Well, I don’t mean to b****, I swear. 
We’ve all got our cross to bear,
but when I hear the music play,
all my troubles just fade away.
When I hear the music play, Lord, just let it play
Let It Play - Poison

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Even when I was young and wasn’t much into it, there it was. There it was in a major way. My mom has always had her Beatles music playing since I entered the world. My dad would be listening to Dylan, The Stones, Marley, and others. Later, he was the first to get me interested in country music when he took me to see Garth Brooks for the first time.

It was my older brother who first took to loving music. He has introduced me to many bands that are forever part of my musical soundtrack. He introduced me to bands like The Cure, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Morphine, Depeche Mode, The Pixies, and many more.

He was also the first to take learning an instrument seriously when he took up the guitar. I was ten when he called me into his room and played “A Rhythm Method” by Rush’s Neil Peart. That song made me want to become a drummer.

Thinking about how much music has changed in 41 years sometimes makes me sad. As much as I love Apple and the things that Steve Jobs created, I feel that the digital age of music is missing something.  Yes, it is highly convenient to pay a monthly or yearly fee and stream any song we’d probably ever want to listen to. I’m guilty of this, too.

What happened to albums?

Call it nostalgia if you want to, but something from how I used to feel about music is missing.  Don’t get me wrong; I still love music. I’m just talking about that feeling I used to get waiting for an album release. I’m talking about going to the music store and buying that album on which you only knew one song. The song we all knew was always track number five or close to it. Have you ever noticed that? I wonder if they strategically placed those hits around the fifth song because they knew we’d have to at least listen to the first five songs to get there.

Even once CDs became the norm, I would skip to the last song and sometimes listen to the tracks from last to first to ensure I heard them all. Albums used to be complete in the way that they were created. The bands generally had a concept in mind, and the album would have a flow. You don’t see that as much as you used to anymore, and it’s sad.

The Remaster Disaster!

Every album I have ever loved now seems to have the remastered version. I’ll admit that my ears can’t hear much difference between a remastered album and one that isn’t, but maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t need my albums remastered. I want them as they were intended to sound! I want them the way they were originally recorded. I don’t care that they were recorded 50 years ago, and today’s technology can make everything pitch perfect. Who cares about pitch perfect? Not me! I want my imperfect pitch music to sound like it did when they first recorded it.

I recently decided to get what used to be my guest room repainted. The idea was to make it into a drum/music room. I moved the drums in there, and the room is coming nicely. I still haven’t had the chance to jam in there, but I’m looking forward to that, too.

In creating this drum/music room, I decided I wanted to make a custom poster that would reflect some of the albums that have stuck with me. Some are not too old; others have been with me my whole life and came out well before I was here.

I can remember the first CD I ever purchased. It was Lies, Lies, Lies by Guns N Roses. Oddly enough, after that, I think the second album was Straight Up by Paula Abdul. I’m not, although I should probably be ashamed to admit that. I still remember sweating bullets and pacing back and forth at the record store, thinking, “I’m a guy; I can’t buy this Paula Abdul record.”  Ultimately, I decided to pull what I call the Warren excuse. If you’ve ever watched the movie  Empire Records, you probably know what I’m talking about.

Warren was a kid who just wanted to work at a record store. He gets caught stealing music in the store, and when they go through his collection, they make fun of him for having a Debbie Gibson album as part of his loot. Warren’s response was, “It’s for my girlfriend.”  We can learn a lot from Warren, although we should never be afraid to like what we like and listen to what we want to!

I cannot wait to get this poster that I designed framed up in the music room.

These are albums that I will always have with me. Albums that I know by heart.

I tried not to put the greatest hits on the poster, although there are a few from The Beatles, Stones, and Marley. I wanted it to reflect actual studio albums as much as possible. I know that U2’s Rattle and Hum is not a studio album, but it was the first time I ever heard U2, and it blew me away!

What albums would you put on your poster?