37. Eliminator by ZZ Top

 37. Eliminator by ZZ Top

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae829mFAGGE&list=OLAK5uy_lNkF0KnpICFVl079NmbTulL2wPaAexiVU

Toward the end of my junior year in high school, ZZ Top entered the charts with "Gimme All Your Lovin'," and over a year later after high school graduation, the album was still on the charts in the summer of '84 with "Legs." Other charting songs off the album included "Got Me Under Pressure," "TV Dinners," and the MTV monster video hit "Sharp Dressed Man." So, yeah, this album is definitely a big part of the senior year soundtrack. 

Strangely enough, one of the reasons I think it lasted so long on the charts is that none of the songs were big hits as far as chart-topping singles. That means that people didn't tire of hearing a bunch of songs from the same album all charting at the same time. Instead of getting cooked really fast on high heat on a front burner, this album sat slowly simmering away on the back burner. 

I didn't buy this album in high school, partly because I didn't want to experience the supreme embarrassment of having my sisters and mother ask about the appropriateness of the very unsubtle lyrics on "I Got the Six." But I did get a copy of the album from my brother-in-law after returning home from Sweden. I found that while I still enjoyed listening to the hit songs the most, the other songs had a pretty consistent quality with that signature ZZ Top sound. 

In a lot of ways, ZZ Top is a lot like another of my favorite bands, ACDC. They pretty much stick with one kind of music that works for them, and they don't stray too far away from that Texas Roadhouse formula. When Eliminator came out, some people criticized the group for using synthesizers and drum machines on it. But I think the essence of the band's sound is still there. I mean, you don't hear any song off this album and think, "Hey, is this a New Wave song from some English group with androgynous costumes and strange hairdos?" No, you think, "This sounds like those two guys with long beards form ZZ Top."

It was because of this album that I decided to give other ZZ Top songs a listen whenever they came on the radio. And that's why "La Grange" ended up being the only ZZ Top song on my Top 200 song list, even though the album Tres Hombres predates Eliminator by a full decade. 

It's the combination of all of the ZZ Top hit songs together--and the fact that all of those songs remind me of my high school years--that make this a Top 60 album, whereas no single song from this album made it onto my Top 200 list. But if I had to choose one song from this album as my favorite, it would have to be "TV Dinners," what with all those clever lyrics, including the best line of all, "I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue." That's the kind of lyric that lets you know this band is all about having fun, even though their music tends to sound like something that you would hear while two bikers in black leather jackets get into a fistfight, and one of them pulls out a switchblade, to which the other grabs a beer bottle and breaks off the bottom on the bar counter, and then the whole place erupts into an all-out brawl, but the band never stops playing.

Nardo

38. The Game by Queen

 38. The Game by Queen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_5O-nUiZ_0&list=OLAK5uy_kkHhuEInejU2gl6gTx1ALT7nb9UrmmBpo

While I do think Queen had other albums that were better artistically, this is their best selling album with their only two #1 hits in America with "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." But lets all face the facts--"Another One Bites the Dust" is the monster hit that made this their top-selling album. It's definitely the reason I bought this album at the beginning of 9th grade. 

This album got played a lot from 9th grade through 12th grade, but in the end I threw my copy of the album in the garbage. Why? Because although I had heard rumors that the album had backwards masking, I didn't believe it. But after Randy showed me how to play the records backwards, I discovered that on "Another One Bits the Dust" there is backwards masking that says "smoke marijuana" in the same spot where the lyrics "Another one bites the dust" is played. Because at one point in my senior year I got really mad about how Randy's marijuana smoking had basically ruined what could have been a really good relationship between the two of us. He knew he couldn't smoke around me, so he decided that I wasn't going to be his friend, even though we shared the same bedroom my whole junior year of high school. So in my fit of anger, I threw my copy of "The Game" into the burn barrel. 

