My Journey Is About To Begin

I've been collecting music for many, many years, after starting to buy pop/rock albums in 1984 at the age of 15. I was brought up in a Christian family with classical music, opera (my uncle, now retired, was an opera singer), and a few singles by The Beatles and The Monkees being my main musical influences.

Don't get me wrong, I still like classical (and I am still very much a Christian), but when I left school, my sister and I started listening to the radio, and got hooked by the wonderful eighties music (yes, it was wonderful!) that we heard. I started buying albums from artists like Duran Duran (my original love), Howard Jones, Nik Kersaw, a-ha and many others. As time went on, I started becoming more of a collector, going back to the seventies and the sixties.
I then got into the habit of systematically listening to them, year by year.
I'm weird.
Music from The Beatles to Pink Floyd to Duran Duran to Blur. More recently, I've delved into heavy metal, and have enjoyed the likes of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

But, in the past couple of years, I've discovered power metal, and my musical outlook has changed.

I love it. At least, I love a lot of what I've heard so far. It has the power of metal with the melodiousness of eighties pop. I find it hard to believe I trudged through the nineties (and beyond) trying to get into alternative or grunge bands with little enthusiasm, not knowing that this wonderful genre was around. Thanks to a mixture of Wikipedia and YouTube, I have found a genre of rock that is me!

I have devoted much of my time to seeking out every power metal band I can. I have listened to many albums so far, but have never actually sat down and had a "proper" listen.
But that's going to change. It's time to start going through my power metal collection, year by year. Not just this genre. I still want to stick with other artists that are "mine" (eighties pop like Duran), and also a few other metal acts that don't make the "power" list.
But they are my prime interests now. I have a lot of catching up to do.
The title "My Power Metal Journey" is cheesy. But so is power metal.
I probably won't be starting until this weekend, or the start of next week. I'm pretty busy at work at the moment (I work at Outside School Hours Care, and I'm filling in for the co-ordinator, who is on holiday), and I don't know how much I'll write about what and when.
But we'll see how this goes. :)

Let the journey begin.