Metal Odyssey > Heavy Metal Music Blog

JOE WALSH – I’ve been listening to Analog Man, the new solo album from the legendary Joe Walsh and decided to write my random thoughts on it. It has been a couple of decades since Joe Walsh released a solo album and Analog Man is a dandy. These fun and random thoughts will be posted in a series of parts.

Here is Part Two:

I am going to discuss in Part Two, the title track: Analog Man. What a song. (What an album for that matter and that is a topic for another time). Analog Man is an autobiographical song (and album) about Joe Walsh; only this title track represents how some of us old schoolers feel about the rapid ascent of the digital world; especially when this same digital world has tried to send analog into extinction. I lived the majority of my teen years during the 80’s and I still hold quite an affection towards analog.

Joe Walsh lyrically describes himself as an Analog Man and justifiably so. With so many generations that grew up with vinyl (45’s, LP’s & even 78’s), 8-tracks and cassettes, the digital revolution took us all by surprise in the early 80’s and I for one was never prepared. (Despite my being the first dude in the old neighborhood to own a Realistic CD player from Radio Shack). What I learned in college for computer technology was obsolete one year after I graduated! Plus, I, like Joe Walsh, have had a ten-year old show me how to use functions on a laptop and cell phone for that matter! That is absolutely not a lie.

When I first listened to this song, I kept nodding my head to both this song’s rhythmic beats and (agreement) to its lyrics. Joe Walsh nailed it when it comes to (the widespread social change of) movie ratings; with murder and violence getting the PG more often than R. Heck, I can remember when the Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th movies were rated R at the theaters. Now, these same slasher films are shown on Saturday afternoons (with little to no editing), on numerous cable networks.

The “new age” of television is touched upon by Joe Walsh so well in Analog Man. “With 100’s of channels and nothing being on” referenced, I can surely understand Joe’s point here. I find it amusing that there are numerous 24/7 news networks to begin with. We live in an era of information overkill and still advertisers flock to hock their products on these redundant networks.

The “digital dream” that Joe Walsh references throughout this title track is never going away anytime soon in our now global social network culture. Maybe I’m living the digital dream with Metal Odyssey? I’m also guilty as charged experiencing instant gratification of mp3 downloads… and it’s a necessary function of being a part of the music blogosphere.

In short summary, Analog Man is a lyrically genuine and super fun song that I definitely relate to. It’s as if Joe Walsh took the words right out of my mouth. Oh… this song without question Rocks my ears off too. Metal be thy name.

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* For more info on JOE WALSH, click on the link below!

http://joewalsh.com/

LONG LIVE JOE WALSH.

The word “dandy” was used in this post.

Stone.

This entry was posted on June 12, 2012 at 6:57 am and is filed under classic rock, Hard Rock, hard rock albums, Music, rock albums, rock music, rock music news with tags analog man, classic rock, guitarists, hard rock albums 2012, joe walsh, rock albums 2012, rock music news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.