Re-discovering your old music

"Roll With The Changes" is a terrific REO song.

 

Remember, there was a lot of push-and-pull between Kevin Cronin, who wanted REO to be a ballads-heavy hit band, and Kevin Richrath, who wanted a lot of hot guitar licks and a "harder" sound. The result is out there. Even when Cronin would get his way, Richrath would grab the bridge and make it his own, sort of like, "Here's my part, and you damn well better use it."

And they'll always have one of the great album titles ever.



I saw them in a fair setting two years ago, and they sounded really good.

 

At the time Keep on Loving You hit No.1 pop singles (No. 9 Mainstream Rock) while Take It On the Run only made it to No. 5 on the singles chart (No. 6 Mainstream Rock). But now, 33 years later, classic rock and oldies radio plays the hell out of Take It On the Run, gives Keep On Loving You very little play, and ignores the better hits from the album -- Tough Guys (No. 25 Mainstream Rock Chart), In Your Letter (No. 20 pop singles) and Out of Season (No. 59 Mainstream Rock), The other hit from the album was Don't Let Him Go (24 pop, 11 rock).

REO is one of the few pop-rock 80s bands to still have the same lead singer now as it did back then.

 

I would be willing to hear "In Your Letter" again. Since it's been decades.

There are so many great Jimmy Buffett songs you never hear on the radio, too. It's always "Margaritaville" or "Fins" or "Cheeseburger in Paradise." Thank heavens for YouTube, where I can find such gems as "The Captain and the Kid" and "Livingston Saturday Night."

Ten years ago, I was shit outta luck. This Interwebs thing is OK by me.

 

Why? Not trolling, but curious.

No "Year of the Cat"?

 

"Year of the Cat" was in that same 1975-79 peak for Stewart. "Song on the Radio" topped out at No. 29 U.S., 10 on the AC charts, and I liked it better than either of the two top-10 hits.

 

I'm reading "Love Is A Mix Tape" right now, and that inspired me to dust off my generation's version of them - the CDR / burnt CD. I was one of the 10 kids or so at my high school who had a burner back then, so I had a side business at making CDs for kids, $5 a pop for a fresh mix, $2 if it was a copy of an old mix I had made or an actual CD. For some reason, I kept all of the lists people gave me of what they requested, and they're awesome to look at now. Not that my mixes were any better, of course - They would go from Limp Bizkit to a remix of the Metroid theme song to Warren G (note: I graduated HS in 2002, not 1992) to The Strokes.

 

I got into putting mixes on CDs pre-Napster, off the raw MP3 file-sharing sites. With a 28.8 modem, you might get your song downloaded in 10 minutes. On a good day.

 

I never really cared for REO but I had this album from my record club...cleaned a whole bunch of weed on that album...good times. In fact there are a few others that if I found today at my parent's house would probably still have seeds in them.

 

Amen to that, the net allowed me to reacquainted with awesome Buffett songs like "Biloxi", "Pencil Thin Mustache" and "The Great Filling Station Holdup".

 

Seed-cleaning albums:

• "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" -- Springsteen
• "London Calling" -- The Clash
• "Transformer" -- Lou Reed
• "(pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)" -- Lynyrd Skynyrd

 

Album cover that freaked me out on acid once: