All things perfect and poisonous

  As I'm taking some time to write about music, I just experienced a huge surge of nostalgia on Monday when Nate unboxed a lot of around forty 45s. They were all singles from the 1980s and as you'd expect, there's some garbage in the mix, but there was also the first single from the 1987 Duran Duran album, Notorious. And wow, did it spark some memories.  In 6th grade, I completely fell in love with Duran Duran after a neighbor talked me into buying her extra copy of the live LP, ARENA. After that, I was begging anyone to take me to Tower Records to spend my allowance on anything Duran Duran.  BTW, Arena was probably the second music purchase I made and I still have it. It also still ranks among my favorites. I love that it was so well taken care of that even the poster book is still in excellent condition.    But I had bad timing with the Duran Duran obsession as it happened when New Wave was quickly vanishing form the charts and being replaced by more American centric rock

A few years back, I brought my vinyl collection home from my mother's as we had purchased a record player and as a result, I collect records again and listen to music. It was strange, but with the transition to digital, I started listening to podcasts and completely stopped listening to music. In fact, I purchased maybe one new album per year over the last couple of decades. Bringing home the music I collected in my early teen years was eye opening. I still loved it and still love music. Is it the format? I remember the controversy over the switch to CDs somehow changing the music listening experience, but it seemed irrelevant at the time. Was it due to life changes? No clue, but I am listening to music again and loving it. I didn't manage to find all of my collection at my mother's house. I remember having a small stack of 45s that I don't know what happened to. Among them was the first record I remember purchasing, Rock Me Amadeus by FALCO. Pictured is the 45 found a