Does time change your opinion of an album?

[3-LockBox]

I recently ran across a couple of songs from ELO's Balance of Power album ('86), 'Sorrow About to Fall' and 'Is It Alright', and they sounded really good (great even). They were on someone's MP3 player, and I recognized them, though it took me a few minutes. See, I owned this album when it was released (cassette) and I was underwhelmed with it. In fact, I may have played it three or four times and then gave it away. My downslide with ELO came around the Secret Messages period, so I had no patience for this album.

But after revisiting Balance Of Power, I find its better than I remember, though I'm not sure why.

Has anyone else had this happen?
__________________

[Dusty Chalk]

One grows up. I tend to listen to a lot more music now that I wouldn't have even 10 years ago.

I never appreciated Led Zeppelin when they were around, but started appreciating them in the 90's. That one is easier for me to explain -- I hated highly rated things when I was in high school, and by the 90's, I just got over it. I realized that most of the adulation was well-deserved. I grew up.

But then, you knew that.

[3-LockBox]

I grew up.

But then, you knew that.

To be honest, I was up in the air about that one. :rolleyes:








;)

[unleasHell]

YES, back in 1980 I was at a Wherehouse Record store I spotted a rather bizzare looking album, dark and gloomy looking (cover) with cool sounding song titles and whilst I had never ever heard of them before, it was apparently their First album, I plopped down my $6 bucks (or whatever it cost) and headed home for a listen.

It was dark out, the street lights on, as a certain quietness settled on the nieghborhood, armed with my trusty pair of Numark electrostatic headphones pluged into my all-black Sansui Intergrated Amp (the matching Tuner featured lime-green lighting), this done to keep the loud blasting away from my parents...

What I heard next, amazed, captivated and confused me, all at the same time, well the band had a bunch of other albums most everyone of them more comercially successful than their First and I went on to see them a few times in concert, but mostly this First album just faded away into the musical graveyard of yester-years gone by...

Now, I've had that First album by them on CD for at least 10 years, pulling it out annually to give it that cursory listen, but something strange happened a few weeks ago, when I pulled it out and played it in my car (nothing fancy, just the stock 12-speaker Harman Kardon stereo) and I suppose the stars were all aligned with my emotional state that day....

As I once again fell in love with this CD, .............every song was great, I understood it all, I grasped the inner meaning of it all, so crystal clear ,it suddenly was thrust into my personal Top Ten 80's releases and it has not left my car since, I have listened to it 3 or 4 times and it sounds as fresh as the day it was concieved, why can't they go back and record stuff like this? Still with me? The album is the First Psychedelic Furs album (untitled)....wow!

[likeitloud]

For me, it's been rediscovering past musical taste or moods. My wife is into the
"softer" side of rock, and I have been slowly getting back into her classic mellow
stuff in our collection. Guys like James Taylor, CSN and G, Fleetwood Mac,
and lately Elton John. Before Led Zep/Deep Purple/Cream grabbed me for life with
the guitar solo, I grew up with these type of bands, and it's be a nice change up
to head banging every night. (Now it's just all weekend and 2 weeknights, not
24/7) But it's cool, having a beer with the wife, and mellowing to some Carly Simon
or something. And, the bonus is, it gets her involved with the hobby/lifestyle,
so when I need new stuff, the ground work is half done.

[Bernd]

When Genesis released "A Trick of the Tail" I didn't like it at all. Post Gabriel. Then we had a family upset and that disc was the sound track to that and helped me out. I like it now, but most likely for different reasons.
Also Supertramps "Crime of the Century" was never a complete fav. of mine. One or two tracks, but now to me anyway, it's a complete album.

Great thread

Peace

Bernd:16:

[nobody]

Nice Psychedelic Furs story...reminds me of last week, going to see X and remembering all over again why I fell in love with Punk Rock...before the drugs and the craziness, it was just the music. Wife and I were on a time machine and felt like kids again...great fun.

Anyway...yeah some music changes with time for me. especially music where you get heavily involved in the scene around it. When you get fairly immeresed into the culture of a genre, you accept certain rules that let stuff get by that maybe you'd not care for away from the constrictions.

Lots of old hardcore records fall into this catagory for me. I mean, the ones with some decent songs and creativity are still fun to listen to, but the hundreds of nameless, faceless bands that just played as hard and fast as they could with little regard for anything else sounded great for angry, chaotic background music 25 years ago, but don't do much for me anymore.

Industrial music in kinda the same, lots of short-lived groups with repetitive beats and not much else where great in a nightclub or warehouse, but I gotta cherry-pick much more to get to the music I still really like from that era.

[GMichael]

During the 70's and 80's I was all about hard & heavy rock-n-roll. If it didn't have a screaming guitar in it, then it wasn't music IMO. I even thought of bands like Genesis to be pansies (even though I went to a couple of their concerts). Lately I have gone back and found that I do enjoy many of the songs that I used to feel were wimpy. But I still don't like Bruce.:ciappa:

[rob7]

Same for me. I like the 80s-90s heavy metal. I picked up some older rock/metal albums, but some were not impressive at the time. Over the last 1-2 years, I tried them again and was actually impressed above just being able to listen to it once or twice. Examples are--

Alice Cooper's GH
Def Leppard--On Through the Night
Michael Schenker--Essentials
Scorpions--Fly to the Rainbow, Lonesome Crow, Virgin Killer

Guess I've mellowed out a bit with time.

[3-LockBox]

When you get fairly immeresed into the culture of a genre, you accept certain rules that let stuff get by that maybe you'd not care for away from the constrictions.

Excellent point.

This happened to me about 12 years ago, when I rediscovered country music. I grew up in Tennessee and was surrounded by country music. In fact, most top 40 radio had a generous portion of country songs, so the term 'cross-over' really applied in the south.
I started DJing some parties for some older people (anniversaries, b-day parties) and met people who were real country fans. I started to listen to a country station to get an ear for what was happening in the genre, since I had sworn off country back in my late teens. Line dancing was getting really hot and people would recommend stuff for me to buy (I bought mostly comps, cuz this crowd wasn't into deep cuts). I heard Garth Brooks on the radio a few times in that time frame and though he was pretty good. Saw the NBC special, bought the first couple of CDs. Then Brooks started to act like a ego maniac, *****ing about used CD sales and downloading (later on). Then line dancing started to fade (and thank God I never plunked down any bucks for a karaoke setup) and business sort of dried up (it never was gang busters) and I realized that I never was going to be much of a country fan; its as slick and manufactured as pop (and still a tad racist).

But a few months ago I let someone else play some of my CDs and they picked out Garth Brooks No Fences and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Its a good sounding CD as well; I always though Brooks was the one who pushed the artistic and production marker ahead in country music. Plus, even though I hated country for a while, I always had a soft spot for western swing.