A few days ago blogging Pal Joe ( MR 1537) and moi had a discussion and we were talking about Queen albums and Joe mentioned that his first 6 albums that he ever purchased with his own money were Queen albums.
I thought that was awesome and Joe as well named off his Top 10 Queen albums which was wicked as well! ( I would have bumped up The Game a few spots myself on the Top Queen album list but Joe’s List. Joe’s Rules)
Still Though it was a great conversation and it’s always fun to read and see what other people have picked out when it comes to music!
Now this timeline I just kept from early 1979 to the end of 1979 (the year I began buying albums) So here it goes.
Feel free to comment about your First ever purchased album whether its 1 album or 100 albums..it doesn’t matter let’s have some fun folks!
The only album I can recall in order of my first ever purchased album was from no surprise here folks…..
That’s right KISS has the distinction of being my first ever album purchase and that wasn’t even in Canada but in the U.S.A. That honour would go to Mikey Ladano’s fav U.S City that being Duluth Minnesota! As some of you readers know growing up my pal John Young first discovered KISS as he had The Originals. I was blown away I had to get KISS.I needed KISS and once in Duluth at Miller Hill Mall I spent my allowance on KISS ALIVE 2. Talk about impacting a 11 going on 12-year-old at the time!
KISS delivered a Double Album, Three Sides Live! Fourth Side Studio! Double Gatefold Sleeve! Booklet! Tattoos! Super Loud Crowd! Gene Simmons on the cover looking like some Kabuki Satanic Warrior with that blood like crap spewing from his bottom lip! I was sold and enlisted in the KISS Army!
The rest of these albums are not in any order of my purchase but they are what I owned in 1979!
New England and that would be no doubt reading in some Rock Mag in 1979 that Paul Stanley produced this band from Boston called New England. New England never achieved super stardom but in my own little world they kicked me in the ASS as these four Fella’s played with a huge style of their own! Loud Guitars/Cranked up Hammond/Great Lead and Backing Vocals all wrapped up in a tight little 40 minute package…
While reading away feverishly in whatever Rock Magazine I could get a fix on I came across an article on a band from Rockford Illinois called Cheap Trick who were getting a ton of play and sales on a live album called Live at the Budokan. Course in the magazine there is a KISS connection and that would be that Cheap Trick opened a ton of shows for KISS. That was enough for me. Sold …. and amongst all these shrieking Japanese girls hollering for Drummer Bun E Carlos the Tricksters still packed a wallop but with finesse .Easy loveable catchy like songs delivered with a great rhythm yet sloppy lead guitarist named Rick Nielsen who was the main writer as well who had a lead singer named Robin Zander who could sing the headlines on the front page of your newspaper and make it sound cool! Rounding out the quartet is Bassist Tom Petersson who looked cool. Played it cool and blew my mind at that young age that he only played 8 & 12 String Basses!!! Must also mention like KISS, Cheap Trick taught me about Gimmicks. Trick had their own Gimmick with Two Cool Looking Guys and Two Dorks. They made it work!
KISS in 1979 was huge in my world. Even though looking back People were tiring of them and they were tiring of themselves! I had no idea so when KISS delivered their new studio album Dynasty I was all over it, Kiss could do no harm in my world! They still looked bad ass. No one knew what they looked like. The Lead Guitarist Ace Frehley realized he had a ton of talent and that Gene and Paul were holding him back musically while Peter Criss from his disaster of a solo album was partying it up in 1979 like it was 1999 and only drummed on one track on Dynasty(Dirty Livin) Kiss was in shambles yet when they released this album it still delivered a hit between my eyes!
As you have read here a few times before KISS was my first ever Live Show in Duluth back in October of 1979. Support act was Judas Priest except they no showed! Still it didn’t matter as shortly after the KISS show I sauntered into our local Sam The Record Man and the there it was in the New Release Racks! Unleashed in the East! When I dropped my needle on the grooves of this album it blew my mind! I had never heard dudes do twin lead guitar solos before. Glenn Tipton/KK Downing just soar out of the gates at the beginning of Exciter and their riffage together and apart is so unbelievably tight! I never heard guitars played with such furiousity! Course you have a Lead Singer named Rob Halford who sings in all kinds of crazy octaves throughout and the pace is tighter than the running of the bulls and that’s thanks to Drummer Les Binks who plays the drums right on this (ahem) live release unlike later live Priest albums where Scott Travis overplay’s everything but still man….
So after KISS ALIVE 2 in the summer of 1979 out on a family trip somewhere in Southern Ontario I purchased KISS Double Platinum which is my first dabble with a Greatest Hits set! Since I didn’t own any other KISS than Alive 2 this was a no brainer plus KISS had all there classic tracks up till 1978 on it. 21 tracks in all. Actually the running order of the album featured some good stuff which a lot of it I had never heard before which was basically the material from the first three KISS studio records. Still have no idea what the deal was behind Strutter 78 but whatever KISS had to sell product so the Army would buy. Come to think of maybe Stanley should do a Strutter 18???! Speaking of which I looked at the tracks on Double Platinum and you know what? Out of the 1,776 different KISS Greatest Hits that are available to buy. I will go on record as saying that this is the best one….
The success of Cheap Tricks Budokan album got me all hyped for the new CT record and that would be the fantastic Dream Police album that proved to me that the Tricksters could deliver a studio album on par with a classic live album as a followup! Course Trick in the mid 80’s for a period skidded right off the tracks but let’s not go there shall we??! Dream Police was chalked full of lyrical quirkiness and a real slick sounding Hard Rock sound. Dream Police also used strings on a few tracks and it worked and it did not make me gag! Back in 79 the Dream Police were stuck inside my head!
And what would fall under the WHAT THE F**K WAS I THINKING category would be the Gene Simmons 1978 solo album! Gene I guess you could say was my early go to guy in KISS. He looked ugly. Spat Fire. Spewed Blood. Wrote cool tunes like Ladies Room/Calling Dr Love/Christine 16 so when I had a chance to buy another KISS album I bought this when I could have bought another KISS studio album! Yeah bizarre huh? Egocentric was this album. 500 Guest musicians and a ton of name drops on the back of the album cover. Some cool rock tracks like Radioactive/See you in your Dreams some sap,like the cover of Wish You Upon A Star. Some bizarre stuff like Living in Sin in which during the song you hear a phone ring as Cher works on giving The Demon a phoner boner. Some Horndog filler in Tunnel of Love. Some would call this diversity. Looking back on it. Mean Gene recorded an album of chaos that would come to my mind now.
Thanks for reading as I thought this was going to be a short snap shot of my early music dabbling so I appreciate it if you made it through my ramble!
