Five Albums that Defined My Teenage Years

I have spent a lifetime wallowing in music. Before I learned how to play a single chord on the guitar, I listened to music and reveled in the sensation of being transported to somewhere else by it.  I’m no synesthete but I am sensitive enough to appreciate music as more than just vibrations in the air. As a youngster I enjoyed digging through my parents vinyl collection, especially if they weren’t around, and listening to everything from orchestral to jazz to reggae to the blues. What they didn’t have a lot of was good old fashioned rock, R&B, or country AND western. As I got a little older and realized I could buy albums on my own or ask for them as presents, I started by own little record collection. At various points in my life this became a complete and total obsession, bordering on madness. I once had my friend send me, at great expense, some of my CD’s to Japan because I was jonesing so bad for music I dreamed about it. Thank you, Mike B.

But the question at hand is to create a list of five albums that defined my teenage years. I do enjoy a wide variety of musical styles, but as a teenager, it was all rock ‘n roll. I think my Dad, who liked to joke around a lot, said it best one time when he quietly but without a trace of humor said, “If I hear that damn Iron Maiden album one more time, I’m going to smash it to pieces and glue it to your face.” Or at least, that’s what I heard him say.

1. Blue Öyster Cult – Extraterrestrial Live (1982)

Might as well get this one out of the way early. I obsessed over BÖC’s entire catalog as I tried to decipher the “Imaginos” saga, which was presented in a very fragmented way across the albums and not widely discussed in the rock press. This album may not have been their musical pinnacle, but it had a good mix of old and new songs. Most important to me, it had the lyrics written out and I could correct the things I’d gotten wrong during transcription. This was in the dark days before the Internet, of course, when a music fan did archaic things like transcribing lyrics. Favorite song: Veteran of the Psychic Wars. Side note: Dad caught me in full “rock star wanna be singing into a hairbrush” mode one night to this song and mortally embarrassed me. I’m still not sure I’m over it. Side Note 2: “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll” is one of the very first songs I remember hearing on the radio as a child and asking, “Who IS THAT I MUST KNOW!”

2. Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1970)

My aunt Debra bought this for me on my 13th birthday. We went to Cactus Records and Tapes and she said I could get one album of anything I wanted. I think she was mildly surprised when I bought something from 1970. I’d heard “Paranoid” and “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” on the radio in Houston and figured even if the rest of the album sucked, it would be worth it for those three songs. So began the next obsession with a band’s entire catalog. Everything about this resonated with my teen aged brain; the doom and gloom lyrics, the sludgy, over driven guitars, and a bass/drum combo which just floored me as a beginning bass player. My friend Brian Turner (RIP) had an even earlier pressing with a green label and I was always jealous of that. When I saw Ozzy on the “Diary of a Madman” tour, just before Randy died, my favorite part was when they played the old Sabbath stuff. Favorite song: Electric Funeral. Side Note: I learned a lot about playing bass playing along with this album.

3. Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow – Eponymous (1975)

I was too young to “know” Deep Purple and by the time I was old enough to get into it, Ritchie had ditched them long before. But Rainbow was still kicking around. Got to thank Steve Kasdorf for turning me on to this; Steve was crazy about music too and we spent a lot of time talking about various bands. From the very first note of “Man on the Silver Mountain” I was hooked. Ronnie Dio’s voice, Ritchie’s guitar work, the hard working ELF as the backing band, it was all too much for this young pup. I spent a LOT of time with this record. Favorite song: “Temple of the King”. Side Note: It would be a long time before I learned what “modal” actually meant in musical terms, but I knew what I liked.

4. Pink Floyd – “The Wall” (1982)

I remember hearing “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” on the radio and when I realized this was by the same band who did “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Animals”, I knew I had to have it. Another Cactus Records and Tapes experience I won’t forget, as they had a big display for it. I saved up my baby sitting money for this and when I got home, despite it being late on a school night (I was in sixth grade!) I listened to all four sides. Terry Smith, my Mom’s good friend, once said that this was one of the most unrelentingly depressing albums he’s ever heard. Somehow I didn’t get that from it. I just knew that it was like being taken on a journey, similar to “Dark Side” and yet very different. Each side was like a different leg of the trip. Side Four was the most devastating and yeah, okay, I have shed tears while listening to this album. Poor Pink! Also, the graphics by Gerald Scarfe were fantastic. Of course, this ended up being another band whose catalog I owned.

5. Deep Purple – “Machine Head” (1972)

So the first time I heard “Highway Star”, it was a live cover version by Point Blank on “The Hard Way”. I just knew this wasn’t one of their songs, it was just so overwrought and awesome. I checked the liner notes. Who the hell were “Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice”? It slowly dawned on me that these were the same guys who made “Smoke on the Water” and that both songs were on “Machine Head”. Dropping the needle (I know, more of these references to ancient, forgotten technology) on side one was like a kick to the head. The slow build, that snapping snare drum, the layered screams, and then those crashing chords, put me into another realm. Just… stunning. Each song was an exercise in musical muscle. It’s safe to say that I lived inside of this album for many years. Favorite song: “Pictures of Home”. Side Note: I crashed my Honda CRX the first night that it was purchased, while driving down a country road just outside of Tallahassee; and the crash happened just as Ritchie was cranking through those lovely triplets in “Highway Star”. For about a year after that, I had a hard time listening to that song without cringing.

Honorable mentions: Jethro Tull, “Living in the Past”. Iron Maiden, “Number of the Beast” (sorry, Dad!). Ted Nugent, “Free For All” (I still think he’s a douche, but what an album). Monty Python, “The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, “Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson Lake and Palmer”. Rush, “All The World’s A Stage” OR “Moving Pictures”: both of these were huge in my teen years.