My personal pick.

Heart - Bad Animals

A Musical Time Machine

Level 42 - World Machine - 1985

The only thing better than listening to Phil Collins is listening to him live.

From a 1990 concert.

YES's 1983 album, 90125, has at least three fun tracks on it... Owner of A Lonely Heart, It Can Happen, and Leave It. 

Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" album.

Contains some of their most popular songs:

Wanted Dead or Alive

You Give Love A Bad Name

LIvin' On A Prayer

U2 - The Joshua Tree

I have to tell you that YES was the band that changed my world musically.

It was the 1971 self titled album, (The YES Album), and the track was "I've Seen All Good People".

What I didn't know was that the AM radio stations that covered the song only aired the first part, called, "Your Move", alluding to the game of chess.  For weeks I had no idea that there was a secong half of the song where the title originated, "I've Seen All Good People".

One Sunday afternoon I was listening to one of the FM stations on my dad's huge RCA stereo console in the living room. I had the volume turned all the way up and just about blew out the walls when I heard the second half of the song for the first time! Never heard anything quite like it before.

I was 14 years old and I'm grateful that a YES song opened my ears, and my mind!

Vaporman87 wrote :

YES's 1983 album, 90125, has at least three fun tracks on it... Owner of A Lonely Heart, It Can Happen, and Leave It. 

 

 

 

 

 

-end quote

1970-1971 really was a turning point for me. I was one of those guys who listened only to radio stations that playes the "Top 40" hit songs, over and over. By 1970 I was meeting friends at school who were already growing beyond pop music.

Like a magic door opening to a new world, I was being introduced to music that asked questions, elevated ideas and transported the mind. And other music was just difficult to describe.

When YES released a fourth album in 1971, the album was named Fragile (like our planets ecology). 

"Long Distance Runaround" really got to me cuz I thought it was about phone service. Ohhh nooo, the song is all about religious angst of a teenager! If you made a song about religion would it sound anything like Long Distance Runaround? Truly unique music!

But this is another YES song with two parts. The second part is called, "Fish", only heard by people who bought the album because radio stations didn't like songs longer than four minutes. Radio fans only heard part one, so album owners had a bit of fun. Now I know why so many older kids used to joke, "ride the fish", back in the day.

1971 was a long time ago. Glad younger guys are "riding the fish" in the 21st century!

One of my go-to albums that I can listen beginning to end.

Simple Minds "Once Upon a Time"

So what era would we consider retro, and in what year would "retro" become "classic?" Hmmm.  There's TONS of stuff I'd recommend in the 50s-60s, but I'm, going to asuume we're looking more at 70s, 80s, 90s? 

I'm actually currently playing The Breeders, who have two incredible albums in the 90s (Pod in 1990 and Last Splash in 1993). You'd remember the latter for "Cannonball" if anything. Though I'd argue even their newer album from 2018 is great.

And I guess somethign from the 80s... How about Oingo Boino's Dead Man's Party from 1985? 

Danny Elfman for the win! (The record also has "Weird Science" and "No One Lives Forever."