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Bossy Moments Throughout History. The Record Album.

A few days ago, Bossy was busy preparing this hunk of creamed cellulite, when a reader noticed Bossy still owns vinyl record albums and a record player:

records

What you see doesn’t represent the total number of albums Bossy has owned in her life, just like every album you see doesn’t necessarily represent her favorites—because albums are like socks: the cool ones disappear. But this rather unrepresentative collection of albums live in a hutch in Bossy’s living room:

hutch

And Bossy loves this unrepresentative collection of albums and she enjoys playing them—especially if Bossy’s family agrees not to walk within one hundred yards of the hutch and jiggle the floorboards that hold the turntable steady, and likewise if Bossy’s family agrees not to dance. Or breathe.

Bossy loves albums because they are big and square and you can hold them in your hands and they feature band photos larger than a triscuit. And if you’re lucky, the album contains a liner with more band photos and song lyrics and dedications to imagined groupies.

Bossy’s childhood was shaped by certain records and the album covers she held in her hands, flipping from front to back to front again.

Because albums didn’t just contain songs, they were glimpses:

frankie

The first albums and album covers Bossy remembers from her childhood were these:

beatles

The Beatles. Bossy’s family wore the grooves out of each of these albums, and the variation from cover to cover allowed Bossy to regularly change her mind regarding her favorite Beatle.

abbey road

When you share musical taste with the rest of the household it’s not necessary to buy your own stuff. But the first album Bossy purchased with her very own money was this:

statio-to-station-bowie

Bossy loved David Bowie and his lean frame and his crazy eye and yes, perhaps Bossy was also trying to impress her brother with her refined selection. Never mind that songs like Golden Years split time with selections from this:

winnie-the-pooh-album

Most of the time Bossy’s entire family would get caught up in an album, like this:

earth-wind-fire-album

Or like this:

led-zeppelin-album

But occasionally Bossy would branch out and discover something all her own:

the-cars-album

Those lips! That steering wheel! Those nails! This album cover could keep Bossy occupied for hours, and when she’d had enough, she could grab the liner notes:

the-cars-liner

And then there was this:

the-police-album

Bossy doesn’t know what a Zenyatta Mondatta is, but can’t you hear the angels sing just a little? Bossy loved everything about this album and the trio that produced it, especially her favorite: the drummer Stewart Copeland. And this is the album sleeve that helped Bossy decide which Police she was going to marry:

zenyatta-mondatta

But of course album covers were always stacked with potential boyfriends. Assuming they were still alive. Bossy would sometimes stare at those boyfriends who had died of a drug overdose and she’d wonder what went so wrong for someone who looked that good in a scarf:

pretenders-album

In the case of the Pretenders, Bossy’s crush on Chrissie Hynde outweighed the boys in Chrissie’s band. Especially after Bossy overheard her brother say that Chrissie Hynde had one of the best right hands in the music industry:

 

chrissie-hynde-album

Besides Chrissie, Bossy had quirky taste in women performers:

bette-midler-album

It wasn’t the songs on this record that intrigued Bossy, but the many photos of Bette’s crazy-arse stage show contained within the fold of this double album:

bette-album

Speaking of crazy-arse stage shows and things on album covers that intrigued Bossy, this is the album cover that Bossy used to study when she first met her husband:

husband-band

And finally, one other tidbit about Bossy and her love of album covers: when she was fifteen, Bossy was featured on this album cover for her brother’s band:

giant-girl-scout

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Well, HELLO BOSSY’S HUSBAND!!! No wonder you stared at that album. Older man or not, quite a heartthrob, just like Bossy’s son. When I first saw the giant girl scout, I thought she was painting a wall!

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  2. hahahahahahahaha… awesome

    But. I reeeeeeallllyyyy want to know the names of those bands. Pleeeeeaassse.

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  8. First of all , triscuit = YUM. Why are they so tasty? The partially hydrogenated oils? The wheat? One of life’s delicious mysteries.

