The Records That Blew Your Mind

[leonaozaki]

I'm not talking about records that you simply thought were good or amazing or whatever. I'm talking about records that fundamentally altered your perceptions of what music was capable of-- the records that, to be cheesy for a minute, changed your life. Records that changed or influenced the way you listen to music now.

Also, no public snickering at other people's choices.

For me, the first record on such a list would have to be Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy.

http://www.vinylzart.com/images/AlbumCovers-WarrenZevon-ExcitableBoy(1978).jpg

I first heard this record when I was eight years old, in 1982. The guy who would become my stepdad had moved in with my mom and had an awesome record collection. Plus he was a huge Warren Zevon fan. I've lost count of the number of times I've listened to this record; from the opening chords of "Johnny Strikes Up the Band" to the black humor of, well, nearly every song, to the white-boy funk of "Nightime in the Switching Yard," to "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," I love every song on it. It blew my little mind. As I aged I thought every singer-songwriter would have the chops and intelligence of Zevon. Ha!

Also this picture was on the inside sleeve. How awesome is that?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v253/LucyPfeffa/DND/gun.jpg

More as I think of them.

rob

[zuludelta]

Well, there's a lot of records that sort of served as milestones in my continuing musical education, off the top of my head:

Revolver (The Beatles) - I grew up in a musical household (how musical? We didn't have wallpaper on our walls, my dad lined our walls and ceiling with record sleeves!) so I grew up sort of taking the Beatles' music for granted since it was the constant backdrop to my early life. It was only when I was around 16 or so (during the mid-1990s), when I started listening to a lot of current popular music that it dawned on me how much they influenced pop music in general and I think it was on Revolver that they achieved that perfect mix of pop-accessibility and musical experimentation.

Yama No Attchan (Shonen Knife) - Discovering Shonen Knife's work pretty much re-ignited my interest in pop music, particularly because their early albums showcased a group that was learning music on the fly, and it was so refreshing to hear the kind of authentic naïvete that they mixed in with their punk-inspired sound. Of course, as that child-like sense of exploration faded with their growing experience, most of their later work doesn't have much appeal for me.

Master of Puppets (Metallica) - I think I was 8 when I first heard this album, my dad would blast it on the car's tape deck every morning as he drove my brother and I to school. It was my earliest exposure to "angry" music (my dad would get us to listen to his old Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull records, but I never thought of them as "angry" the way Metallica was). If anything, it changed my perception of certain limitations I thought were imposed on music (there's a counter-intuitive element to the idea of heavy metal music, at least to my young mind back then). I haven't really cared for much of their music since, though (although I really dug ... And Justice For All for a while).

The Dr. Demento Show - it's not really a record, but in retrospect, it influenced my musical inclinations a bit. We didn't have a TV for a particular stretch of my childhood so the highlight of our Tuesday evenings (well at least my Tuesday evenings) would be sitting around the radio and listening to the Dr. Demento show that was being broadcast from the nearby American Air Force base. I didn't even get any of the references in his music/comedy, I just liked how he used sound (in the form of effects and music) to convey all sorts of expressions and emotions.

[elheffe]

In Cortez, Colorado in the late 80's there was hair metal and Whitney Houston. There was no MTV, hell, no cable television of any kind. On a whim, I picked this up:
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000002GIH.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Louder Than Love was mind blowing because back then, other than Guns and Roses, there wasn't any band that felt 'real' to me.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000001BEP.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
Jawbeaker's first one Unfun was a typical punk album. Good songs, sure, but kinda typical. Bivouac was the game changer.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514VHENSEEL._AA240_.jpg
Sure there's demos, song snippets and half-baked ideas of songs, but most or them are better than most others' 3 minute songs.
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/210605.jpg
Silent Alarm reminded me what I loved about rock in the first place.

[Ilash]

I feel I should probably pick a Beatles album, seeing as how they were the ones who truly introduced me to what music is capaable of after having been exposed to loads of lackluster radio hits. Thing is though that it wasn't one of their albums that turned me onto them, that honour goes to their second film Help!

Beyond the Beatles though, the album that truly blew my mind was The Who's Quadrophenia. I was in my veery late teens when I heard it and had just started exploring music beyond the Fab Four and was totally and utterly floored by how much the album "spoke" to me. While my background and experience were really quite different from Jimmy, the album's protagonist/ narrator, I was really able to relate to so many of the themes that the album dealt with. I remember listening to the whole thing from beginning to end basically every night for months.

[Jonathan Bogart]

It's hard for me to separate the experience of music from chatter about it, whether that means reviews, conversations with friends, historical perspectives, etc. There's very little music that I've come to with virgin ears, so to speak: I've usually had some idea of what to expect. I was a reader long before I was a listener, and that will always inform my perceptions, even to the detriment of having fewer life-changing moments.

