When you were a sophomore...What were you rocking on cassette, 8-track, CD, or *gasp* iPod?*

Summer Of Love for this rising Sophomore!

 

78/79 was my sophomore year
Accidents Will Happen on vinyl, my first ever "new wave" purchase and one that pushed me towards experimenting with new stuff. Plus I had recorded the Mocambo Club King Biscuit FM broadcast (WMMS) onto cassette and played that on my Walkman.

I purchased Setting Sons by the Jam that year also on vinyl.
I can still remember the car trip with my dad to the Mall when I got that. I love that album and still have the record.

Other faves that year: Some Girls, Meaty,Beaty, Big and Bouncy and The Beatles Hey Jude album.

 

Vinyl-
I was into -
Journey
Heart
Boston
Foreigner
Fleetwood Mac

 

83-84: The Doors, turntable & Walkman... the studio albums and Alive She Cried & Absolutely Live... 33 years later, my sister says she can't listen to em at all because I overplayed em... I really hadn't listened to em that much since then either until this past summer when I went on a spree, rebuilding my Doors collection... love em still but for far different reasons than I did then... perspective really changed

 

My sophomore year I remember a particularly trippy rendition of Incubus' Make Yourself album on one of these bad boys.

 

'89/'90, Some cassette, some CD, some vinyl

Jane's Addiction
The Cure
Neil Young
Bob Dylan
The Clash
Peter Tosh
Grateful Dead
Bob Marley & the Wailers
Joni Mitchell
Jeff Beck

 

Sophomore year, 1977-78, mostly vinyl. I had already figured out Record Company cassettes were mass produced at high speed on poor quality tape, with the songs sometimes in diffwremt order somthe greedy music execs could save a penny or two per cassette o less tape. My friends and I bought decent Maxell and TDK cassettes and taped records and King Biscuit shows.

Albjms I plaued a lot that year included:

Van Halen
Steely Dan Aja
Rumours
Santana Moonflower
Cat Scratch Fever

 

Bauhaus.

 

Greatest Hits - Elton John
Young Americans - David Bowie
Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan

 

Freshman a few 45's
Sophomore a few LPs.

 

Rock Of The Westies - Elton John
A Trick Of The Tail - Genesis
Wings At The Speed Of Sound - Wings

 

During my sophomore year, I befriended a prog-head -and all around voracious music listener - and also joined/co-founded my first 'actual' gigging band, which then originated as a classic rock cover band, so I was introduced to a number of new artists. It began with the core groups that I became obsessed with during my freshman year (The Doors, The Kinks, and Cream), which continued throughout the next year. I most notably recall becoming aquainted with both British blues-rock acts in The Jeff Beck Group (Truth and Beck-Ola, in particular), Free (Fire And Water), Ten Years After, early Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, et al., alongside more progressive, heavy, and/or psychedelic rock in YES (The YES Album), Mountain (Climbing! and Flowers of Evil), King Crimson (In The Court of the Crimson King), Blind Faith, Atomic Rooster (Deatt Walks Behind You), Jack Bruce (Songs for a Tailor) and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd (The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, non-album singles, and A Saucerful of Secrets), and Steppenwolf (S/T, Greatest Hits) as a Sophomore. I can't underestimate how much of an impact all of those groups, and their respective artists, made on me.

Previously, I was pretty set on being a more rhythm-guitar-based, structured pop-rock songwriter/stylistic purveyor in the vein of the British Invasion bands, and American groups like CCR and The Doors, but my euphoric reaction to the prog, psychedelia, eccentric, and experimental rock, and exposure to more guitar gods in Jeff Beck, Steve Howe, Robert Fripp, Leslie West, more early Clapton, and Alvin Lee (along with my new fellow band-mates' zealousness for Zeppelin, Gilmour-Floyd, Randy Rhoads-era Ozzy, Rush, The Allman Brothers Band, et al.), drove home a newfound desire to pursue more guitar-centric, heavier music. I was still conflicted and a bit 'all over the place', so it took a couple of years until I would actually study lead guitar work in earnest and coalesce my disparate influences (which would become more multi-faceted over the next two years!) into a more comprehensive style.

 

Help an Englishman out here; what's a sophomore? Second year of big school? University?

No such concept exists over here.

 

Generally, a U.S. designation for year of study in both high school and college. Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior.

OP is asking specifically for high school sophomore year.

 

This would have been 1994-1995 for me. I was not much into contemporary stuff. I was into:
KISS (Alive I/II, Dressed to Kill)
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (Trilogy)
Black Sabbath (Ozzy era)
Pink Floyd
Bowie

 

I stuck with albums that came out during my sophomore year, which I actually bought:

Whitesnake - Whitesnake '87. I love the production on this album, and it's cheesy 80s goodness.

Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time. An underrated Maiden album IMO.

U2 - The Joshua Tree. Overplayed by now, but a great set of songs.

 

OK - unfortunately the UK school system is not uniform (though we have to mostly wear uniform), and 'high school' doesn't really exist (at least, it didn't in my area).

When does high school start? 14?

 

Yup, around there.

 

I was spinning The Beach Boys "Smiley Smile" almost exclusively, but I did pause for The Band and Bob Dylan occasionally

 

Oasis - Be Here Now
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Daft Punk - Homework
Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind

I played those albums to death.

 

1969-70 for me too...

Rolling Stones
Bob Dylan
Procol Harum
Pink Floyd
Leon Russell
Mott The Hoople
The Flock
Laura Nyro
Van Morrison
James Taylor
The Who
The Band
Joni Mitchell
King Crimson
The Kinks
John Mayall
Canned Heat
The Byrds
The Flying Burrito Bros.

 

I was a sophomore in the early 90's.

My playlist at that time included

Led Zeppelin II
AC/DC highway to hell
Rush- Fly By Night
Rush-All The World's A Stage
Led Zeppelin- The Song Remains The Same

Awesome times

 

It was 87-88, but I was heavily into early 70s stuff:

Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin
Deep Purple
Free
Alice Cooper

...all on cassette. Many from the Warner Brothers red sticker "Super Saver" series.

 

For me it was 87-88. I remember U2's the Joshua Tree was a smash, then Rattle and Hum. Steve Winwood's and Peter Gabriel's new albums were also played a ton. Not a prolific time as a lot of posters had the Stones, Jethro Tull, Beatles, etc. But I always gravitated to the classic rock era of Cream/Clapton, CCR, LZ, Rainbow and Deep Purple.

 

For me it was '59 - '60.

If you're meaning high school sophomore, it was things like

Mack the Knife - Bobby Darin
El Paso - Marty Robbins
Handy Man - Jimmy Jones
Poison Ivy - Coasters
Queen of the Hop - Bobby Darin

College was a whole different thing.