I had a pretty lazy day today. Wally and I didn't get much accomplished. Actually, Wally got a lot of sleeping and fetching accomplished, so I guess he did pretty well for himself. I spent part of the day running errands and part of the day watching a DVD and am planning on (possibly) running when it cools down this evening.

I realized when I was at the Police concert the other night that I didn't know all their songs. This is probably because the only albums of theirs I own are Synchronicity and their Greatest Hits. I heard a song at the concert I was unfamiliar with but really liked, which led me to look it up on iTunes and sample their early music. The song was called "So Lonely" and is off their debut album Outlandos d'Amour (recorded in 1978). When I sampled their earlier stuff I realized two things: 1) that their earlier stuff sounds different from their later stuff, and you can hear a punk influence in it, and 2) that I REALLY liked it. So I went to Best Buy today and bought the only older discs they had: Outlandos d'Amour and Zenyatta Mondatta. I've been listening to them all day and now have new music to run to. It's sort of weird, like becoming a bigger Police fan after the fact. I was only 12 when they released their final album, Synchronicity, and with the Greatest Hits and the constant airplay, I never had a need to buy any of their older records. I may be 30 years late, but I now have a better appreciation for the band.

On a side note about the Police - I used to work in an office with a girl named Roxanne. We used to sing that song at her all the time. She hated it. Really, really hated it. One night, when about 5 of us were taunting her, singing the song loudly during break, she yelled, "I swear to god, I'm going to change my name!" My supervisor, without missing a beat, said, "I wouldn't go with Gloria."

I also realized while surfing the web last night that one of my very favorite bands from the 80s, The Alarm, had released two new albums within the past 5 years. They broke up ages ago, and and the last decent record they put out was Rain in the Summertime in 1987. I learned from an episode of Bands Reunited that the lead singer, Mike Peters, had left the band under less than favorable circumstances (he walked out in the middle of a major performance and never came back). Today, Peters (who wrote most of The Alarm's music) plays with a band that goes by The Alarm MMVI. The music on those new albums sounds like the old Alarm, and of course, I had to order those, too.

Since I've already mentioned them, I might a well use The Alarm's "Sixty-Eight Guns" as the song of the day. It was recorded for their 1983 debut album Declaration. I saw the band open for Pat Benetar back in the 80s and I'd never heard of them before. This is the song I heard that made me think I needed to find more music by this band. Besides the Beatles, I think I own more albums by The Alarm than anyone else.