Old Dude School of Rock!-1980

In a year by year continuing series where I dust the cobwebs off my Noggin and share with you all what I had actually bought with my hard-earned allowance! Plus I can ramble on and on….(I purchased more than what is posted here but these are the one’s that I dig talking about!) and maybe you the reader may check out some of this stuff and think “Hey Deke’s isn’t completely off his Rocker!”

1980…

A  New Decade and with it comes some new music to my ears and some of the regulars that made an impact in 1980…

1980 was the first time I heard Styx and on a whim wanted 1979’s Cornerstone. I don’t want to say too much about this one as I want to review it sometime soon with a few other Styx albums so..

Next…

KISS in 1980 releases Unmasked and even as a 13-year-old at the time I even knew this album was KISS in trouble . Recall the hype I read in Circus (before the album came out)where KISS was going to call their album Unmasked! I thought “Wow I’m going to get to see how ugly Simmons actually is!” Nope did not happen got the album and the cover was a drawn cover that Tbone who was 13 also at the time could have drawn a far superior cover and the songs were average at best! I will say Ace Frehley  wrote the classic Torpedo Girl. KISS had up to this point had done better and were yet to really lose their brains once 1981 rolled around(Next time folks!)

The brilliant New England returned with their followup to their excellent self titled debut  in 1980 and   released Explorer Suite which continued their path of excellent written tracks by John Fannon as in the brilliant prog poppy title track and others like Hey You On The Run and Seal It With A Kiss. I got this album as a gift from my cool parents for Christmas  that year!

It’s no secret how much I love still to this day Queen’s The Game album which I purchased as soon as I heard Another One Bites The Dust. Mercury/May/Taylor/Deacon were the first band I had heard that had a different sound but they could all still bring the Rock! Fred had a real slick knack at making the piano sound cool! Every track is a winner and I could go on and on but you all know  this already so let’s carry on shall we?!

July 1980 and AC/DC school us in what the birds and bee’s in life are about. So in honour of each track I won’t ramble about the 10 songs on the album but instead one word that to me describes each song as how the AC/DC sound pounded my senses to smithereens …

Here it goes.. 1-Hells’s Bells-=Satan/ 2- Shoot To Thrill-=Pills/ 3-What Do You Do For Money Honey=Hookers/ 4-Given The Dog A Bone= Sex/5-Let Me Put My Love Into You=Boner/ 6-Back In Black=Death/7- You Shook Me All Night Long=Girls/ 8- Have A Drink On Me=Booze/9-Shake A Leg=Mess/10-Rock n Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution= Coolness.

Like Queen up to that point I  never heard a band like AC/DC as KISS/Cheap Trick albums sonically sounded clean but here comes DC kicking my young ass hard and teaching me that there is more to  Rock Songwriting than Shandi! 

Coming up….Maiden/VH/Triumph/Rush/Priest/Whitesnake and more KISS as Metal really takes a stranglehold in my life back in 1981!