I’ve started a new collection! For those who haven’t followed the series from the beginning, the original “collection” that I was aiming to complete was to get every Hot 100 song from the ’80s on either record or CD; I’ve accomplished that save for Shamus M’Cool’s “American Memories,” which I’m resigned to never owning, so that part of my collection is as complete as it’s going to get. Then I moved to all the other charts: mainly Adult, Rock, Dance/Disco, and R&B. But a promise to my wife and myself to stop spending all my money and the fact that I’m out of room in my house to store the thousands of records I own have slowed down the new projects considerably. But since music is so dismal these days, I was getting bored and had to try collecting something new — ’80s metal!

I’ve always been a metal fan — my iPod will shuffle from an ’80s tune to something from Slayer, Carcass, Annihilator, Electric Wizard, Sunn O))), you name it. I have this calm side that can listen to Air Supply tunes and this aggressive side that thinks God Hates Us All by Slayer is the best record ever made (I’m not kidding). My new collection, however, began a few weeks ago after I picked up Martin Popoff’s Collector’s Guide to Heavy Metal, Volume 2: The Eighties. It’s a menacing book with over 2,500 reviews of metal records from that decade. It’s the only thing I’ve ever read from Popoff, but he knows his metal, even if he isn’t the best writer (which he admits), often putting a string of words together that make absolutely no sense. He has a passion for power metal and a definite man-crush on Ian Gillan, but for this purpose, who fucking cares? The guy has introduced me to bands I’ve never heard of before and great albums like God, Guns & Guts by Agony Column and Bound to Break by Anthem. I’m still working my way through the letter A in the book; I clearly have a long, headbanging journey ahead of me. But I’m finally feeling good about music again, so it’s all worth it.

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