1981

Continuing the talk about relistening to my iTunes library..

It was fun getting to the 1981 playlist.  The 1980 one brought me right back to the house we had just moved into in Port Ewen and my early teen years.  The 1981 list was a lot more of the same.

As I reviewed the playlist, two things were evident.  LPs were still a waste of money and this is the year I really discovered the singles wall at Record Giant.  Sundays tended to be grocery shopping day in the Curley household.  Every Sunday morning we'd get in the car and head out to the grocery store.  The store my mother shopped at was part of a strip mall, so while she and my father did the grocery shopping, I'd spend my time shopping elsewhere.  I'd read magazines in CVS, poke around the card store and more importantly, agonize over what 45 I was going to buy that week.  I loved that part of my weekend.  There were so many songs out there (but only 40 of them really counted) and it was always a challenge picking out the best of with the allowance money I had designated for records.  I bought awesome stuff (to me then and to me still today) like "Arthur's Theme" and "Bette Davis Eyes," Stars On 45, "Private Eyes," "Theme From The Greatest American Hero" (in an awesome sleeve) and "Our Lips Are Sealed."

While my tastes were still pretty straight forward Top 40 pop, New Wave music was starting to hit and become more mainstream and I was starting to notice.  Not very much hit big in 1981, but what I heard I really liked.  Music was getting better and I was getting lost in it deeper and deeper, slowly but surely.

Looking back, my LP collection didn't grow by much in 1981.  And I never upgraded a couple of these album to cd or digital since then.  I need to look into that.