I had that album.
REO Speedwagon: Hi-Infidelity
My mom was not impressed with the cover art.
That’s what I was thinking, too.
I think a lot of the folks who WhyNot is labeling as “cooler” than her are actually just “older” than her, and the music that was popular when they were buying their first albums has held up better over time than some of the stuff from the 80s.
I was reminiscing about REO last night, because Kevin Cronin threw out the first pitch and sang the 7th inning stretch at the Cubs game. He was talking to the guys in the booth, and he seemed like such a nice guy. They were playing old REO songs as their bumper music all night. The stuff seems kind of lame now, but man I sure did like it back in the day.
Wow. So long ago. We had a lot of 45’s since I can remember but I don’t know which of these were first. We had Beatles, Rolling Stones, Monkees, Beach Boys, and Party Girl by the Hullabaloos (sp?)
My first album, IIRC, was the Black Sabbath Paranoid album followed soon by Led Zeppelin II. Hitch-hiked into downtown Orlando to a record store, thumbed home, threw it on Dad’s big Stereo Console cabinet, cranked the volume, bass and treble to the max and made the mirror rattle on the paneled wall behind the unit. It only took a couple of seconds for Dad to appear from the bedroom door with mix of a confusion and disbelief and a “What the hell is that? Turn that crap OFF!”.
What a drag.
I bought that album for my son. I still love all those songs.
I think I’m going with the “way cooler” one.
Whynot knows I kid.
Hey, I had to defend our generation (actually, I think I’m a bit older than you, but I’m about at the right age to have bought some really, really lame albums in the late 70s & early 80s. Shaun Cassidy, anyone?)
I chased down Rick Springfield at Woodfield Mall and got his album and an autograph and thumbtacked the album cover to my wall. How’s THAT for lame?
Don’t feel bad. I have a friend (my age) who still is a member of his fan club, and e-mails her circle of friends with updates on what he’s been doing. Cracks me up.
Black Saint & the Sinner Lady, Charlie Mingus. I had spent an evening with one of my friends, lying on the floor by her parents’ gramophone listening to this. The whole album was like a trip, an out-of-body experience, life-changing.
As soon as I could scrounge up some money, I ordered it for myself through her parents’ record club subscription. I still have it. It’s over 40 years old now. When it came out on CD, I bought it in order to save my LP, but I still take it out once in a while. There’s something about the LP vinyl that feels more “live”, in spite of the slight scratchiness.
Seriously. Did you happen to notice what my first albums were?
To refresh your memories, they were:
Vinyl: Tony Basil
Tape: Tone Loc
CD: Steve Miller (not that bad, but it was the weakest of his greatest hits albums)
So compared to mine, Michael Jackson looks like friggin’ Hendrix.
Well, I didn’t want to mock anyone in particular!
I have an extended remix of Funky Cold Medina on vinyl. So who am I to talk, anyway?
Umm, yep, I found myself to be the only chick who loved Zappa in my Southern NC high school in the 70’s, at that time, a Freak points off label in them preppy daze. But, it led to the same appreciation of like orchestrations by George Clinton and P-Funk, which led to many other music avenues, which led to a pretty good damn time. It was the fate of finding that Zappa record in a dime store, lovely!
Love you, too, then, Biffy… I am not so apt with modern stuff, and thanks for the DVD heads up. Will try to get it to watch. I sure wish Zappa was still around to give a take on the current world.
My younger sister was bringing home Andy Gibb albums 
Then she fell in love with an older boy, and it so happened that they were listening to Journey’s “Escape” album. So naturally, that became “their album”, and she bought herself a copy, and played it on the family stereo over and over and over and over and over. Well, actually she just played the track “Open Arms” over and over and over and over and over. blegh
After re-visiting this thread, upon further consideration, and a couple of vodka-on-the-rocks, I must disclaim my earlier “Beatles '65” post. I know that I owned “Why Is There Air” and the soundtrack for “Mary Poppins” before that. Come to think of it, I had the soundtrack to “Victory at Sea”, too…
Nah, I’m not cool (really; ask anyone). It’s just that I have four older sisters, and they bought all the lame stuff before I could (they had some pretty cool stuff, too, but please, 12 In a Roe by Tommy Roe? :smack: ) Between the five of us, you’d best be believin’ we had some pretty lame-ass music floatin’ around the house!
Somehow, despite hanging around in HS with the sort of people who you’d think would have played Zappa occasionally, I don’t think I actually heard anything by Zappa until one morning in 1978, while waiting for my carpool rider, the station I was listening to played “Montana,” and I totally fell in love with that song. Then it took me years, back in that pre-Internet era, to figure out who sang it. I just knew it was absolutely crazy, and absolutely wonderful.
AC/CD’s Back in Black