all good – no, it seriously had to be all good…

i’ve recently started implementing “two side tuesday” in the van when i do my supply route…

…my kid would not understand.

hell, he’s only twenty-two, and i don’t know if anyone under thirty-five would understand. i was guilty of living their lifestyle long before it was cool, but that all changed in the summer of 1983 when we rolled out in our beige chevette to southern california, which was my first long road trip where i got to pick my music because i’d just gotten the sears version of a walkman for my birthday.

i couldn’t have been more happy.

earlier, i’d done what a gen z person would do…i listened to the track i’d already heard dozens of times that inspired me to acquire the music in the first place. but unlike today, where you just go to your streaming service and search (or even lazier, let shazam listen to it and do it for you, which i do a LOT) and just grab that song, i had to go to wal-mart back then (i’d discover the magic of sundance a few years later) and grab a cassette with my allowance and bring it home, jackhammer it out of the long anti-theft plastic case, and then open it up, usually fast forward to the song i wanted, then listen, rewind, repeat. i rarely listened to the whole album, which was kinda stupid seeing as how i had about half a dozen tapes total (styx – “kilroy was here”, loverboy – “get lucky” as well as their self-titled debut (both of which i also owned on LP), journey – “escape” & “frontiers”, and men at work “business as usual”).

but during eight hour desert highway excursions you had a LOT of time to kill, so i soon discovered the magic of “deep cuts” as they would become known…the tracks that were good, but didn’t make it onto the radio or mtv. you learned to appreciate entire albums from front to back…not all of them were that good, but a lot of ’em were. so, last week, i started skewing away from my typical “M Radio” playlists (i have about 125 apple music playlists of upbeat edm and hip hop for anyone curious, all about an hour long) and instead opted for building a queue of whole albums i proceeded to listed to back to back.

this last week was all nine inch nails albums since we’re going to see them tomorrow, but more on that later.

when’s the last time you listened to a whole album like you used to with cassettes or cd’s?