For the Record.

I was talking with one of my girlfriends today about the first album (or, in her case, cassette) we ever bought. The one I have noted in my personal mythology is called The Beat – Sound Wave of the 80’s. As my memory stretches over a longer period of time, I am less sure of this. I also recall buying Rick Springfield’s Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet, which was supposed to be a gift for my friend Susie’s birthday slumber party, but I kept it for myself and gave her some other something-er-other that I’d picked up at the mall that day instead. I didn’t like her that much anyway...

I do think it was The Beat, though. 

K-Tel, of course.

It was a compilation of music scene fringe-dwellers—some who would eventually bask in the inner circle, like Duran Duran, Billy Idol, and The Go Go’s—and others who remained on the outside looking in. (This was actually my introduction to Depeche Mode, at a time when no one else I knew had heard of them. With no one to correct me, I referred to them, gushingly, as Depek Mode. I had not yet studied French.)

Not long in my possession, I scratched Side One right through Split Enz’s I Got You, so I didn’t get to hear this song properly until many years later. It’s one of the best on the album, too.

Also on it is the totally awesome I Know What Boys Like, by the Waitresses.

There’s nothing like being 13 and thinking you know this, but you totally, totally, do not.