But I'd already memorized all the songs on the entire album, having listened to it at least once a week for over 3 years. And eventually after my mission I got another copy of the album. I couldn't resist how it triggered memories of my youth. One of those memories is of sitting in on a planning meeting for a school dance, and some girl suggested that the theme of the dance be from a song that was over a year old. And Sean Haney--who for some inexplicable reason had been invited to take part in the meeting--said in a supremely sarcastic tone "Why don't we make 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love" the theme song?" It made the girl feel really bad, but I have to admit it was kind of a funny thing to say. Also, I admit that I would have really liked it if we had made "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as the theme song for the dance. But the group opted for a new song that was starting to get radio play--I don't remember which one. Probably something really stupid by Air Supply. 

The one song on this album that I skipped a lot while listening to it was "Don't Try Suicide." That's because it had the problematic line "You can't be a prick teaser all of your life." That was just not something I could blast out of the speakers and not have someone else in the house hear it and report it to Mom. So, yeah, that song got skipped the most.

But I enjoyed all the other songs on the album quite a bit. There's a pretty good range of sounds from the different songs, from the Elvis Presley vibe on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" to the new Disco sounds of "Another One Bites the Dust" to a more classical Queen sound on "Sail Away Sweet Sister." It's got solid contributions from all of the group too. They all shine at one point in at least one song. 

If they just hadn't put on that damn backwards masking, I would have enjoyed the album throughout all of high school and into college. And in the end, throwing away the album didn't do a thing to fix the broken relationship between me and Randy. It was what it was.

And the album is what it is--a solid, all-around musical performance by Queen with a gigantic monster hit.

Nardo

39. Sports by Huey Lewis and The News

 39. Sports by Huey Lewis and The News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7JVlpm0eRs&list=OLAK5uy_m_-Vy4Z_37aAqfRAwq0gYYnXhjc6reILA

This album came out in September 1983, and while none of the songs really hit that #1 spot on the charts--a respectable #6 was as high as any single song got--the songs consistently stayed on the Billboard charts all through senior year of high school, and the album itself hit the #1 spot on the Billboard album chart in June of 1984. 

"Heart and Soul" triggers lots of good memories of the beginning of my senior year--from August through October of 1983--which was actually a pretty damn good 3 months for me. It all went super-south in November, but for those 3 golden months, I was at the top of my game. And it's kind of amazing how much good music came out in those 3 months. Or maybe it was just that I was in such a damn good mood for all that time that the music just seemed so much better. 

"I Want a New Drug," "The Heart of Rock 'n Roll," and "If This Is It" all charted during high school too, with the last song being the one I remember John singing during a summer evening of cruising Arimo with Hondo Joe in The Hulk, only John changed the lyrics to "If It's a Zit!" "Walking on a Thin Line" hit the charts, but topped out at #18. I think it's got a solid beat, good guitars, and pretty good lyrics, so I don't know why it didn't chart higher. Maybe it was just the case that after a year of hearing the other songs on the album, and after the album itself topped out the album sales, people weren't as interested in buying the single anymore.

When I got back from my mission, I raided my brother-in-law's record collection and made a tape of Sports, which I listened to a LOT in my black step-side Chevy pickup during that summer and through college. So the album also is associated with good memories of dating Julie in college and living with Hondo Joe during the summer of '88. That's why I enjoy many of the other songs on the album that didn't chart. "Bad Is Bad" is not bad. "You Crack Me Up" is a peppy tune that makes a good workout song. "Finally Found a Home" is listenable enough to not fast forward through the tape. "Honky Tonk Blues" is the weakest link on the album, being a remake of a Hank Williams' song. Still, it's a fast-paced song that shows Huey Lewis and The News aren't afraid to country things up a little, giving us a little more sense of the musical range that the band had.

But I have to admit that one of the main reasons this album is on my list is because of how much I like "Heart and Soul." Whenever I hear it, I get this mainline emotional connection to that period of time when I was so blissfully in love with the girl of my dreams. It was, in retrospect, quite sickening. I guess I should have seen the bad end coming from the good beginning. 

However, musically speaking, I think the other reason I love this song so very, very much is because it is one of the greatest cowbell performances in all of rock and roll music! I mean, listen to how they make that cowbell sing! It's more subtle in some places than others, but the cowbell is woven throughout the song.