    Secondly, I SAW your boyfriend Stewart live on stage last week, and I have photots and he’s still hot. I’m glad I wont have to fight you for him, because Sting is and was MY boyfriend. I’m too worked up to try and remember where I might have placed them online that I can link to without showing the world my home address and license plate number.

    Thirdly, I can’t think of what to say about your naked crouching husband. It scares me deeply.

    Rock on!

    http://meandyouandellie.blogspot.com/2008/06/buyer-beware.html

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  11. Yay! I inspired Bossy to write a blog post about her LPs! Funny thing is: I just took a break from hooking up the record player in the living room (and eventually deciding I want have it in my room; I will just play ’em loud for all to hear downstairs) – to come read your blog! Trippy! AND I also stored eleventy-billion albums in our hutch last week!

    Assertagirl: I have Xanadu … and Olivia’s Greatest Hits!

    OK…got to get back to “moving in” — need to make more room in our new place so I can go out and buy more albums!

    Thanks for sharing, Bossy! Love to hear about other people who appreciate the ART of LPs!

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  15. Bossy has GREAT musical taste – I love all of these except the ones I have never heard and which are nameless! HA!

    PS Stuart Copeland was my Police boyfriend & potential husband, too, but now I think I was wrong and Sting was really hotter – I know, BLASPHEMY!!!

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  16. People everywhere should know what the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album looks like without having to be told. Yes, I was Negative 6 years old when the album came out, but so what.

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  17. After much studying of Bossy’s husband’s band’s album cover, it’s been decided that Bossy’s husband was definitely the cutest of Bossy’s husband’s band.

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  18. Bossy, you and I could have had the ultimate Police double wedding, what with your husband Stewart and my husband Sting. I wanted to be Mrs. Sting so badly I could taste it (and still do, seeing as how he’s all tantrically sexified and stuff. H.O.T. Though getting a little stringy these days). Lurve me some Police!

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  19. Sorry, Bossy, but Stewart Copeland is my potential boyfriend/husband. I saw him just last week when he was in town. (He’s still dreamy.)

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  20. I am absolutely green over your useable (read: hooked up to power and speakers) turntable. We own a very nice PIONEER (oooh, aaaahhh) turntable with a DIAMOND STYLUS and a DISK WASHER. But, alas, it is stored in the basement storage room with our collection of albums, which immediately take me back to when folded album coveres were used for cleaning …. herbal remedies.

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  21. I had thoughts on music, albums, and the iPod. All those thoughts went out. of. my. head. at the sight of Bossy’s Yummy Husband on his knees, NAKED. What shoulders!

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  22. I keep hoping (and holding my breath) that the last two album covers would get together and do one BIG Christmas show! gah, I miss those times.

    Hi Jim…

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  24. Is that Judy Tenuta? I didn’t know she had a band.

    I also had the EW&F album and still listen to it on my iPod. So good.

    The first album I bought was “Donny & Marie: Songs From Their TV Show,” circa 1975. I still have it, if you want to borrow it.

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  25. What a crazy coincidence! I picked my husband, coincidentally the same one as yours, from the very same liner notes as you did! We can share him.

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  26. biddy’s dad has a ginormous vinyl collection…

    i’m so digging through it to see if i can find the giant girl scout 🙂

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  27. OK, as previously stated, Bossy’s husband is a dead ringer for Dr. John Carter. But you didn’t tell us he would be sitting next to Shawn Hunter or being lorded over by Sharon Osbourne!

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  28. Of the many things they don’t tell you when you have children, missing music is at the top of the list. You’re supposed to save for your children’s education, but who told any of us about the cost of replacing all those Pink Floyd albums/tapes/cds? I don’t know if Bossy’s music is missing because of her dear ones, but really, someone should have warned us parents about this potential deal-breaker. Oh, and it creeps me out to hear a song from the first album I ever bought (Age of Aquarius, Fifth Dimension) being used to sell laundry detergent.

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  30. I actually had some of those albums before they went up in a nasty blaze that once was my parents house.

