This was essentially my ongoing playlist in 1981:
These 8 albums shaped me as pre-teen. And as much as I regret that my interests didnât veer off into any of THESE territories during that particular year,
Iâm cutting myself some slack. Because 11-year-olds arenât that cool.
No matter how cool you think your 11-year-old son/daughter/niece/nephew is, I guarantee that their musical tastes are flavor-of-the-month.
And yeah, you could argue that cooler music is more accessible now, so maybe they ARE listening to cool shit.Â
And Iâm not talking about shit that YOU as an old person introduced to them. Because that just solidifies my point. If it werenât for THESE nutty, groundbreaking, genre-shaping albums (& subsequent albums released years after) from back in the day,Â
your son/daughter/niece/nephew wouldnât have access to cool shit today.
My point is, 11-year-olds arenât rock tastemakers.
But thatâs not the ultimate point to todayâs post.Â
Another staple of my 1981 rock diet was THIS album:
"The Strokeâ seemed to be blasting from every direction: boomboxes, car radios, roller rinks, fast food joints, you name it.Â
The thing is, I never actually owned this whole album. My best friend Tim Crutchfield did.Â
Heâs also the person who gave me a vinyl copy of THIS album at my 11th birthday party,
which got immediately shuffled into my ongoing 1981 playlist. In fact, if it wasnât for Tim, none of these albums wouldâve made much of a dent on me:
He was HUGE fan of Rush, Genesis, Journey, ALL that shit already. So, huge props to Tim Crutchfield for creating this monster.
Anyhoo, he owned EVERYTHING Billy Squier put out. And once âThe Strokeâ became part of 1981â˛s consciousness, it only validated Timâs ability to manipulate the rock zeitgeist.Â
But these were days before I was really aware of THIS band:
Yet another group I can thank Tim Crutchfield for introducing me to. (In fact, he let me âtapeâ THIS mammoth, career-spanning fucker after it came out:)
So, what do Billy Squier & Led Zep have in common?
Listen to Squierâs âLonely Is The Nightâ:Â
Now listen to Zeppelinâs âNobodyâs Fault But Mineâ:
And thatâs just ONE example throughout his catalog.Â
Hell, âDonât Say Noâ is FILLED with Zeppelin riffs, not to mention the fact that Squier REALLY sounds like heâs doing a Robert Plant impression.
This isnât some new revelation. People have probably been saying it for years. In regards to âLonely Is The Night,â
My regret is that I canât decide if I CARE or actually DONâT care. If I cared about this, would I have to stop listening to Tom Waits because of his nearly spot-on Captain Beefheart impression that heâs been cultivating for years?
Iâve been listening to Squier since 1981 & I suppose it hasnât caused the universe to fold in on itself yet, so fuck it, right?