth is permanently entrenched where a molar should be" - how frickin' cool!
Parallel Lines made me want to be a singer, it made me want to write songs, it made me proud to be blonde, and it made such an effect on me I can't go without it for more than a few months without pulling it out and playing it from start to finish all over again.
Pat Benatar - In The Heat Of The Night -
(1979; Chrysalis) Thanks to a different Aunt, I got my little child paws on a copy of this ingenius moody piece of pop/rock when Aunt Carol came over one day to give me an extra copy she had got from Columbia House Records. My cousin Paula and I ran up to my beat up little Robin Hood record player, pulled the
Parallel Lines album off of it and heard the thunderous pulse of
"Heartbreaker" and once again I thought I was in Heaven. From there came the sass of
"I Need A Lover" and the one two mood swings of city runaway life in
"If You Think You Know How To Love Me" and
"In The Heat Of The Night." While Debbie was cool and aloof, full of irony and things above my head, Pat was straight forward and bitchy, she wasn't taking shit from anyone and she was going to warn you before you even tried. I loved it and I loved her. The strange yet alluring
"My Clone Sleeps Alone", the new wavey
"We Live For Love" &
"Rated X" - the romantic overblowing "Don't Let It Show" - straight up balls rock of
"No You Don't" and the closer
"So Sincere" - it has lasted beyond all my dreams; due I'm sure to the fact that Pat can sing the crap out of anything - from one growl to a high octave it all sounds so effortless. Since I got the album sometime in the summer months of 1980, her next release
Crimes Of Passion was right around the corner, and with the one two shot of those, I knew I had to be some kind of singer. I was going to be Pat or Debbie or one of them was going to be my adopted mother, I didn't care how it was going to work. All I knew was they lived through thier lives through my stereo and I lived my life through their songs.
Lisa Hartman - Letterock (1982; RCA) - This was a tough one to include, not because I knew so many people would make fun of me but I had to find a way to describe how exactly this album did have its effect on me. For most of the people in the world, at the time and now, no one even knew this album existed but I did. But with the album and Lisa's appearance on the album I became a fan, but with her also appearing on
Knots Landing every week, she became something more to me. It seemed like you could put all of your talents into your work, if you wanted to do TV, you could, if you wanted to sing, well go ahead and make a record. It all seemed so easy because of Lisa Hartman. Plus she seemed like a damn nice person. She didn't appear to be trying to be anything other than herself. She had a bit of the Benatar-esque attitude on some of her songs but then would turn into a Linda Ronstadt crooner. The album is the opitome of 1982 pop music with just a hint of Urban Cowboy-ness coming through on one or two of the songs. Letterock was certainly a product of its time but unlike the later 80's where the processed drum machine makes everything so dated, this album still sounds refreshing - at least to me. Plus I sing along with everything on here, she made everything so easy for me as a kid. I loved looking at that insane cover of her in the lingerie and listening to song after song and then playing it over again. I used to put Letterock on the player before going to sleep. I would dream of living somewhere else and being a big time singer - you realize of course it all reverts back to the TV show she was singing her songs on -
Knots Landing. I first saw Lisa while my mother had the TV on for background noise, and I sat watching the show. Suddenly there she was singing a Rick Springfield song
"Hole In My Heart" and wearing a small mini dress, I thought she was the coolest thing in the world. When I found out there really was a Lisa Hartman record out there, I made my mother run me up to Camelot Music. Lisa Hartman and Letterock (she sang songs off the album on most of her time on the show including "If Love Must Go", "Games", "Hole In My Heart" and the most popular "New Romance (It's A Mystery))In fact if it weren't for her singing on the show, I probably never would've watched it to begin with. Today, I still listen to
Letterock all the time, I still watch Knots Landing with my pal Jen, and I still love Lisa Hartman and have followed her career through out these years and without
Knots Landing I don't know how boring all those Thursday nights would've been in my youth and would I have ever really written
Carlton Heights - or anything else for that matter had I not first seen Lisa and started playing her record? Without
Letterock, I would've had no Lisa Hartman, no
Knots Landing and then no
Carlton Heights - Now think about that for a minute!
