Vinyl Review: Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Run Out Groove)

The year was 1994, the month was August, and the venue was the Mirage Nightclub in Minneapolis, MN.  I was a young kid aged just 16 years when I stepped into that venue that night to see Motley Crue headed up by their new lead singer, John Corabi.  I couldn't have been more excited since I was one of the Crue fans who loved the new direction they took with Corabi at the helm.  I was out with my good buddy James and we got there early so that we could be right up front.  We made it all the way into the second row of people (it was open floor) and waited patiently for Motley Crue to take the stage.  Neither of us had heard of the opening act, Type O Negative, before the show and didn't know what to expect.

As we waited for Crue, the lights went down and we got our first look at this band, Type O Negative.  Peter Steele walked right up to the mic and told the crowd how much they sucked before launching into a brutal ear assault that I couldn't take my eyes off of.  It was amazing, to say the least.  My jaw hit the floor as I listened to John's thundering drums, Kenny's drop tuned guitar licks, and Peter's pounding bass, and accented by Josh's haunting keyboards.  Then Peter began to sing in his low voice and I was hooked!  I had never seen or heard anything like it before.  I knew I needed to buy their CD as soon as possible.

Vinyl Collection - Poison Native Tongue

My journey as a Poison fan began on a community park basketball court in 1990 the summer before I started seventh grade.  I had met up with two of my school classmates and good friends, Nate and Mark, to shoot some hoops and hang out before we had to start our first year in the public middle school system.  Mark brought along a boombox (remember those?) and a tape that contained Poison's Flesh and Blood album.  Nate brought a copy of AC/DC's The Razor's Edge.  It was my intro to AC/DC as well, but we will discuss that another time.  Listening to both of those albums opened up a new world to me and I have been huge fans of both bands ever since.

I made a copy of the Poison tape and listened to it constantly.  My favorite tunes quickly became "Ride the Wind", "Life Loves a Tragedy", and "Come Hell or High Water".  Seventh grade me couldn't believe they swore in that later song.  You see, before entering a brand new world of hard rock, I was listening to The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Milli Vanilli, The New Kids on the Block (I admit it), Madonna, and Bon Jovi.  Up to that point, the most controversial thing I had heard was the beginning of the song "Social Disease" by Bon Jovi where we swore she said penis!!! Flesh and Blood instantly became cool to me.  A year later, Guns and Roses would blow my mind with "Get in the Ring", but we can talk about that later as well.

I received an all in one stereo system for Christmas that year and it had a CD player on it.  That opened up a whole new world.  I saved up $30 and went

Vinyl Review: Christina Aguilera - Liberation (RCA Records)

Artist: Christina Aguilera
Title: Liberation
Label: RCA Records 19075-89419-1
Release Date: November 16, 2018
Other: Target Exclusive

As a college student in the late 90s/early 2000s, I got to see the meteoric rise of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera from Disney Club kids to pop icons.  While I had no idea who they were pre-Baby One More Time, I certainly had no choice to know them after that hit.  Christina's Genie In a Bottle was a smash and set her on a path to superstardom.  I started to get interested in her music with the release of Stripped in 2002.  Her Back to Basics album ranks high on my list of favorite pop albums.  After Back to Basics, I lost track of Christina until her appearances on the hit NBC show, The Voice. With the success of the show, it was only a matter of time before she put out a new album.  Well after a long wait, Christina unleashed Liberation on the world on June 15, 2018, via CD and digital/streaming media.

I will admit that I tried to stream the songs a few times and just wasn't really into what I heard, so I put it away for the time being and planned to revisit it down the road.  Fast forward to October and I'm walking through my local Target and notice a new section erected in the electronics department housing a few shelves full of beautiful vinyl.  Now, most of the selections they offered were the popular releases you can find anywhere.  Your greatest hits packages, your represses of old albums, and a few current titles, but nothing screaming buy it from Target.  As the days and weeks went on you began to see little red stickers indicating that the album was a Target exclusive.