The Misfits Earth A.D. Album Art
I can't remember where I bought EARTH A.D. but I do know I was full on punk rocking in high school at the time so it's very likely I was regularly visiting the mythical "downtown" strip that contained the record store Wax Trax and the neighboring store where we all bought our super punk rock t-shirts.
I do remember that I got EARTH A.D. prior to the Misfits boxset collection because a handful of these songs, that didn't appear on the first Misfits CD I bought, Collection II, where brand spanking new to my ears and had blown my fucking brain apart.
This album has a rep as not being the Misfits best and being just a blur of frenzied aggression, minus their trademark catchiness, but that's exactly why I love it and consider it possibly my favorite "complete" album of theirs. It's 22 minutes of absolutely essential punk notes.
And come on, it's catchy as fuck.
I do remember after getting this my family went on a frozen, winter vacation to the middle of nowhere Colorado to sleep in a cabin for a few days. I brought this CD with me, a heaping pile of AA batteries for my skip protected Discman, and blasted my brains out for 3 days. One night I was pried from my headphones because my Dad rented us the movie Volcano from the cabin's lobby, then continued to complain the whole time about how unrealistic it was after we tried to make Jiffy Pop on the ancient stove, and burned it, but not wanting to waste it tried to choke it down.
We did go tubing down a giant, frozen hill, at maximum speed, and rented snowmobiles, much to my mothers slow-and-steady chagrin, then immediately speed off leaving her safely in our snow blasted wake, which I'll give it to my folks, was a fucking blast.
I snagged that shit up, went straight home and loaded that disc up. Holy shit, these songs were even better than Collection II. “Hybrid Moments” hit my ears and it hasn’t left in fucking 26 years.
This album also hit me at the same time I was learning how to play guitar and when I learned the 7 note, 4 second solo in "Some Kind of Hate" I felt like Eddie Fucking Van Halen. There would be no stopping me now.