Nirvana - Nevermind (1991; Geffen) - It's hard to believe a record didn't affect me again for over ten years but in all fairness there wasn't all that much greatness after the beginning of the 80's - by the time I had worn out most of my vinyl from the early 80's I was mulletized, wearing name brand acid washed jeans and trying to hang with the cool kids of the Def Leppard crowd. Of course I never fit in with them but that's probably because I'd run home, watch the Aqua Net out of my hair and put on my Lisa Hartman album. But by 1991 we had all had enough of hair bands and constant sexual innuendo. Sure, Lita Ford got me through some fits but come on I needed more, so along came a new Messiah and his name was Kurt. He didn't care if you liked him, looked at him or hit him, just as long as you heard him. And we did. But this goes beyond just affecting me with the thrilling moments of angst found on the album, Nirvana brought about a whole movement - I tore those labels off my jeans, I put on the thrift store cords and boots, the flannel and the big ratty sweaters, I let my hair grow. I have to admit though I never went so far as to only bathe by Pachouli but come on I was raised right. In essence, Nevermind became a voice for people of my inner angst - my age, my outsider status, everything I thought was on the sidelines was suddenly there in front of me. The music had anger, the music had depth, the passion was there in the lyrics and in the performances, and it changed my whole life. I was finally in a place I wanted to be. My own style changed, my writing, my poetry and stories, my lyrics all took on new meaning and I was no longer afraid to write how I really felt - warts and all. It made me an artist - an unpaid artist sure but if you create art and no one's there to pay attention you're still an artist aren't you? Sure you are and so am I - thanks to the life altering album Nevermind.
And there's my list how about you guys - and just in case you can't really believe what you just read - yes the 5 albums that changed my life are the Grease Soundtrack, Blondie's Parallel Lines, Pat Benatar's In The Heat Of The Night, Lisa Hartman's Letterock and Nirvana's Nevermind. Now what are the 5 albums that changed your life?
(P.S. for the youngsters out there - an album is a CD as well just not a single - I don't care how important the CD single of "My Humps" is to you - unless a whole Fergie album affected you I don't think it counts)
Labels: Blondie, Grease, Lisa Hartman, Music Life Pat Benatar, Nirvana, Olivia Newton-John
The Top 100 Of The 70's - THE TOP FIVE
THE TOP FIVE
After what seems likes months and months, we have finally made it into the top 5 singles of the entire decade in the 1970's and as I know you're just itching to find out what my warped little ears picked up on, here they are the top 5 Singles Of The 70's - According To Bradley:
#5 – Video Killed The Radio Star – The Buggles(Downes/Horn/Wooley)
Island single #49114 US /
Chart Debut: US Pop 11/10/1979 #40 / UK 09/29/1979 #1
A song about the future, where the future was really only a few months away. Most people know this jumpy little synth track from the early days of MTV, but the song was actually released and a hit two summers before MTV ever even debuted, it’s just that some genius thought of
“Video Killed The Radio Star” as the perfect first video to be played on a new medium they hoped would take over radio programming. The boys at MTV got their wish but there was a time when no one thought it would ever work. The song itself is a cool ditty full of metallic synths and overdubs telling the tale of radio star who just can’t get the praise in the video age she used to get in the days of radio. It’s almost creepy how in touch the Buggles seemed to be in determining how music would be shaped. But I’m sure it was just coincidence and they were just trying to make a catchy new wave song. They succeeded for sure because
“Video Killed The Radio Star” has to be one of the most clever and memorable songs to come out of the new wave era. With the bee bop girls singing along behind the lead vocals and the different instrumentations and melodies coming in, it really ushered in the age of plastic, just as the title of the album it came from, had announced.
