The First Album I Really Loved

1. Picked up our season passes to Trafalga, went there and played a round of mini golf and had a blast.
2. The glucose test didn't make my wife sick.
3. Started Arkham Asylum... super fun.

Okay, so let's take a trip down memory lane.  Do you remember the first album you REALLY loved.  I mean, the kind of album that you didn't skip a single song, and you listened to it so many times that friends and family eventually told you that if they heard a particular song again that week they would break the device that made it play?  Well, today's post is about that.

When I was ten, or eleven, or twelve (I'm sure my sister will know and chastise me in the comments) my parents bought me and my sister a boom box for Christmas.  Do you remember boom boxes?  Yeah, good times.  Anyway, my sister was a dancer, so her's was smaller than mine so it was more portable.  Mine was bigger and made more noise because I was a boy.  We had a lesson on the proper care of CD's, because that's what was used at the time, and we were given a disc or two to start with.  I started with one of the Jock Rock series (a conglomeration of songs by various artists that were often played at sporting events), and I think a TLC album... I liked one of their songs, so my parents bought the album.  This was not my first favorite though.  I remember loving that boom box.  My love affair with music had not started yet, so I don't think I loved it because it dispensed music.  Rather, I loved that it was a big person item that was mine.  My uncles owned boom boxes, and now I owned something they owned.

Shortly thereafter Matchbox 20 made it big.  I can hear the groans of you readers, reading this in the future and remembering Matchbox 20.  Yep, they were overplayed, and we all knew every word to 3AM whether we wanted to or not.  Like many of my peers, I loved Matchbox 20, and somehow, I acquired their album, "Yourself, or Someone Like You."  I assume I got it for Christmas or something, but that was my first loved album.  I knew every song by heart.  I often put it in my awesome boom box, played it, put it on repeat, and didn't change anything but the volume for hours.  I don't know why, but Rob Thomas's voice touched my soul, and I loved the music and the way it made me feel.  I also came to like the name of the album.  I still love it.  It was very clever and made sense. The whole album was about insecurity and sadness:  Things you feel, or someone like you feels.  I think it's one of the best album names ever.  You can disagree, but you'll be wrong. :)

There were some lines that just hit me right, like, "It's sittin' by the overcoat, the second shelf, the note she wrote, that I can't bring myself to throw away,"  "What we learn here is love tastes bitter when it's gone,"  and "She's said 'it's cold outside' and she hands me a raincoat.  She's always worried 'bout things like that."  I mean, they had one song NAMED Damn!  Damn!  It was named a cuss word.  What twelve or thirteen year old wouldn't be in love with that?  Somehow the whole album was just edgy enough for me to feel like a rebel listening to it, but not so edgy that my parents wouldn't let me listen to it.  Heck, my mom even liked it a lot.. still does.  Yeah I wrote heck on my blog, what are you gonna do about it?

Now, I didn't like Mad Season (their second album), it didn't have the same feeling.  I also came to love other bands more, and other albums, front to back, more than Yourself or Someone Like You, but that album will always hold a special place in my heart.  It doesn't even have many memories affixed to it, because I was too young.  It just has a feeling affixed to it that I'll never forget.

So, I really do want to know your first loved album.  Go ahead and put yours in the comments.  I'd hate to think I'm alone on this.

Have a nice day.