First Post: Albums of My Childhood
Whenever a new year comes, everybody has a goal in mind to work towards throughout the year. For me, my goal was to create more of an online presence for myself. That includes my personal photography, videography, and especially my writing. I believe it’s one of my best skills and over the last calendar year, I haven’t used it as much as I would like to. So, for me, the goal for 2019 was clear. Write more. Worry less.
So now that I’ve decided to write more and worry less, I had to come up with a bit of a game plan. Now, this game plan has been in motion for months. One of my old high school mentors told me last summer, “You need to start doing more, posting more about stuff you are passionate about.” He was and still is right. I have the skills, the ideas, and the passion. Well, now it’s time to buck up and start working on my promise to him that I would. And this blog is what I’ve came up with.
I’m a HUGE country music junkie. Well, I’ll take that back. I’m a huge music junkie with a heavily influenced country background. Seems weird for a kid that grew up a 10-minute bus ride from downtown Cleveland to have a passion for country music, but it’s who I am and what I love. So, I figured with my first blog post, I would give you some background on my music knowledge and taste so we are going to take you into the year 2007.
2007 was the first year I really delved into playing music that I enjoyed, stuff that my parents weren’t listening to. My first taste of music was from my father who enjoyed everything from Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” to Bob Seger to the rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and to this day I still love that music and I do believe that basis is what led me to country music during this time. By my calculations, in 2007 I was in 6th and 7th grade, carrying my old portable CD player (the one that would skip every time you bumped it into something or ran with it). I used to carry that thing with me everywhere. I loved it so much, I refused to even think about an mp3 player until my later high school years. I had a leather case that held 24 of my favorite albums and burned CDs, which still wasn’t enough space for me. I think about all the music I consume now and it’s amazing to think that we pay to stream most albums now for 10 bucks or so, when the 2007 version of me was buying 1 album for 10 bucks. I had to put hundreds of dollars into my CD collection, 95% of which I still have. It was the craving for new music that started my obsession with full albums. Excuse me for saying this (considering I’m only 23), but back in my day buying or listening to music was an adventure. You put time and effort into listening to every track, not to mention all the money you were investing. Just imagine if you bought an album and you only enjoy 2 or 3 songs out of 12. It was a HUGE disappointment. So most music that I bought back then, I still love because of the investment made into the artist. So I figured I would talk about 5 albums that I grew up on, 3 from 2006 (because most of that music was still relevant the next year) and 2 from 2007.
Toby Keith – Big Dog Daddy - 2007
Man, this album brings back so many memories. This was the first album I ever purchased with my hard-earned money. I remember sitting in the back of my uncle’s car taking in every word. By Toby Keith standards, this was one of his last solid albums. “Love Me If You Can” is one of my favorite songs ever by him, I love the stories written with “White Rose” and “Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya”, and “I Know She Hung the Moon” is such an underrated love song that should have been a single. It’s unfortunate that this was sort of the beginning to the end of TK’s radio success. Every jukebox I knew had his Greatest Hits 2 CD in it, but after this album, Keith only had a couple more hits sandwiched in between forgettable songs.
Eric Church - Sinners Like Me - 2006
Anybody that knows me knows that I’m a ridiculous Eric Church fan and it all started with this album. Church’s debut album sold me on everything that country music is. From the opening line of “Before She Does” to the almost whimsical “Livin’ Part of Life”, I loved every single song on this record and it’s still my favorite album of his. It was an album that even at 10-11 years old I could relate to and nowadays I can connect with it even more. There’s a part of me that wants to be the guy that settles down with the girl in “Guys Like Me”. I get where he’s coming from he sings “I thank God I ain’t what I almost was”. I still choke up during the last verse of “The Hard Way” after losing my father a few years ago. It’s amazing that 13 years later, Church’s fans still want to hear album cuts like “Hag” and “These Boots”. It shows how phenomenal this album is and how much it has stood the test of time.
Rascal Flatts - Me and My Gang - 2006
This might be my most criticized album that I really enjoy. As irrelevant as they seem now, back in 2006 and 2007 they were the biggest artist in country music. They crossed over of course with “What Hurts The Most” and had multiple number 1’s from this album. It’s pop-country at it’s finest. Songs like “Stand” and “My Wish” were well written and inspirational while songs like “Cool Thing” and “Ellsworth” were wonderful ballads that could put you in that time and place. Rascal Flatts have had more success in recent years then Toby Keith, but it’s still been a rough go of it since their album that followed this, Still Feels Good.
Rodney Atkins - If You’re Going Through Hell - 2006
There’s not many albums (even back in my younger days) that I loved every single track. Sinners Like Me is one that I previously mentioned and this would probably be the second. I think people forgot how massive this album was. It had 4 number one songs (along the clunker at radio, “Invisibly Broken”) that are still great singalong songs. I listen to “If You’re Going Through Hell” every time I’m struggling in life and I jam out to “Watching You” and “These Are My People” every chance I can. It’s difficult to have great album cuts when you release half (5 of the 10 songs) as singles to radio, but Atkins did it. If you need a little perspective, check out his song “A Man on a Tractor”. You won’t regret it.
Brad Paisley - 5th Gear - 2007
I don’t know if there’s ever been an artist that walks the line as much as Paisley between being underrated and a massive success. I won’t go on my tangent about how good he truly is (I’ll save that for a later blog), but this dude is an incredible talent. Sings well, writes as well as anybody in Nashville, and may be the best guitarist in Nashville. This album had FIVE number one hits in an era that didn’t hand them out like candy (sorry 2018). The humor in “Ticks”, “I’m Still a Guy” and “Online” has paved the way for Paisley to write about anything he wants while songs like “Letter to Me” and “Waitin’ on a Woman” brings out his serious side. There’s plenty of meat and not much fat on this album.
So, there ya go. There’s 5 albums that shaped my childhood and my musical taste. Many of these artists aren’t as relevant as they used to be, but these albums are still staples on my iTunes and I make sure to set time out to listen to them a couple times a year (at least). While looking back at these years in country music, I realized that there were so many good albums that I forgot about. So maybe another list of 5 or 10 albums is going to be a future blog post. I have plenty to talk about, but would like to know if anybody has any burning questions or topics they want me to discuss, just let me know!