    I had Houses of the Holy on vinyl and cassette and listened to it over and over again on my Sony Walkman in the back of my dad’s Buick on a 700 mile car ride while reading The Exorcist. I never could listen to that album without getting the creeps again.

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  34. I had many of those same albums when I was a mere youth. Okay, well, not Bossy’s brother’s band’s one or Bossy’s husband’s. But all the rest.
    And I saw the Police last week too! At the Hollywood Bowl, which made it extra awesome. And Sting came out and sang “Allison” with Elvis Costello.

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  37. I have two very large cartons of LPs in storage (cold, so as not to warp the vinyl).

    I have everyone of those that you posted and then some. Can’t seem to part with them despite moving around the country 3 times in 7 years and having no turntable.

    Not to offend anyone, but I think if I ever ran low on cash, I could scrape a few doobies out of the double album covers …enough , at least, to download a few tunes from Itunes.

    http://www.swirlgirlspearls.blogspot.com

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  38. Now I am really inspired to get off my butt and get the turntable fixed on our stereo. I have my albums too – along with a pretty good collection of 45’s.

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  39. Wow. I just thought you were famous for the blog…

    On another note, I’ve only ever owned one record, and it was full of songs about nursery rhymes and folk stories. My Mum used to play it on birthdays. I listened to it a few years ago and realised just how creepy it was – no wonder my 6th birthday party wasn’t as popular as Nikki Holahans.

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  41. My first album was The Captain and Tennille.

    Yeah, you can only dream of approaching my coolness.

    And stop throwing your husband’s past and current hotness at us, it’s getting tiresome.

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  42. My first two albums were Donny Osmond (“Puppy Love,” I think, but I’m starting to get hives so I’m MOVING ON) and Cher: Halfbreed.

    Yup, full-on ookies. At least they were both gifts. But my place in geekdom is certain.

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  43. Bossy has great taste in music – I also had a crush on Chrissie Hynde. I tend to judge music by the uniqueness of the lead vocals, and in that area, Chrissie was TOPS!!

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  47. OMG, the first albums I saw on your post were Frank Sinatra and The Beatles – I did not need to look further to determine that you are a woman after my own heart!
    My first TAPES (alas, times had already progressed by the time I was given an allowance) were The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits, followed by every other record they ever made. Then I went further down history lane and got Frank Sinatra’s tapes, Bobby Darin, and a few Elvis Presley’s records as well, just to top my collection.
    That was almost 20 years ago, and although the tapes have given up the ghost long time ago, I now have the CDs to replace them all.
    Ahhhh! Let me go get my iPod. All of the sudden I’m a the mood for music!

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  49. Albums were good for rolling joints on. Of course I only heard of this practice through others.

    Some friends of mine duplicated the crossing-Abbey Road shot for their wedding album. The groom was the barefoot one. It’s the only picture they still look at.

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  50. Oh, and as for Bossy’s husband. During the desperate last hours of the New York congressional race eventually won by John Hall (formerly of Orleans), his opponent tried to hang that bare-chested album cover on him. Didn’t work. Bossy’s husband can still run for Congress.

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  51. Ahhh…the Police…the Cars…my musical history is flashing before my eyes.

    The first album ever given to me by a boy was Chicago 17. I loved the music. But, honestly, they could not have had a more boring album cover if they’d tried. It was like looking at an out-of-focus shot of a flat sandy beach that someone had scratched “17” on with a stick — and didn’t even leave the stick in the picture for interest.

    The cover for Bossy’s husband’s band, though? Excellent.

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  52. I love albums. I have a bunch of old albums that used to be used in kindergarten preschool classrooms – they’re the best!
    AND – Bossy has great taste in music. Of course.

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  54. i saw sting a couple of weeks ago in phoenix. and sting came out and sang allison then, too. damn, i was hoping it was only mildly scripted rather than A Planned Part of Every Show. And Sting had a beard. which was icky. but he still just OOZES charm.

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  55. and the guy on the far left of bossy’s husband’s album cover looks like a young Terry Kinney. You know, the guy part of Steppenwolf Theatre and on OZ.