#4 – You’re The One That I Want – Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta(John Farrar)
RSO single #891 US / #6 UK
Chart Debut: US Pop 04/01/1978 #1 / UK 05/20/1978 #1
When I was but a wee tyke, my mommy took me out to the bar with her and it ended up being the very first time I ever took to the stage. Yes, I was a child protégé, can you even believe it? That night, there was a band playing and they asked the audience if anyone would like to come up and join them in a song, well of course this kid shouted and screamed to get up on stage. When they asked me what I wanted to sing all I could think of was
“You’re The One That I Want” from the movie
Grease. Actually it wasn’t that hard of a choice since I had already seen the movie about 8 times, having convinced every single relative that came within hearing distance, that I had yet to see the movie, so one by one they all took me to see the film. I instantly fell in love with Olivia and John and Stockard and well, the whole gang. I also ran out and had my mother buy me the soundtrack, on 8 track of course so I could hear it in the car. Anyhoos, the highlight of the film is of course Livvie coming out as “Sandy II” in her tight leather pants and red Candie heels, and as she snubs out her cigarette and kicks Travolta’s chest, the whole world goes wild, and they break into
“You’re The One That I Want.” The song is interesting as it wasn’t part of the original Grease play, the song was once again written by John Farrar, Olivia’s main producer and writer, but to show how good and how loved the song is, it’s become synonymous with Grease and I’m sure anyone who put on the play post-film would be a fool not to include the song. I mean even the new reality show where they are trying to find a new Danny and Sandy to play on Broadway is called
You’re The One That I Want. As for the reasons the song struck such a chord, I really believe it has a ton to do with the sweet lovable but push over that Olivia was at the time prior to her transformation into Sandy. She goes from sissy to sassy in two minutes and turns the tables on her man defending her actions as a way to make sure he can handle her for all that she is. The fact that John Travolta was huge at the time didn’t hurt either.
“You’re The One That I Want” begins with that great John high pitched
“I’ve got chills/ they’re multiplyin’/ and I’m looosin’ control…” and the combination of the piano and that jazzy bass beat pump the song through plus the speedy chorus is so catchy everyone sings along with it yet no one can sing it like those two, try it, and you end up sounding like you’re talking and not singing at all. I guess that’s just the talent of Miss O, as for my debut all those years ago, you can bet that little white haired boy nailed it. I mean I didn’t even sing it with someone else, I took a duet and made it all my own. I’m sure I seemed rather schyzo but still I was able to blow them away. I was great and even if I wasn’t, in my memory I remember it being a magical time and I’ll keep it that way forever .
and for a special treat to imagine what I may have looked like at the time I made my big debut here's a little pic to put it into perspective:
#3 – Heart Of Glass – Blondie(Deborah Harry/Chris Stein)
Chrysalis single #2295 US / #2275 UK
Chart Debut: US Pop 02/17/1979 #1 / UK 01/27/1979 #1
Like so many other people,
“Heart Of Glass” was my first taste of Blondie music. I remember being up with my mom one late New Year’s Eve night and seeing Blondie perform the song. I fell in love instantly with Deborah Harry and when my mother informed me that my father liked her I was even more stoked. I thought maybe we’d finally bond over something. As it turns out, we didn’t bond but boy did I bond with Blondie. My aunt had the
Parallel Lines album and informed me she had done some cheerleading routine to the song so I stole the album. Psst, don’t tell her. Later, some relatives of our neighbors had the album and were more than impressed to know that I knew every single song back and forth. As for the single itself,
“Heart Of Glass” is so often miscast as the band’s disco single it used to drive me nuts. For the record even early renditions of the song was called
“The Disco Song” by the band so I suppose it was what they were going for, but if you listen to the music itself,
“Heart Of Glass” is so much more than a run of the mill disco song, in fact there’s more of a smooth new wave feel to it than something KC & The Sunshine Band would do. There are the winding synths, the tic tic of the keyboard and the drums, the guitar, and Debbie’s oh so cool passivity in her vocals. The song is one of their most famous and still plays in clubs from here to England. Of course it doesn’t hurt that there are about 100 different versions of the song available. The original single faded out right after Debbie’s fab line,
“Once I had a love/ it was a gas/ soon turned out to be a pain in the ass…” but when some radio felt uncomfortable playing it, a second version was released with it fading out before the line, then of course there was the 5:50 ‘disco version’ that showed up on 12” and on most of the pressings of
Parallel Lines; and from there it just got remixed and remixed. But it’s the original that stands up the best, I get a thrill from the intro and when Debbie’s bridge comes in you can’t help but sing along,
“Lost inside adorable illusion/ and I can’t hide/ I’m the one you’re using/ please don’t push me aside/ we could’ve made a cruisin’ yeah” and the boys
“na, na, na, na”’s are an excellent touch until we get to the part that everyone loves, the breakdown and the
“oooh wahoh”. “Heart Of Glass” is so full of little things to make it awesome, it’s almost amazing there could be a group of people so talented they could put all of this together.
