It happened again. You know one of those musical slumps where despite the fact you have a whole hell of a lot of cd’s you can’t think of anything you really want to listen to. Well, for the fun of it a couple of weeks ago when this happened to me I grabbed my Skid Row s / t cd and put it on and man, I was just floored away by this onslaught of memories. All of a sudden it was tenth grade in high school all over again listening to songs like, Rattlesnake Shake, Youth Gone Wild, Midnight, and the quintessential Power Ballad, I Remember You. When that album was finished I scoured my towers and started smiling to myself as I picked off my Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and other bands of my youth such as Iron Maiden, Helloween, and Pretty Maids off the racks and played them while reminiscing about my younger days. I know everyone else out there has moments like this, there were albums out there that were the soundtrack to your life and whenever you hear something off of those you just automatically go back to high school or whenever it was when that music dominated your life.

Now even though bands such as Motley Crue and Def Leppard are looked down upon now and some of you right now are going, “Oh Christ, Ben listens to those pussy bands,” they played an integral part in many peoples lives. I can remember sitting around listening to Skid Row in high school and thinking that I actually had problems back then, haha. Or Motley Crue in ninth grade and thinking they were the coolest guys around ever and how I wanted to be Nikki Sixx so bad, and the many hours spent playing the same old Def Leppard album over and over, memorizing every lick and every note that was played or sung. Back then when I was younger and could only afford a few cds a month if that, I became entrenched in the bands that I purchased and became a damn scholar on em as well. I really think that I am not the only one who grew up listening to glam rock amongst the other metal of my youth.

When that little listening experience was over I began to realize that although I love metal more than ever today, I haven’t developed attachments to albums like I did back in the first few years when I started to really get into metal. I really don’t know why this is. One reason why I think this might be is because like I noted earlier, before I was aware of this thing called a “job” or that there were hundreds and hundreds of bands out there I only bought one cd every two – four weeks at max. In recent times it has been more like fifteen or twenty a month and unless a cd grabs me from the get go then I don’t devote much time to it. BTW this doesn’t mean I never listen to it again, every once in a while I do a sweep through my towers to listen to something that I’ve passed over. I’ve re-discovered several bands through this process like Onward, At Vance, and Seven Witches.

Another reason why I think that the most fondly remembered music of our lives is the stuff we listened to growing up is because of that simple fact right there, it was with us growing up. I mean, how am I gonna develop an attachment so say, the new Skid Row (which ain't that great) while I’m going to my shitty job every day to do the same thing I did the day before? It’s not gonna happen. My Maiden and Motley Crue discs were there for me throughout pretty much every event I had in life. All the stupid trivial crap in school that I thought was important was backed by Dr. Feelgood and Pyromania. Haha, I still recall sitting around in my room listening to I Remember You and Sweet Child O’ Mine thinking about THE girl, you know what I’m talking about, and blasting other assorted Power Ballads. Stuff like that, even menial stuff make those records of yesterday become etched into you little by little and before you even realize it, they’ve become the soundtrack to your life. If someone would have told me that Motley Crue would be one of the biggest bands of my teenage years I would have laughed in their face, but now… So think about what you were playing in the parking lot of your school out of your beat up old truck, with your ripped denim jacket while sporting your bitchin’ Shout at the Devil t-shirt and go find em in your closet somewhere and dust em off. They deserve it. Man, I feel like an old geezer with this editorial.