Top 19 -- Living Colour: Vivid

On Facebook I was asked to list my top ten all-time albums that most influenced me. Since I can't list anything without a huge explanation, this is it. Not only that but I'm writing about my Top 19 instead of my Top 10. 

Here's what I wrote on Facebook today, "Here's another quick story: I loved this album when it came out. L-O-V-E-D this album. I know that I've said this about every single album that I've written about in the last ten day, but I must've listened to this album, bare mins, 130,000 times. I was obsessed with this album and this band. One day at my house, my friend turned on "Cult of Personality" and I started headbanging (and with the size of my noggin, you shouldn't do that) and I literally put a portion of my bed through the floor. After being blown away by the video on MTV, I remember going to the Liberty Tree Mall, marching into a Record Town and demanding "Vivid". When the clerk said he had no idea what Vivid was or who Living Colour was, I got really indignant and said, "Some day you will!" That was the type of fire that this band inspired in a meek, socially awkward 14-year-old. This band. This was MY band. I knew no one else who liked them as much as I did."

Pretty much from the first time I saw the video for "Cult of Personality", I knew that Living Colour was fucking awesome. There was something so different about this song, it rocked like crazy, but at the same time they weren't singing about looking for nothing but a good time or girls, girls, girls. This band was singing about something important? Smart? Philosophical? All that, really. And that's what hit me. I had no idea what a cult of personality was. It seemed interesting though, there are images of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy and Josef Stalin and Gandhi. 

The more I found out about it, the more I was like, yes, this is smart. And listening to this song makes me feel smarter. This album must be amazing. And once I finally got it, I was right, it was fucking amazing. I loved each song. From the heart of "Open Letter to a Landlord" to the poignant "Funny Vibe" (which was my first introduction to Chuck D and Flavor Flav or Public Enemy) to the Talking Heads cover of "Broken Hearts", this was something that I wasn't used to hearing. 

I saw this band twice--once they play "Vivid" from start to finish--and they were some of the best shows that I have ever seen. I remember the first time and I couldn't believe that I was at the Paradise in Boston, so close to the band. It was like a dream come true. Really. 

The one thing that I remember about Living Colour is that on the day that the Red Sox won Game 4 in the 2004 ALCS, I was supposed to go the Pats/Seahawks game in the afternoon and then haul ass to the House of Blues across the street from Fenway to watch a Living Colour/Public Enemy show. My plan was to watch the rest of the baseball game at one of the Landsdowne Street bars before heading back to Aly's place in Brookline. 

The night before the Sox got bombed by the Yanks, 19-8 putting them in a 3-0 hole. I was so depressed I disavowed my Sox fandom,I cancelled on the Patriots game, never went to the PE/LC show (a double bill that would have broken my brain in 1990) and didn't watch the Red Sox (out of protest) until the eighth inning. After the Sox won that game, I was back on the trolley and watched them roll through New York and then St. Louis as they won their first World Series since 1918. 

I'm bummed that I didn't go to the Pats-Seahawks game but I really sad that I never saw the Public Enemy/Living Colour show. That sucked. 

There were some great things about growing up when I did, but one of the shitty things was an absence of information. With the internet, we take this for granted that if we want to read something about a thing that we like all we have to do is pull out our phones and go to Google. Boom. Instant information. And a lot of it is true!

In the 80s, you had to really search for stuff. With the other things that I was into (comics and baseball--sports in general), it was easy. There was sports new every day on TV or in the paper, plus I had subscriptions to Sports Illustrated and Sporting News. Comics were a little tougher, but there were tons of magazines devoted to comics. And since I liked Marvel Comics, it was easy to keep up with the latest news. 

But if you lived in Amesbury, MA; you weren't going to get a lot of information on your favorite band. Maybe there'd be a story in the Globe or the Herald if the band was going on tour or had just released a new album. Maybe you could find a blurb in a Rolling Stone. But that was about it. The metal magazines didn't cover Living Colour and neither did the pop mags. There were no zines anywhere I lived. 

When you look through the rose-colored glass of nostalgia, you might be tempted to say that this was "magical". You had to work for your information and it made it so much better. But that's bullshit. I like being able to check stuff out when I want, wherever I want. 

I doubt that I'd love Living Colour any more than I did when I didn't know much about them. And maybe it was cooler that there was a little mystery about Corey, Vernon, Muzz and Will; but I don't know. 

One last thing about this album, and it's very embarrassing to me, is the art work. It was obvious that this was some sort of free-flowing abstract-y kind of painting. But it didn't hit me until many, many, MANY years later that the green shape in the middle of the album cover is NOT Africa. It's a man's head.  And the black shape in the top left hand corner are not fingers. They're just weird shapes. 

My thought when looking at this picture with the red lines emanating from the green shape, was that Living Color was making a statement that all of culture comes from Africa. And that the black fingers were showing how that culture touches us all. 

I know. I know.