01 Elvis Presley – Pure Gold (1975)
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This is the first album in my parents’ collection I recall playing myself. My folks were mostly country pop/easy listening fans… artists like Jim Reeves, Perry Como, Roger Whitaker were the norm. Elvis looked like an entirely alien creature those other folks. This collection was released two years before he died. I remember that occurrence like many childhood things, overhearing it and processing it all over a much longer period of time. I still prefer Fat Vegas Elvis.
02 ABBA – The Album (1978)
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The first album I bought with my own money. ABBA was a strong radio presence in the mid-to-late 70s and I had been buying 45s of my favourites for a while. “Take a Chance on Me” had that weird a cappella intro that looped through the whole song, and like most Swedish music through history it burrowed into your brain and never left. I also had a crush on the women in the band after seeing them on some TV variety show. Maybe Sonny and Cher or Donny and Marie.
03 KISS – Dynasty (1979)
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Probably the worst KISS album up until that point. I bought it again because the song “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” was all over the radio at that point. Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were scraping the barrel at this point and most of their songs are co-written by hired guns to try and maintain relevance… which at the time meant adding a little disco to the mix. It did set me off on a KISS journey though and I collected all the albums that preceded it and unfortunately many that followed (I stopped [late] at 1985’s Asylum.
04 Blue Öyster Cult – Cultosaurus Erectus (1980)
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I joined Columbia House through an ad in TV Guide (I think). I recall that my initial flurry of “Buy Eleven for a Penny” was an even split between the radio pop I was still wallowing in (like Rupert Holmes “Pina Colada Song” and Dan Hill “Sometimes When We Touch”) and hard rock I had been reading about through magazines that featured KISS (which I remember also included Ted Nugent’s Scream Dream and UFO’s No Place to Run). B.O.C were the single weirdest, and therefore favourite of the bunch. Five guys from NYC whose songs were steeped in SciFi/Fantasy and heavy guitars… with titles like “Black Blade” and “Lips in the Hills.” They’re playing in Halifax this May you know.
05 AC/DC – Back in Black (1980)
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And every thirteen year old since then.
06 Saga – S/T (1978/ bought 1982)
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The first stereo of my own I had in my bedroom was a bizarre cube with speakers built into the sides that had a cassette deck built like a car player and an 8-track player. 8-tracks were already on their last legs and so difficult to find except in bargain bins in places like Woolworth’s. I bought this one because of its cover (a robot moth floating through outer space) and ended up really liking it. They were a Canadian group with a weird blend of heavy guitars, pre-Europop synthesizers and an overly dramatic singer going off about a “Humble Stance.” They also had two songs on this debut album subtitled chapter four and chapter six… I had to find out what went on in the rest of the story.
07 Alice Cooper – From the Inside (1978/ bought 1982)
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I had an older cousin that was into Alice Cooper and went on about him so I thought I’d give it a listen. Again not the best AC to start with, but it had the added glamour of the vinyl cover opening along a split at the center to reveal a panorama of an asylum and it’s residents, all of whom were characters in this concept album. They made it into a comic book too.
08 Iron Maiden – Killers (1981/ bought 1983)
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Another one mainly bought for its cover… at a record store in Bathurst, I recall. It was still pre-Dickinson. It cemented my metal leanings for the next couple of years.
09 Black Sabbath – Mob Rules / Devo – New Traditionalists (both 1981/ bought 1983)
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There was a record store that opened in the Sugarloaf Shopping Centre in Campbellton called Musik Dick. I know. They had a habit of selling off overstock vinyl half-price every six months or so. I bought both of these the same day, weird juxtaposition. The Black Sabbath one was another weird place to start with a band… their singer was Ronnie James Dio at this point… but the guitar/bass still had that fat groove and riff nirvana feel. I’d go so far to say that it’s better than the last two of the Ozzy-era albums. Devo was a weird blip at the time. I think the reason for both these albums was that a song from each of was also on the Heavy Metal movie soundrack: Sabbath’s “Mob Rules” and Devo’s “Working in the Coal Mine.”
10 Rush - Permanent Waves (1980/ bought 1984)
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I had a friend in grade eleven who loved Rush. It was the only band he EVER listened to. Because of that I hated Rush. What are friends for. Over the course of that year I ate lunch at his house every day and so heard every Rush album several hundreds of times. Eventually my brain gave up and gave in and I bought my first Rush album. In many ways I still think that Rush is the perfect Canadian band: literate, incredibly prolific on their instruments and just a little too nerdy for their own good. I also remember that year at the school’s variety show the best guitarist in our high school, a native from Restigouche named Geno, playing “The Spirit of Radio” as an instrumental.
11. Marillion – Misplaced Childhood (1985)
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The same friend who brainwashed me into Rush and I were tipped off about Marillion around the same time. A Scottish group with a rotund frontman who called himself Fish that sang wordy songs about paranoia and harlequins and drinking too much. The year of 1985 was dominated by two activities: biking and drinking. Misplaced Childhood came out and it was a song cycle about lost love, childhood dreams and substance abuse. It was the soundtrack of that summer.
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