Why am I sure Huey used the cowbell in the song and not some other bell-like percussive instrument? 

Because this song is actually a remake of a song released by Exile on their 1981 album Heart and Soul, which does heavily feature the cowbell in the chorus.

https://youtu.be/pBCrrniVZZE

Apparently, 3/5ths of Exile think that Huey Lewis and The News' version of the song sounded exactly like theirs, and they are befuddled by the fact that they didn't have a bigger hit on their hands when they first released it in 1981. They even tried to stir up a controversy on this matter with the audience during a recent performance of the song back in 2016. And they do specifically mention Huey's use of the cowbell.

https://youtu.be/m9r7qVzeeJA

Here's the thing. Exile's version does share a lot of similarities with Huey Lewis and The News' version. I'll give them that. But Huey's use of the cowbell in the song is much more artistic with the way that it's mixed into the percussion track in lots of different ways. And multiple cowbells are used throughout the entire song, not just one cowbell on the chorus. So, no, Exile, Huey's harder rockin' version was a bigger hit because...and I can't emphasize this too much.. it's got MORE COWBELL!

End of controversy. 

Anyway, this song takes me back to the glory days of double-dating with Hondo Joe back when we both had high hopes of getting the high-school sweetheart of our dreams. Yes. The good life was good then. But after Halloween, it all turned bad. And like Huey says, sometimes bad is bad.

Nardo

40. The Long Run by The Eagles

 40. The Long Run by The Eagles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skC2GToR1uY&list=PLs9vIZChB0tcwRDcPSBPf3ugKtsZ_D-8c&index=1

The Long Run was another 8-track album abandoned by Renda when she went of to college. Released at the end of 1979, it was the last album the Eagles released before their break-up. Well, actually, they had kind of already broken up with Don Felder leaving the group in 1977. While the album had some hits, some critics said the album just wasn't as good as Hotel California. Yeah. They're right, of course. That's because Hotel California is FRICKIN' HOTEL CALIFORNIA! If you're going to compare the rest of The Eagles work to an epic album like that, then yeah, you're going to find lots wrong with it.

But lets talk about what's right with The Long Run. First, there's the song "The Long Run," which is a good song by most people's standards, but it's an excellent song by the standards of high school boys that run the mile and two mile in track. 

Second, if you can't immediately tell why "I Can't Tell You Why" is a masterpiece of late-night love-makin' yacht rock, well, then I can't tell you why. 

Third, "In the City" is the best Eagles song with Joe Walsh as the lead singer. That's because it features his signature voice AND signature guitar sound. "Pretty Maids All in a Row" on Hotel California is a good vocal song for Joe, but you don't get to hear his guitar playing on that song. And that's it. Those are the only two songs he sang lead on--until they put out another album in 2007, in which he got to sing two more. But let's be real, we're talking about classic 70s Eagles albums and songs here, and 2007 is about 30 years too late. 

Fourth, while I admit I don't find the music all that appealing, there is something completely irresistible about a song titled "The Disco Strangler." So, yeah, the title saved the song for me on this one.

Fifth, "King of Hollywood" is a scathing portrait of Hollywood producers that use their positions to satisfy their insatiable lusts and narcissistic cravings for power. But in my teen years it mainly reminded me of a few of the older guys I worked with at the swimming pool who were just the biggest man-whores you could ever imagine. 

Sixth, if you've never turned up the volume knob to full blast and tried to sing harmony as loud as you can on "A Heartache Tonight," then you simply just don't get The Eagles. On top of that, it's got the mother of all hand-clap-along drum beats, excellent Joe-Walsh steel guitar wailing, and there's a really fun "Woo-Hoo!" and a spoken "Break my heart" at the end. But the best part for a teenage boy is, of course, the fact that you can replace the word "heartache" with "fartache." 

Seventh, and the most important reason of all, is "Those Shoes" is the best damn Eagles song for jilted 17-year-old teenage me. I used to cue up this song on the 8-track, then I'd play "Miss America" and immediately afterwards pop in "Those Shoes." It was just the best song combo ever! And one night, decades later, as I was driving to Boise late at night and listening to the radio, I heard "Miss America" and thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I was thinking to myself as it came to a close, "I wish they'd play Those Shoes now." And they DID! It came on immediately after with no commercial breaks, just like how I listened to it in my basement in Arimo all those years ago. I nearly lost my mind! 