“Heart Of Glass” is a classic single that has definitely stood the test of time.
#2 – Heartbreaker – Pat Benatar(Gill/Wade)
Chrysalis single #2395
Chart Debut: US Pop 12/22/1979 #23If all Pat Benatar had ever offered to us was
“Heartbreaker” I would still be a die Benatar fan. From the moment the intense drumbeat begins you are taken into a whole new level of high-energy new wave rock. Then the voice comes in and there’s no turning back, “
Your love is like a tidal wave/spinning over my head/ drowning me in your promises/ better left unsaid…” in that now familiar Benatar growl but then she goes up three octaves to give us a bridge,
“You’re the right kind of sinner/ to release my inner fantasy/ the invincible winner/ and you know that you were born to be” before growling the chorus,
“You’re a heartbreaker/ dream maker/ love taker/ don’t you mess around with me/ no, no, no!” and if you’re smart you wouldn’t mess with the little petite firecracker. After listening to song after song from the 70’s I knew Benatar’s first big single would hit high and to be perfectly honest it was just a hair from being our #1 single of the 70’s, that’s how much I love this song and how much I believe you should love it too. There wasn’t another rocker like Miss Benatar when she hit the scene – there were the hard rocking boys in endless bands, and there were women hitting the scene like my Debs, Chrissie Hynde, Heart and Patti Smith but Pat had more of a gleam to her, she used a boy’s use of sexiness to get her gut wrenched messages across. Not as centerfold in looks in Debbie and not as lyrical as the Blondies, nor as political as Patti or Chrissie or even as hard rock as the Wilson sisters, Pat blended pop and rock with banging guitars on this single being meshed together by a new wave production done by Mike Chapman’s right hand band Peter Coleman.
“Heartbreaker” bashes through the supposed prejudice that women can’t rock like men, Pat reestablishes the first verse with the second and then there’s a guitar solo and the drums come pounding back with Pat’s intense bridge only for all the music to fall away and an accapella rendering of the chorus which sounds amazing turned up to almost full volume. The music comes back and as Pat winds up the chorus, her soon to be husband Neil Geraldo creates one of the best guitar solos (almost 30 more seconds of the song) of the entire decade. Of course, the most thrilling part of it all is that voice, you never heard a woman sing like that behind those incredibly hard rock sounds. In fact the radio stations didn’t want to play the song at first as they felt it was too hard of a sound. It would take over 3 months to even move into the top 40 in March of 1980 but would eventually reach the lower 20’s and help put Pat Benatar on the map. Of all of her wonderfully crafted and exciting singles nothing punches like
“Heartbreaker”, and the song and its album
In The Heat Of The Night made a life time fan out of this little blonde, and that’s why it made it all the way to our number 2 spot. I couldn’t live without this song in my life.
On a side note I don’t think it hurt any that Pat looks smokin’ hot on the record jacket, in the UK, where the song didn’t chart or sell I blame completely on the record jacket issued, I mean it’s just downright goofy.
and just to keep things a little on the edge, before we get to the very best single of the 1970's let me give you a little trivia about our list... I love this stuff, even if you don't...1. Completely coincidentally but so wonderful is the fact that every single year of the 70's has been represented in our list of the top 100. Being a child of the 80's it's probably not terribly surprising that the year with the most entries is 1979, with a total of 25 singles, including 5 of our top 10; 1979 is followed by 1978 (23), a tie between 1977 & 1976 (11), 1970 has 8 singles, 5 singles are a tie between 1971 and 1974 and there are 4 singles from 1972x1973 and 1975, so it looks like a fairly good representation.
