randomizing this...

[acroyear]

a quick little meme, variation on an old one.  It suits me better than the "pick a letter" one going around.

Randomize your current (or a particular) playlist, list the first 10 songs, and discuss something about each.

Well, my 80s playlist is still going, so keep that in mind...

1. U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
   
   I didn't quite "get" this one until well into college, years after it was released.  I learned to appreciate old U2 a lot more as I continued to dislike each new release.
   
   
2. Genesis - Throwing it All Away
   
   What is it about the Brits and their ability to work up an audience?  Like Freddie, Phil had a knack for getting the audience to sing damn near anything.  Live, this song changed from a tiny pop break-up ditty to a full-out audience participation number that fires everybody up.  When done with 100,000+ at Wembley, it sounds astounding...
   
   
3. Planet P - Why Me?
   
   One of my dad's favorites.  1983 saw a number of returns to the Major Tom theme from Bowie's Space Oddity.  This was one, a really dark one compared to Peter Schilling's Major Tom Coming Home.
   
   
4. Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
   
   Either Halen rocked this one, 'cause its definitely an Eddie showcase, and not for his leads so much as his rhythm and riffing skills.  Just damn good guitar.
   
   
5. The Who - You Better You Bet
   
   I never quite really understood why The Who were who they were back in the '80s.  They were never on my dad's core collection (back before "classic rock" refreshed everyone's memories), so I only knew them througth their 3 early 80s pop hits after Moon was gone.
   
   
6. The Cars - Drive
   
   A girl was in my math class for all 4 years of high school (pretty impressive for a graduating class of 973).  She was beautiful, intelligent, the best student of the school (though through P/F classes others ended up with higher GPAs).  Duke.  The greatest success of the academic world.  And for a while, its greatest failure.  She'd become the world's greatest student yet found she wasn't really prepared for being anything else.  A Summa Cum Laude graduate of Duke ended up working as a bartender.  Eventually she found something worth doing that made a bit more money.  This song made me think of her then, and more so now.
   
   
7. Rush - Red Sector A
   
   One wouldn't think a number so based on synths and sequencers could rock out live, but Rush managed it with this one.  The laser show helped, of course.  One of several of the post-apocolyptic themed ones on P/G.  Named for the viewing stands where they saw the space shuttle launch 2 years earlier.
   
   
8. Yes - It Can Happen
   
   For some reason I was more willing to give the Rabin Yes a try than most around me.  Not my fav from that era tho.
   
   
9. The Police - Synchronicity 1
   
   Dan Thompson, my psychology teacher from high school, is one of 3 teachers I sincerely want to thank (and apologize for being such a lazy jerk when it came to homework).  When he first intruced us to Jung's theories, he played this, and it makes me think of that every time.  He was very aware of the power of mnemonics, something we've forgotten in our structured teaching these days.
   
   
10. The Cars - I'm Not The One
    
    Well, they can't be all winners.  Not one of my fav Cars tracks, but the Greatest Hits album its on has fond memories.  A band competition to Boston my senior year and on the way back from the "winning it all" awards ceremony (well, we usually did...), that album was the only thing one guy remembered to bring for his CD player.  So we rocked to the Cars.  It was good.  I bought the album the next week.  :)
    

Might do this again later...trips down memory lane are sometimes healthy...