Eight, jilted 17-year-old teenage me was always delighted to belt out the lyrics to "Teenage Jail" while imagining it was a song about those girls that had done the jilting. 

Nine, "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks" is a monster of a party song! Also, for a teenager boy, it was especially fun to sing the lyrics "You got down and did the gator, and half an hour later, you were barfing all over your girlfriend's shoes." As a teenager, I thought there just weren't enough good rock songs with the word "barf" in them. And adult me still thinks that's the case today. Gator!

Ten, while teenage me didn't have much love for "The Sad Cafe"--although when I was in a really depressed mood, it seemed to fit the bill quite well--the current old-man me thinks it's a pretty damn good song. And it becomes exponentially better if you imagine that "The Sad Cafe" is actually "Rand's Cafe" in Arimo.

The clouds rolled in and hid that shore
Now that Glory Train, it don't stop here no more
Now I look at the years gone by,
And wonder at the powers that be.
I don't know why fortune smiles on some
And lets the rest go free

Maybe the time has drawn the faces I recall
But things in this life change very slowly,
If they ever change at all
There's no use in asking why,
It just turned out that way
So meet me at midnight baby
Inside the Sad Cafe.
Why don't you meet me at midnight baby
Inside the Sad Cafe.

(Sax solo!)

41. The Grand Illusion by Styx

 41. The Grand Illusion by Styx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIuCdQtNBgg&list=OLAK5uy_lFI8Niz0KvEK_YdIo-ixA464L3jVaF2Go

I'm not sure why Renda bought the 8-track of The Grand Illusion while she was in high school and then didn't take it with her when she went to college. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it was an 8-track. But I'm glad she left it, because I nearly wore parts of that tape out from hitting that ca-chunk button to try to get back to a place where I could hear my favorite songs again. Eventually, I came to like the entire album so much that I didn't really hit the ca-chunk button as much. 

For some reason, during my freshman or sophomore year (I can't remember which one), Santa thought I'd like a weight set for Christmas. In my vain attempt to get jacked up for football, track, and basketball, I would put this album on and go through my workout routine at least three or four times a week. I'd also lift weights and listen to it whenever I felt in an especially pissed off mood. (Why must you be such an angry young man?) That's why this album got a lot of airplay during the last three months of 1983 and the first 8 months of 1984. After that, I went to college and couldn't take the album with me. Why? Because it was an 8-track, and I was going to college. And although I had never been to college, I was pretty sure that (a) I couldn't take the stereo with the 8-track player with me and (b) if I played 8-tracks in college, I'd be made fun of by everyone else in the dorm.

The album was a huge success for Styx when it was first released on 7/7/77. (Nice date. THANKS!) And songs from the album still get regular airplay on the classic rock stations--mostly "Come Sail Away" and "Fooling Yourself." But the song that got me ca-chunking the hell out of that 8-track was, of course, "Miss America." In my teenage mind, it was the best song on the album. 

You were the apple of the public's eye
As you cut the ribbon at the local mall.
A mirage of both you and us.
How can it be real?

We love your body in that photograph.
Your home state sure must be proud.
The queen of the United States!
Have you lost your crown?

Well, are you really who we think you are?
Or does your smile seem to wear you down?
Is the girl who you once were
Screaming to jump out?

And the dream that you must live,
A disease for which there is no cure,
This roller coaster ride you're on
Won't stop to let you off.

Well, it's true. Just take a look.
The cover sometimes makes the book.
And the judges, did they ever ask
To read between your lines?

In your cage at the human zoo,
They all stop to look at you.
Next year, what will you do
When you have been forgotten?

