Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years of Great Music - 1982

Zeeba Neighba

Staff member
A da y late and a dollar short, I'm afraid :( Sorry for the delay. Now that all that buzz has built up, here's the next year in the MG's Great Music series
Welcome to 1982!

Here's the rules:

Each Friday, we'll introduce a new year from 1957 through 2016. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 1982
 
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Michael Jackson - Thriller
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The very first cassette I ever got. I played it over and over on this.
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Phenomenal record.
 
Richard & Linda Thompson - Shoot Out the Lights

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Even with great releases by Bruce, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, easy pick by me that surprises no one. While the songs were written apparently before the Thompson's divorce, one can't help impart a poignant sadness on these already great numbers. "Walking on a Wire" is heartwrenching - perhaps Thompson's best (and that's saying a great deal). Not a dud on this one - tremendous.
One of the high points of this waning year was seeing Richard Thompson in concert (he even did three songs off this one) - incredible songwriter (not to mention guitarist).
 
With 2 of my 4 choices gone, it's now safe to make my pick.

Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance


It fell between this and Number Of The Beast, but this wins since I feel it's just slightly stronger as a whole album.
 
George Winston ~ December



By 1982, I had been into Windham Hill recordings for nigh upon six years, what with In Search of the Turtle's Navel and It Takes a Year back-to-back in 1976 and 1977. I had heard William Ackerman for the first time on a Maryland radio station in 1976, and started buying WH albums pretty much when I first laid eyes upon them. With Alex DeGrassi arriving on the scene in the years following with Turning: Turning Back and Slow Circle, I was on the road to temporal ruin when I discovered the albums being featured in a local audiophile shop in Huntington Beach, after I moved to Southern California from Chicago. December was one of the first albums that I bought there.

Although I do not listen to it much now, it remains a favorite. I usually only play it in the month it represents.
 
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Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska


Help! I’ve fallen (behind) and can’t catch up. :confused:

I might as well start with the current week. This pick will probably make @Zeeba Neighba happy. After five increasingly successful albums, The Boss abandoned the anthemic rock he had perfected to release this collection of hardscrabble acoustic songs with a folk-country ethos recorded in his bedroom. Johnny Cash covered both “Johnny 99” and “Highway Patrolman” which should tell you all you need to know.
 
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