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  58. Bossy, we have EXACTLY the same taste in music. I owned EVERY SINGLE ONE of these records. And Stewart Copeland was MY SECRET HUSBAND too. Did you also have the Cars album with the Vargas girl splashed over the hood? And Synchronicity, with the crazy Mother song? (oh, how I tormented my mom with THAT one…)

    The freakish thing is that I can remember lyrics from EVERY SONG I EVER LISTENED TO before oh, 1982 or so. BUT I CANNOT REMEMBER TO PICK UP TOILET PAPER. What the hell is wrong with this picture?

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  62. So I’m going to reveal my youth here by saying that my LPs were titled “Butterflies and Rainbows,” “Anne Murray: There’s a Hippo in my Bathtub,” and “Strawberry Shortcake.” By the time I was old enough to select music, it came in form of cassette and the first I purchased was Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the USA.”

    But I must say, I do love the Bossy collection, and own most of those albums in CD (or purchased on iTunes) form as I was educated in the ways of superior music during my college years.

    I do “heart” Earth, Wind and Fire…great road trip music.

    And all I can think about right now is wanting to know the names of those “mystery bands.”

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  63. Oh yes!! I had all those Beatle albums.

    One of the only prizes I ever won in my entire life was the complete works of the Monkees on vinyl – for being the right caller into a radio station. Only I already owned them all!!!!!

    some of my records are still at my mom’s house!

    My Son went through a phase where he collected vinyl records, and he has a turntable. I should actually try to listen to my old stuff.

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  64. When I married my husband…a wonderful man…he moved into my house 30 feet of albums all in alphabetical order. He knows minute details of each. He is now able to transfer the LP music to CDs so as to preserve the vinyl. He recently got a very small video recorder and tapes live performances so we’ve now entered a new realm. What I really enjoy is he has bootleg tapes of every Grateful Dead concert ever, like New Years Eve 1978. As obcessive hobbies go…I consider it harmless…and entertaining.

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  65. islaygirl, don’t worry, he didn’t do it every night. i have confirmation from friends who’ve been at shows around the country. it was a few nights, not all.
    when i saw the foo fighters back in march (gah! how did march become so long ago already?), Stewart Copeland came out and played drums while Taylor Hawkins sang. seriously awesome.

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  68. I still have all of my Pretenders albums. Extended Play was always one of my favorites. Still is (without the watermarks, though).

    I also still have Thomson Twins, the Commodores, Billy Idol, and the Original Cast recording of West Side Story. As well as almost all of the albums Bossy has.

    Chrissie Hyndes still rocks.

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  70. I had most of the same – and they were in the basement in New Jersey – and they “got watered” throughly when the sump pump died. I still have the albums, but I doubt they are playable. Plus I have/had my older brother’s albums. He was a pseudo hippie and had all the 60’s classics. Thanks for the memories!

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  71. OM GAH!

    Bossy must be the same age as I…because, same records (minus Bette Midler and the family-bands).

    And (gosh we are SO alike) I still have a record player and records.

    I also have casette tapes (Blondie was my first) and remember when they first invented CDs and said they could never scratch? In fact, they were INDESTRUCTABLE…not so, says my first CD, which was also a guinea pig to being smashed in the driveway (The Split Enz)

    Hey, got a cool video on my page right now…my cutie pies, check it out.

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  74. Bossy and MP have much in common when it comes to music.

    I LOVED / LOVE Bette Midler, The Pretenders, Cars, Beatles, Rush, Eagles, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson (the normal years), Prince, Doobie Brothers, Chicago, Little River Band.. Oh I can go on and on and on

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  75. One of my best friends has loads of well-played vinyl as well as many many CDs–music is her thing. Recently she got album frames and put her favorite covers up on the walls, and that Cars album is one of them–it gave me a start to see it here. MY first album was John Denver’s Greatest Hits. Just not in the same league at all.

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  76. Your husband and I are together in some alternate universe because that album cover? Mmm-hmm.