Well, aren't you? (Miss America)
Don't you? (Miss America)
Won't you? (Miss America, our love)

James Young's lyrics and Tommy Shaw's driving rock guitar in this song encapsulated the feelings of my 17-year-old jilted heart so magnificently that there were times I was sorely tempted to go buy the vinyl record so that I wouldn't have to ca-chunk that 8-track anymore, and I could just easily move the needle back to listen to the song over and over as many times as I wanted. However, it would have been impossible to justify to Dad why I had spent money on buying an album that we already had in the family's collection, so I just had to keep on ca-chunking my rage away in between all those sets of arm curls and bench presses.

Now that my youthful rage (and muscles) has been replaced by aged hopelessness (and fat), my 55-year-old mind says that "Man in the Wilderness" is the best song on the album, hands down.

Another year has passed me by.
Still I look at myself and cry
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years I've spent in search of myself,
And I'm still in the dark,
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone.

Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness.
I'm a lonely soldier off to war.
Sent away to die, never quite knowing why.
Sometimes it makes no sense at all.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up for me.

Of course, when I'm on my deathbed, I'll probably wish that I could see a gathering of angels appear above my head and sing to me a song of hope. At that point, I might decide "Come Sail Away" is really the best song. However, if much to my surprise, the angels turn out to be aliens that just want to add me to their collection of human oddities, I'll become super-pissed again, and my teenage rage will emerge yet again, and I will battle these space invaders to the death by shooting at them from behind small green buildings. 

Unless the ship looks like one of those that I've seen on ELO album covers. In that case, I'll be happy to climb aboard their starship and head for the skies. 

Nardo

42. Ten Summoner's Tales by Sting

 42. Ten Summoner's Tales by Sting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7km4EHgkQiw&list=OLAK5uy_nueW7o0h9BVWfu4DQAA5RFAJOGWxMADzg

Of all the cars purchased by Earl Olson for his progeny, the orange Chevy Citation was one of them.

It was Ruth's car from the time she went to Ricks College to her graduation from the ISU cosmetology program. But when she got her first job cutting hair, one of her first acts of independence was to buy her own car, at which point the Citation returned to the Olson inventory, and it eventually made its way to me when I made the decision that I couldn't afford the gas it took to run the step-side Chevy pickup. The Citation served me faithfully into May of 1993 when Julie graduated from the ISU nursing program. But before she could become a registered nurse, she had to take the professional nursing exam in Boise. 

In the early morning of the day before the test, Julie had just finished her night shift, so I put down the back seat in the Citation and set everything up for her to lay down in the back with Erik and sleep while I drove to Boise. As we left Pocatello, we had to drive through that thick stinky morning fog that often collects by the Simplot plant. Visibility was really low on the freeway, but the traffic seemed to be flowing okay, so I kept up a speed of about 50 just to avoid having someone rear-end me in the fog. Unfortunately, 50 was still too fast to react to a multiple-car wreck that suddenly appeared ahead of me. A jack-knifed semi truck that was at the front end of the pile up, which about five other cars that had all piled into each other. I slammed on the brakes and tried to steer past some of the cars ahead of me, but I ended up hitting one and it spun me into another car. I remember how it felt like the driver's side window broke in slow motion as we came to an abrupt stop. Then my brain suddenly snapped into normal speed, and I heard a woman screaming. When I saw that it was a pregnant woman trying to get out of her Jeep with her husband's help, I yelled at Julie to take Erik and get as far away from the freeway as she could. Julie gathered up Erik and got out of the back door. When I saw them reach the edge of the road, I then ran back into the fog to try to stop the oncoming traffic. 

In order to be seen by the drivers, I basically had to be right on the edge of the road only about four or five feet away from the cars driving by. I stopped two cars, then an RV, then a few more cars, and then a fully loaded semi truck--all of which would have definitely plowed into the pile up of cars if I hadn't stopped. I kept running down the freeway, waving my arms and screaming for people to stop, even stopping a state trooper that had been dispatched to check out the wreckage. I didn't stop running until the fog broke and I could see that all of the cars on the freeway had come to a stop.

