So here we are in the aptly named Academy Days era. The era names still maintaining that epic stylized quality. As before with the BFMS era, I’m going apologize for any chronological inconsistencies. The Academy Days officially covered the Autumn of 1979 through Spring of 1983. As we saw in the last post, Heart Of Glass has been designated to carry the torch into this era.
As we enter the Academy Days, I was still listening mostly to Kansas, Styx and Boston. Being on a Low Budget, I found that for a while, 45’s were all that I could afford. So in the tradition of my dear mother who had hundreds of 45’s I collected about a dozen before I realized that I much preferred albums. This preference holds true to this day. Was it developed back in the 1970’s? I can’t say. As you know, mom had a few albums but was all about the singles. I liked the idea that a single song on an album could attract my attention and that I’d discover other songs on the album that I would enjoy as much if not more. I think this philosophy is why I have such disdain for downloading songs.
The arguement from the download a song at a time crowd is Why pay for songs I don’t want? How do you know what you don’t want? You think a 30 second snippet from a song is all that it takes? When I think about all the music that I have acquired over 40 years and the volume of personal favorites that evolved over time it makes me ill to think that I would have passed them by had I not been committed to the album format.
The other aspect is that I believe that an album is a single piece of art. Imagine just downloading the Smile part of the Mona Lisa Painting or the shadowy figure in the hat in the background of Munch’s The Scream. When I was a young metal head shortly after high school, I used to always skip Goodbye To Romance from Blizzard Of Ozz. Today it is my favorite Ozzy song. I never would have downloaded that song based on the 30 second clip that I would have heard at 19. I never would have carried it for years. I never would have heard it again. I would have missed out. I own thousands of albums and don’t have any regrets.
Here are a few of the 45’s that I had briefly before they were replaced by albums.
Neil Diamond – Love On The Rocks
Yes, still digging Neil Diamond
Blondie – The Tide Is High
Barbara Streisand – Woman In Love
As kids we watched Barbara Streisand in comedy films like What’s Up Doc? Even now, apart from this one song, I don’t really think of Streisand as a pop music artist.
Star Wars Christmas – What Can You Get A Wookie For Chritmas (When He Already Owns A Comb)
It was Star Wars related so I had to.