Dexys Midnight Runners - Searchin' For The Young Soul Rebels (1980) Vinyl

A game changer. I discovered this album in 1981 while working at the record store. I was a freshman in college and I had never quite a heard a band sounds like this before. I was mostly into reggae music by this time and I listened to rock and punk but this record was different. The passion, the horns, the background shouting vocals... this record was just pure soul... and it is not fake ..Kevin Rowland's voice ..his falsetto is heartfelt. I am not sure why this record hit me so emotionally. Maybe I felt it was a record that captured feelings that I was having or needed to express. In any event, this is one of those records that helped me..in some way that I can't articulate...but it certainly did. Maybe I just identified with the loneliness... the rebel..the person that does not fit into the categories that you are supposed to fall in when you are a freshman in college.... who knows.

To complete the story - I was working Ken one weekday night. Ken was older and had fairly sophisticated tastes. He rocked but he also played other music as well. Put differently, Ken was not associated with any genre of music as an identity. So, after I had played something on the turntable, it was Ken's turn. I think he was busy so he didn't really spend too much time thinking about it and he grabbed this record from our in-store play list. As soon as I heard the first track with the horns, I knew it was different and that I like it. As each song played and the passion increased, I knew I had to have it. I think I bought the record for myself that night. Of all my non-reggae albums that I own, this record is probably the one that I have played the most over my life.

Here is a link to the emotion I was talking about:

Keep It