I ran back to the wreck and found that Julie and Erik had been taken in by the couple in the RV. They thanked me for stopping them, because they said they would have hit everyone if I hadn't given them those few extra seconds to stop the RV. Other people thanked me for stopping them too. Julie said the pregnant woman had broken a leg or something and couldn't move very quickly, so she would have been hit and killed by the RV if I hadn't run back into traffic. 

The state trooper talked with me about the accident and took some pictures. I ended up being the last driver to hit anything, so the Citation was the last in a pile-up. When the tow-trucks arrived, ours was the first to be taken away. We rode with the driver back into town, paid our respects to the orange Citation that was hauled into the junkyard, and arranged for rides to get back home. We ended up taking somebody else's vehicle to Twin Falls, where we left Erik to be babysat by Mom. Dad gave us another big car to drive to Boise so that Julie could take her test. When we got to the hotel, I flipped on the TV to the music channel, and "Fields of Gold" was playing. And I remember thinking how I had nearly lost my wife and son in that crash, and I felt really grateful that I still had time left to "walk in fields of gold" with Julie and Erik. 

After that trip to Boise, I purchased a tape of "Ten Summoner's Tales"--a literary reference to "The Canterbury Tales," as well as a reference to his own last name of Sumner. I listened to "Fields of Gold," as well as all the other songs, a lot while I was driving around town and doing after-hours work at Irving Jr. High. There are other hit songs on the album that got airplay, including "Shape of My Heart," "It's Probably Me," and "If I Ever Loose My Faith in You," which has one of the best lyrics on the album with the lines, "You could say I lost my belief in our politicians. They all seemed like game show hosts to me." There is one song on the YouTube playlist that wasn't on the album sold in the U.S.--"Everybody Laughed But You." It's not a bad song, but I don't feel robbed that I missed hearing it all those years.

The album was Grammy nominated for Album of the Year, but it lost to the Whitney Houston soundtrack from "The Bodyguard." But it won three other Grammys for things that people really don't care about. It was also the last album by Sting that I paid any attention to. He's put out ten more since this one, and he's had some songs chart off of them and won more Grammys from them. But this is my favorite Sting album, because every time I hear it I'm reminded of the wife of my youth, my young son, and the orange Citation that gave its life so that we might walk together in fields of gold another day.

43. The Man from Snowy River Soundtrack by Bruce Rowland

 43. The Man from Snowy River Soundtrack by Bruce Rowland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq8bufY8xRk&list=OLAK5uy_ksHxdUV5tiC996oSxidRH0D7BjgYpDbjw

After suffering through two psychologically excruciating months with my first companion in Sweden, Elder Boehm came to my much-needed rescue. And one of the most important things that he brought with him to Östersund was The Man from Snowy River Soundtrack. 

It was officially off-the-program listening, but Elder Boehm said it was okay to listen to it because it was really close to classical music and didn't have distracting lyrics. So we listened to this album pretty much two or three times every night for the three months we were together.  After we finished up a long day of rejection-filled door-to-door tracting, we would put on the tape and enjoy a late-evening snack of hard bread (or regular bread), jam, and cheese. I never tired of the tape for two reasons. First, it reminded me of the movie, which I liked very much--so much so that I had seen it probably a dozen or more times before my mission. Second, because it was an Australian western, it reminded me of my Dad, which served his mission in Australia, and watching The Paul Hogan Show on Sunday nights with Dad, which was always fun to think about when the boredom of mission life began to weigh me down. 

When my time with Elder Boehm came to a close, he went with me to the airport for my flight to Stockholm, where I was going to catch a train to Katrineholm. As a parting gift, he gave me a copy of his tape of The Man from Snowy River Soundtrack, which I appreciated so much it made me cry. 

Okay. I didn't cry because of the tape. I cried because I loved Elder Boehm for everything he had done for me and for the way he had restored at least a little bit of my sanity after those first two months. But I did really like that tape. And I listened to it many nights for the rest of my mission and even after. In fact, I may have listened to it more than any of my other albums--besides my Billy Joel albums that is. And because I loved listening to it so much on my mission, when my brother and my nephews and my niece went to serve missions, I made sure that they all got a Man from Snowy River CD to play at night. And I like to think that they all ate bread and jam and cheese while they listened.