Raiding my family's music collections was better than the internet

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but only as a 31 year-old man did I discover that the lyrics to Iron Man were "Icy thoughts within his head," not "I see thoughts within his head." Maybe it's only a marginal difference, but how can you see thoughts within someone's head? Maybe I thought the narrator was psychic.

That got me to thinking about all the great music I found in my family's album collections. It started in 1988 with the Eagles' "Hotel California." I heard that song on the radio one day and my dad mentioned having the album. I in turn stole it from him, and within a week had everyone so sick of it, they probably can't stand it even now. I didn't really care for the other songs on the album, which pretty much sums up my feelings on the Eagles as an adult.

It was the days before the internet, so having a good music collection was something of a rarity. I would go to my friends' houses and see the lame-ass music collections their parents had and laugh. No Pink Floyd? Bob Seger? Who the fuck is Neil Sedaka? Ulkh. How they survived I'll never know.

We had "Live Bullet," "The Wall," "Dark Side Of the Moon," (the latter two borrowed on vinyl from my aunt Brenda) and I still to this day love that music. It gave me an appreciation of older music and showed me how shitty the 1980s hair bands were. Nobody was singing about anything even remotely esoteric, and half the riffs were stolen.

In 1990, my friend John turned me on to Metallica, and that was the beginning of the end. I kind of put away my parents' albums for a while and concentrated on my own stuff. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins...it was a good time for music.

Looking back, the early 90s was really the only time I ever loved modern music. It started with Metallica, Faith No More and Jane's Addiction, then moved on to bands like Nirvana. Before that, in the late 80s and very early 90s, I was reliving the 60s and 70s.

Even after discovering some modern music I loved, one of the next great cassettes I found was Black Sabbath's "Live Evil." Holy shit. The version of Iron Man on there was incredible. Dio sounded great, even if it was his enunciation that led to "I see thoughts within his head." Hell, I don't think I knew that Ozzy was the original lead singer for a good 5 years after I discovered Sabbath. Chalk that up to youth, I guess.

Kind of embarrassing, but I got turned on to Sabbath by my dad overhearing Faith No More's cover of "War Pigs" one day. I was rocking out, and he came in my room and said it was a cover of a Black Sabbath song. Again, I had no idea. So yeah. It was a long time in the making, getting educated on music.

In 1992, I discovered Otis Redding in my grandmother's basement. She had an old cassette tape that was labeled R&B, so out of curiosity I put it on. I wasn't hooked until maybe five songs in, "Ole Man Trouble." All this worldly hurt being sung about a concept like...just...trouble. Issues in general. I loved it. It appealled to my teenage angst, I guess. The next morning I asked if I could borrow it, and she never got it back.

The internet came along a few years later, and nothing's been the same. People can inundate themselves with whole discographies and nobody really cares about music like they used to when it meant something, or was treated as something more than a product. Old music isn't wise or timeless, it's just...old music.

Well I'm here to tell you I love that old music. And if you like today's musicians, you'd absolutely love the bands they're stealing from.