That said, I'm going to say that Johnny Cash's American III: Solitary Man was a fundamental influence on at least three of my major principles in music-listening.

http://i10.tinypic.com/3yo7k9d.jpg

As usual, I read about the record before I heard it. I'm pretty sure it was this review (http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/c/cashjohnny-american3.shtml) on Popmatters (a website I found because I was trying to understand the point of pop music -- which I mostly associated with the Spice Girls -- using Google). It was 2000, and I was just getting into music in a serious way, branching beyond simply listening to the radio and liking or hating whatever the people I knew and respected liked or hated, and using Napster to educate myself quickly about all sorts of stuff, and I'd heard of Johnny Cash, but hadn't yet heard him, beyond "A Boy Named Sue." (Which I'd only heard because of a Texas girl who used to carpool to high school with me.) I'm not sure what about the review struck a chord with me: today, it reads like clumsy undergraduate nonsense, mostly cribbed from the liner notes and promotional material. But I came away from it with a need to hear the album. I bought it, and listened the hell out of it, and it's still my favorite Johnny Cash record ever.

I love the covers -- Tom Petty, Neil Diamond, Nick Cave, U2, Will Oldham, Bert Williams, Frankie Laine, David Allen Coe, Hank Snow, and an old English ballad -- and what I love about them is specifically the range, from Cave's Gothic bleakness to Williams' vaudeville simplicity, and the way Cash uses them to embody his trademark themes of love, sin, redemption, and common humanity -- but his original songs can move me to tears. It wasn't only that I was discovering Johnny Cash -- I was discovering him as an old man, not only decades removed from his legendary material, but in both years and sickness removed from his 1996 revitalization. His voice doesn't boom on Solitary Man like it used to, it quavers a little, and there is a sense that these songs are important to him, that he has to get "Field of Diamonds" and "Before My Time" down before he goes. Hell, just June Carter Cash's violin, scraping out the opening notes to "Wayfaring Stranger," that most Cashlike of all country gospel songs, can hit me like a ton of bricks.

But I didn't just discover Johnny Cash here; I discovered a kind of musical history, and the virtue of simplicity, and the art of singing a song -- of removing a song from a given performance and making it one's own. From now on, whenever I encountered a song or a musical style I couldn't really get my head around, I would ask myself -- even subconsciously -- how would Johnny Cash sing this? That always made it click. Reggae, hip-hop, honky-tonk, and operetta yielded their riches with his shrewd, calm baritone in the back of my head. The virtue of simplicity, which my sometimes overambitious taste might otherwise dismiss, is embodied here, and because of this record I will always respond to "roots music" -- to music that uses the vocabulary and grammar of country and blues and gospel, music historically made by poor people for their own entertainment and edification -- to a much higher degree than the majority of people who love cerebral post-punk as much as I do. And that inclusion of Bert Williams' "Nobody" ... that was maybe Johnny Cash's greatest gift to me. Because of it, I found that I could listen to, understand, and love music recorded not only before rock & roll, but before jazz. The roots of American music, gnarled and twisted in racism and minstrelsy, were exposed for me, and the double lesson that much great music came out of making people suffer, and that suffering turned into great music is never unimportant, was driven home.

There were other lessons: I wouldn't say I was cured of snobbery by the record, but it went some ways towards alleviating my tendency in that direction. Brill Building pop and indie-folk and corporate rock and post-industrial noise could all be good music, because it was the songs that mattered. And a song that people were singing in Elizabethan England could still remain vital, as long as you were faithful to the emotions in it. At the same time as I was listening to this record, I was getting into the Clash and Radiohead and Led Zeppelin and the Kinks, and it saved me from rockism, from the idea that the values of rock are the values of all music, and that music that doesn't have rock's virtues has none. Johnny Cash would release two more new albums (as well as a host of previously-unreleased material) before dying, and a third just after. There are, apparently, more in the pipeline. But for me, they could never match up to this record; even his two previous American records paled in its presence. Once you've heard the definitive interpretation of Nick Cave, definitive interpretations of Soundgarden and Danzig are kind of lame.

Wow, I guess I did have a kind of life-changing record. Thanks, Rob.

[Ilash]

It's hard for me to separate the experience of music from chatter about it, whether that means reviews, conversations with friends, historical perspectives, etc. There's very little music that I've come to with virgin ears, so to speak: I've usually had some idea of what to expect. I was a reader long before I was a listener, and that will always inform my perceptions, even to the detriment of having fewer life-changing moments.

That said, I'm going to say that Johnny Cash's American III: Solitary Man was a fundamental influence on at least three of my major principles in music-listening.



First, I'm hardly surprised that this album had this kind of effect on you because man, what an incredible piece of work American III is.

Second, I cannot believe that you only really got into music (or at least got into exploring music) seven years ago! The amount that you know about music is pretty staggering and all this in so short a time? That's just freakishly impressive. Seriously.