2. Blondie (of course) has the most singles entries in our list with 7, followed by Fleetwood Mac with 4 singles, and then third place finds a tie between Donna Summer & Olivia Newton-John each with 3 hits, and the total number of artists with double entries is 11 - Linda Ronstadt, Barry Manilow, Melanie, Billy Joel, Patti Smith Group, Aerosmith, Queen, ABBA, Bee Gees, Carly Simon and our #2 entry winner Pat Benatar, but should you feel that's a lot of songs by repeated artists there are still 61 songs that are by artists with only one entry.
3. Producer Mike Chapman produced the most singles on our countdown with 6 but since he did produce 4 of Blondie's 7 that's not a big surprise but he also produced Benatar's "If You Think You Know How To Love Me" (#34), The Knack's "My Sharona" (#13), Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" (#9) and Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In The City".
4. It's not surprising considering the size and period of time they were in business but Columbia Records has the most chart entries with 11 including Elvis Costello, Billy Joel & Boomtown Rats on their roster. And because of Blondie's prominence on the chart the record label with the second most entries goes to Chrysalis Records but they also had Pat Benatar, Nick Gilder, and Claudja Barry; and the third is another big sized company Capitol Records with 7 entries including Anne Murray, The Knack and Sweet.
now stay tuned for the #1 Single Of The 1970's According To Bradley
Labels: 70s, Blondie, Grease, In The Heat Of The Night, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Pat Benatar, Retro songs, The Buggles
Blondie - Parallel Lines - (1978; Chrysalis) Anyone who has ever heard this album from start to finish should be affected by it as well. Opening with telephone buzz and breaking into the punky new wave "Hanging On The Telephone" through 12 songs of neon nuances, organ bounces, sultry cooing and downright new wave genius this is arguably one of the best albums released ever, and that comes from other real critics and not just my blonde head. When I first saw Debbie Harry on TV singing I was transfixed. I had to know who she was, what she was, where she was. Once again Aunt Sarah stepped in by having the Parallel Lines album since they had done a cheerleading routine to "Heart Of Glass", I stole that record from her and I've never looked back. The rocking jaunt of "One Way Or Another", the 60's popness in "Sunday Girl", the gloomy "Fade Away And Radiate", "11:59", "Will Anything Happen?", "I'm Gonna Love You Too" - there isn't a bad song on this bunch. In fact, I used to act out the entire album from beginning to end in my room. There was also one of Smokey and Evelyn's neices who bought the album and brought it to the Smokey home where I insisted I knew all the words - they laughed at me until they started following along on the lyric sheet while I sang. That's how cool of a kid I was! Just listen to some of the amazing lyrics and the incredible music and you'll be hooked too - "Your mouth is permanently entrenched where a molar should be" - how frickin' cool! Parallel Lines made me want to be a singer, it made me want to write songs, it made me proud to be blonde, and it made such an effect on me I can't go without it for more than a few months without pulling it out and playing it from start to finish all over again.
Pat Benatar - In The Heat Of The Night - (1979; Chrysalis) Thanks to a different Aunt, I got my little child paws on a copy of this ingenius moody piece of pop/rock when Aunt Carol came over one day to give me an extra copy she had got from Columbia House Records. My cousin Paula and I ran up to my beat up little Robin Hood record player, pulled the Parallel Lines album off of it and heard the thunderous pulse of "Heartbreaker" and once again I thought I was in Heaven. From there came the sass of "I Need A Lover" and the one two mood swings of city runaway life in "If You Think You Know How To Love Me" and "In The Heat Of The Night." While Debbie was cool and aloof, full of irony and things above my head, Pat was straight forward and bitchy, she wasn't taking shit from anyone and she was going to warn you before you even tried. I loved it and I loved her. The strange yet alluring "My Clone Sleeps Alone", the new wavey "We Live For Love" & "Rated X" - the romantic overblowing "Don't Let It Show" - straight up balls rock of "No You Don't" and the closer "So Sincere" - it has lasted beyond all my dreams; due I'm sure to the fact that Pat can sing the crap out of anything - from one growl to a high octave it all sounds so effortless. Since I got the album sometime in the summer months of 1980, her next release Crimes Of Passion was right around the corner, and with the one two shot of those, I knew I had to be some kind of singer. I was going to be Pat or Debbie or one of them was going to be my adopted mother, I didn't care how it was going to work. All I knew was they lived through thier lives through my stereo and I lived my life through their songs.
