Metallica was formed OCTOBER 28th 1981 and it has meant something different for each of us.
For myself the Black Album introduced me to Metallica and for a moment of my youth it was everything.
The album itself was a must have, a piece of cool, and worse yet if you didn’t have it, you were outside the circle.
“Back in my day” you had to go out and get it from the record store. And for a middle-schooler it was a rite of passage.
Now living in quite literally the middle of nowhere Southern Colorado, one could not take a bike/scooter/ or skip down to the local record store. We didn't even have a store you could go to if you had the means. If you wanted such a treasure, you had to “find a way” to get to the metropolis known as PUEBLO. Specifically the music store within the Pueblo Mall, as it sold records that had unedited lyrics. Wal-Mart CD’s can get BLEEPED!
In order to attain this music cache I pocketed my lunch money. It took months as lunch cost $1.50 and I would buy a soda a day for .50 cents and save the dollar. I needed $15.99 plus tax. DR. Dave Ramsey would have been proud, if only I was so good with spending today.
Once saving up the necessary funds I went with a gathering of friends and their much older brothers, my pockets bursting with 18 one dollar bills.
We entered the music store and there it was, METALLICA, a whole rack draped in black. I carefully selected my copy and proudly went to purchase the item.
Sign read must be 18 years of age to purchase explicit material. I cared not, for I was a man on this day of days!
Clerk could care less and did not ask for the ID I didn’t have and off I went to jump back into the back of a brown and tan 1983 Ford F Series.
I turned my Red-Sox hat backwards so the highway 50 wind didn’t blow it away to Lamar. The battle to open the black album began. It took almost as long to open the polypropylene wrapper as it took to save the money to make the purchase. Finally Opened, there it was—Perfect and Mine. 28 Years Later- I STILL HAVE THE CD. Scratched yes- BUT STILL MINE and STILL COOL AS HELL.
Tomorrow, on the Benny Show starting at 6 AM, WE ARE PLAYING ONLY METALLICA
Tell us your Metallica Story
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