#174 - double fantasy.

i'm no beatles expert. that's for sure. i am pretty familiar with their music though. i first really heard the beatles when i was a pre-teen & found abbey road amongst a box of records my dad had in the basement. i fell in love & to this day, it's still my fave beatles album & possibly my fave album of all time. since then, i've heard everything they've ever done multiple times, but my beatles cd collection only consists of sgt peppers, the beatles 1967-1970 & the beatles anthology I. i know. i'm a slacker. maybe all that will change now that the beatles' music is on itunes. [insert chuckle here]. with that in mind, other than "imagine" & the other smash hits, i know next to nothing about john lennon's solo career. with today marking the 30th anniversary of the day when he was murdered here in NYC, i decided to mark the date by familiarizing myself with his first two solo albums--john lennon/plastic ono band & imagine--and his final album, double fantasy.

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#166 - back in black.

for most of my life, i've never been a huge fan of ac/dc. in my elementary school days, while i listened to a bunch of rock, it was mostly of the big hair variety. during my high school years, i got caught up in rap & by the time college rolled around, ac/dc was being kinda meh, putting out songs like "big gun" & working with uber-producer rick rubin & on 1995's lackluster ballbreaker. since then, they've only put out two albums, but i've been stuck in an indie rock mindset for a while now, meaning i was too cool for them. initially, not even landing a job at a company where they're one of the bands i work with was enough to make me like them. it took meeting the band & then seeing them live from the 4th row to really get what they're all about. they're just five dudes from australia who who play straightforward, eardrum-busting rock & choose a working-man's attitude toward their music over a rock star attitude.

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