Lisa Hartman - Letterock (1982; RCA) - This was a tough one to include, not because I knew so many people would make fun of me but I had to find a way to describe how exactly this album did have its effect on me. For most of the people in the world, at the time and now, no one even knew this album existed but I did. But with the album and Lisa's appearance on the album I became a fan, but with her also appearing on Knots Landing every week, she became something more to me. It seemed like you could put all of your talents into your work, if you wanted to do TV, you could, if you wanted to sing, well go ahead and make a record. It all seemed so easy because of Lisa Hartman. Plus she seemed like a damn nice person. She didn't appear to be trying to be anything other than herself. She had a bit of the Benatar-esque attitude on some of her songs but then would turn into a Linda Ronstadt crooner. The album is the opitome of 1982 pop music with just a hint of Urban Cowboy-ness coming through on one or two of the songs. Letterock was certainly a product of its time but unlike the later 80's where the processed drum machine makes everything so dated, this album still sounds refreshing - at least to me. Plus I sing along with everything on here, she made everything so easy for me as a kid. I loved looking at that insane cover of her in the lingerie and listening to song after song and then playing it over again. I used to put Letterock on the player before going to sleep. I would dream of living somewhere else and being a big time singer - you realize of course it all reverts back to the TV show she was singing her songs on - Knots Landing. I first saw Lisa while my mother had the TV on for background noise, and I sat watching the show. Suddenly there she was singing a Rick Springfield song "Hole In My Heart" and wearing a small mini dress, I thought she was the coolest thing in the world. When I found out there really was a Lisa Hartman record out there, I made my mother run me up to Camelot Music. Lisa Hartman and Letterock (she sang songs off the album on most of her time on the show including "If Love Must Go", "Games", "Hole In My Heart" and the most popular "New Romance (It's A Mystery))In fact if it weren't for her singing on the show, I probably never would've watched it to begin with. Today, I still listen to Letterock all the time, I still watch Knots Landing with my pal Jen, and I still love Lisa Hartman and have followed her career through out these years and without Knots Landing I don't know how boring all those Thursday nights would've been in my youth and would I have ever really written Carlton Heights - or anything else for that matter had I not first seen Lisa and started playing her record? Without Letterock, I would've had no Lisa Hartman, no Knots Landing and then no Carlton Heights - Now think about that for a minute!
Nirvana - Nevermind (1991; Geffen) - It's hard to believe a record didn't affect me again for over ten years but in all fairness there wasn't all that much greatness after the beginning of the 80's - by the time I had worn out most of my vinyl from the early 80's I was mulletized, wearing name brand acid washed jeans and trying to hang with the cool kids of the Def Leppard crowd. Of course I never fit in with them but that's probably because I'd run home, watch the Aqua Net out of my hair and put on my Lisa Hartman album. But by 1991 we had all had enough of hair bands and constant sexual innuendo. Sure, Lita Ford got me through some fits but come on I needed more, so along came a new Messiah and his name was Kurt. He didn't care if you liked him, looked at him or hit him, just as long as you heard him. And we did. But this goes beyond just affecting me with the thrilling moments of angst found on the album, Nirvana brought about a whole movement - I tore those labels off my jeans, I put on the thrift store cords and boots, the flannel and the big ratty sweaters, I let my hair grow. I have to admit though I never went so far as to only bathe by Pachouli but come on I was raised right. In essence, Nevermind became a voice for people of my inner angst - my age, my outsider status, everything I thought was on the sidelines was suddenly there in front of me. The music had anger, the music had depth, the passion was there in the lyrics and in the performances, and it changed my whole life. I was finally in a place I wanted to be. My own style changed, my writing, my poetry and stories, my lyrics all took on new meaning and I was no longer afraid to write how I really felt - warts and all. It made me an artist - an unpaid artist sure but if you create art and no one's there to pay attention you're still an artist aren't you? Sure you are and so am I - thanks to the life altering album Nevermind.