    I remember holding The Rolling Stones “Some Girls” album when I was tripping on mushrooms one time – I think I looked at that cover for HOURS, all the cutouts and pictures and words… Made me realize some covers were designed for people in that particular frame of mind. Or out of our minds. (See also: Big Brother & the Holding Company, Grateful Dead)

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  77. Awesome post! I recently tried to sell most of my vinyl, realizing I was never going to get around to converting them to MP3’s and I’m not buying a turntable anytime soon. Sniff.

    Yep, vinyl is making a comeback! Whoda thunk it?

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  78. Oh, and just so other geeks will know they’re not alone… my first albums were The Osmonds, Jackson 5 (OK, that one was cool!), John Denver, annnndddd… The Bay City Rollers! S!A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!

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  81. Not long ago my husband looked at my music collection and mused that he thought I would have had better taste in my youth. Alas, most of my music from high school did not make the transition to CD.

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  82. Did you know that on some of the vinyl lps if you hold them right in the light you can see messages and drawings etched in the ungrooved vinyl near the outer edge of the paper lp label? You definitely knew your music, by the way…

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  84. What a great post. I love how you come up with something so obscure and yet so universally understood.

    I still have crates of albums in the garage that are probably warped and ruined by now, alas.

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  85. OH, how I love records! I have my parents’ old turntable, but I don’t have a way to attach it to my newfangled stereo.

    In college, I was listening to some of my parents’ old records on the turntable (record player?). “Iron Man” came on and my mom immediately objected and asked me what the hell I was listening to.

    Yes, mother. Because I was the one who bought Black Sabbath on *vinyl*.

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  87. Thanks to your husband I now only have vision in my right eye.

    We had equal parts vinyl and 8-track when I was a kid. Great memories…thanks!

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  88. Album cover my ages: Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. My parents were folkies. We decorated the Christmas Tree to S&G’s Greatest Hits.

    Folk, and Big Band.

    So, on my own – the album cover that changed my brain was Rio by Duran Duran (I’m 38). The Nagel on the cover intrigued me.

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  90. I still remember saving up my allowance to buy my first “45” record. It was a Billy Joel song and I played it over and over. I love the Cars so much. I can hear one of their songs on the radio and it always makes my day.

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  91. OK. I’m going to take this to another level. When I was 6, I would go to this woman’s house after school until my mother got off from work. There were a few other girls there, including the woman’s daughters. Her grown sons had left behind their vinyl. Fortunately I had a portable record player that I would frequently bring over. Because we would play her sons’ old Beatles 45s and Elvis 78s. Yeah, I said it. 78. What I would give to get my hands on one of those now.

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  92. I Loved the Cars in grade 8… recently bought that CD in fact.

    You make a lovely Giant. No questions asked. Ahem.

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  96. Ok, I’m totally going to reveal my youth, but the only albums in my house growing up were the Smurfs and the snowman guy from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. My dad had a few of CCR and AC/DC. Man, I miss those days. My first music purchase was a cassette and it was *gasp* Bon Jovi. I still gag at the thought. I am such a rookie right now. LOL

    I loved the peek into the past though. How many of you feel like old foogies right now?

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  97. When we remodeled the basement my son and I came up with the idea to use old album covers as artwork on he walls. Of course taht spawned a multitude of trips to Half Price Books to peruse their old vinyl. We have many of the classics, plus others that just have cool cover art.

    My favorite….Pink Floyd, The Wall (mounted on the ceiling for irony).

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  104. I just flipped back and forth between that photo of your husband’s band and the photo of your son the graduate, and DUDE. Identical faces!

    And seriously, that is you in that album cover? How awesome is THAT? Not many people can say they were on an album cover for any band! You’re a star, baby 🙂

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  106. Zenyatta Mondatta owned my Walkman in 1980. Stewart Copeland was the biggest crush of my high school years. I looked up how to say “I love you” in Arabic because of him. I learned how to play bass and use a sewing machine (long-ish story involving a look-alike senior) because of him.

    It’s really amazing the things that end up having a major impact on the direction of your life. I wonder where I’d be now without that album?

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