I’ve Been Here Times Before

For more than a year, some of my friends and I have been sharing music. We’re supposed to review/rate what gets shared with us, and share those reviews with the group, but that doesn’t always happen.

This week I didn’t share an album. A year ago, we shared a playlist of songs from high school. A year later, I’m sharing a mix of songs that inspired me in my rock band from high school.

A number of factors have led to me thinking about this recently.

1. I got back in touch with the guys from my high school band (rock band, not symphonic/marching band)(although I guess our drummer was in that band with me, too).
2. As a by-product of that, I invited Scott to play this game with us (since he was in that rock band).
3. While I have shard some of my early musical influences with you guys before (The Beatles, Eagles, Black Sabbath, Fountains of Wayne, Weezer), Scott’s recent Elvis suggestion really got me thinking about my musical influences.

I put down some other influences just to get my mind going. They were bands that someone else had already shared in this game and I didn’t want to repeat. Bands like Simon and Garfunkel, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, Elton John, Buddy Holly, Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Cat Stevens, Everclear, Bon Jovi, Kiss, AC/DC, and maybe a little Judas Priest, too. I’m sure Scott might point out some other cover we did or influence I’m not thinking of, but this is what I came up with.

But first, here’s what my friends suggested I listen to this week. Not that there’s anything wrong with it or that I’m complaining, but both albums shared with me this week come from artists we’ve already visited in this game. There have been weeks when one of the three or four have revisited an artist, but this is the first time that everything I listened to has been a repeat of an artist.

Boston – Third Stage (1986)

I really haven’t listened to a ton of Boston – pretty much just the hits. On this album, that means I had only heard Amanda, which I’ve never really been a fan of (I think the lyrics are a little corny) and didn’t make me want to go out and listen to more Boston, even though what I had heard from their first album was awesome.

Its Better than I Ever Knew

Some of my co-workers and I started sharing some of our favorite music. We’ve been doing it for a while, but now we’re actually reviewing them and sharing those reviews with one another.

This week it wasn’t an album. It was a mix of 10 songs from our senior year of high school. For some of us these would have been literal mixtapes. My list has songs which were big the summer before my senior year through graduation. And they are songs I liked at the time. For other people they might be older songs which they liked while they were in high school (if I would have done that, The Beatles would have made the list)(spoiler: The Beatles weren’t on my list). For others, they might be songs which were popular, but they didn’t like them until later. Whatever.

I’m pretty sure this post has more tags than any other I’ve ever written.

Tim’s mix (1996-1997)

“While I did graduate in 1996, my graduating class was 1997, so I am pulling from music all the way to ’97. This includes songs popular then, and songs recorded around then, or songs I just liked and listened to a lot. I thought it would be fun to arrange them in album style, by where I think the best listening order is. So, while the same artist might be listed multiple times, I think it is more enjoyable to listen to in the order below:”

Jump off Van Halen’s 1984