For me, certain albums tie deeply to certain periods of my life – and today as I was listening to my tunes and working on some C++ code, I came to the realization that 1987 was singularly epic for me.
In 1987 I was in the Navy and living in the Groton / New London area of Connecticut. I’d been active duty for a six months and was living on my own for the first time – so everything was new and exciting. And I had the money now to buy CDs to go with the RX-CD70 ‘boom box’ I bought for myself as a Christmas present…
Accordingly a lot of albums from that year were pretty heavily etched into my psyche…
I got turned on to Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango in the Night” by Bill Whitehouse as it was a constant on the various road trips we took in his little blue Ford Escort.
I’ve always been a fan of The Alan Parsons Project, and 1987 included the album “Gaudi” which came with a song titled “Standing on Higher Ground” that I probably looped around 12 billion times in my homesickness for Colorado… To this day this is one of my personal ‘anthems’.
Another band I’ve always been a fan of is Yes, and 1987 saw the release of “Big Generator”. Generator was a lot ‘groovier’ than 90125, which I loved, and it got a lot of playtime in the boom box.
Pink Floyd, another long-time favorite, released “Momentary Lapse of Reason” in 1987 and was one of the cassettes in my car in 1987. It got played extensively on my solo road trips all over Connecticut.
And then there was the new Def Leppard album, “Hysteria”, from another favorite band of mine. “Hysteria” was amazing from beginning to end – and another of the cassettes that lived in the car.
1987 had a ton of amazing music, but these are the big ones for me. Hearing these albums will instantly transport me back to twisty tree-lined backroads and spartan barracks rooms in Connecticut.
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