What the hell
is this thing
doing in my collection?
I inherited this one.
Decided to keep it.
For what reason?
If it wasn’t a record
that spoke to me
when I was a senior
in high school
(and you can bet
that it was not),
I must have kept
it because of its
historical and cultural
significance, or, just
because I was curious,
having never listened
to it before outside of
its radio hits, if I would
like it. Let’s find out.
“What a feeling.
Take your passion
and make it happen.”
Yeah, I’m not feeling it.
This is terrible music.
I have to walk away.
It does absolutely
nothing for me.
While the 80’s were,
obviously, a pivotal time
for me, there was a lot
of garbage, especially
in the top 40 pop world,
and this stuff on this
Flashdance soundtrack
was the worst of it,
at least to my tastes,
an important distinction,
because I’m sure there
were tons of people
excited about this music
and who might love it still,
and I wouldn’t want to
take that from them.
I’m trying to get to the
end of the record.
There is some redemption
in the guitar solo from “Maniac,”
the album’s closing track,
but not enough. Not enough.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Flashdance: Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture, Polygram Records, 1983, black vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 