One thing I do have to comment on is your first paragraph. I find it surprising that reading about music can lessen your experience of hearing something for the first time. I personally spend plenty of time reading about music - reviews especially - but I have never found reading about music, no matter how well the article or review is written, to be truly able to capture what listening to music is truly like. I had read quite a bit about The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash and I knew basically what to expect from the song but no matter how good the written descriptions of it were, nothing could have prepared me for the effect that even just those opening chords would have on me.


Oh and Rob, I should have mentioned it in my initial post but GREAT idea for a thread, man! This should be a good one.

[Keaton]

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
Marquee Moon, Television
Loveless, My Bloody Valentine
Slanted & Enchanted, Pavement
3 Feet High & Rising, De La Soul
Ready to Die, Notorious B.I.G.
Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
The Last Waltz, The Band

[Chiasm]

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the 80's. Literally the middle of nowhere as my town was 1000 people and was the largest town 70 miles any direction. My musical experience was limited to a top 40 radio station and a couple of country stations. And whatever videos might be playing on TBS on Friday or Saturday night (we didn't get MTV). So basically I was into hair bands, Huey Lewis, Journey, and whatever else was in the top 40. I literally had never heard of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, or any hard rock groups that weren't top 40. So I go to college in 1989 and a guy at college exposes me to the song Head Like a Hole and my jaw hits the floor as its so new and exciting. Thus began an evolution in my musical tastes that reached its climax with my next record.

Pearl Jam - Ten
I could probably have been even more cliched by putting Nirvana's Nevermind but Ten means more to me since it has my favorite song of all time on it - - - Black. I couldn't stop playing this album for weeks at a time and it was basically my graduation into music that wasn't mainstream. BTW - Jeremy, PJ's most mainstream song, is my least favorite on the album.

Chiasm - Disorder Now you know where I copied my name from. Chiasm is actually a person, Emileigh Rohn, who makes electronic / industrial music. She's been called the female Trent Reznor by critics. I'd never heard of her until I played the video game Vampire: The Masquerade where one of her songs is featured prominently in the game. I loved the song and sought out the artist which led me to buying this album. Its easily my favorite album now. And since this is a group most of you no doubt have never heard of here is a link to a site where you can hear some of her songs. Listen to Isolated as its the one from the game and very representative of her sound although you have to listen for about a full two minutes before the song really gets going as its kind of slow at the start.

http://www.electrogarden.com/music/egn/profiles/56/

Today I listen to a lot of variety of music. I still love all the stuff above Foo Fighters and A Perfect Circle have probably become my favorite bands (Chiasm is actually a solo artist) although no one album is mind blowing to me. Led Zeppelin is my favorite classic rock band, I can't believe I was nearly 20 the first time I heard any song by them. And I still like Journey:o and will even listen to country now and then as I actually own a couple of Dixie Chick albums.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

these 2 cd's stylistically and delivery wise blew all other gangsta rap albums out of the water in the 90's....i stopped listening to doggystyle,the chronic,me against the world and all eyez on me because of those cd's. Eternal specifically sounds good today as it did in 95.

http://www.backspin.de/uploads/tx_bsprintimport/071BITDBone_Thugs-N-HarmonyCreepin_On_Ah-Come_UpAlbum.jpg

this album was everywhere around the time i was entering my senior year of high school,and for good reasons too. this album is so raw,hard edged,chilling and gritty.it has a very dark sense of urgency,and ghetto desperation.

it even has undertones of the occult like the mr Ouija song.also songs like no surrender (which has a sick chorus!) deal with the frustration that inner city youth has with law enforcement (which seems like another gang in some ghettos). and the song is layered with hardcore rebellious lyrics.especially from wish bone of all people when he talks about the cops arresting him and he says

"Puttin' me on my knees, tellin' me move and I'm dead,
'cause I'm killin' all your b*tches, turnin' them blue suits
red.
And then I'm comin' to that funeral to shoot that b*tch up,
because I know that's where y'all b*tches is bound to meet up.
Cop killas, all up in they chest, and
I know what to do with that vest, man
Twenty-two shots. I killa.
You don't wanna f**k with Bone, nigga.
And it really ain't sh*t to pull a trigger on a copper,
'cause if I go down, some of y'all goin' down,
'cause I'm goin' down poppin, so motherf**k all coppers,
Let me catch you slippin', nigga, bet I pop ya"

and the title track creepin on ah come up gives off the vibe of young inner city desperation. especially in the first verse verse by krayzie bone when he says

"Woke up this morning with the thoughts of Robbin' a bank to get rich, ain't ate in days so it ain't no thang to click click b***h, gimme yo s**t."

also lazie bone's verse echoes the same sentiment

"See, I'm sittin' in my room, and a nigga feelin' down, steady thinkin' 'bout how to get paid. Gotta gauge at my waist that be
spellin' out murder that'll get a nigga locked the the cage. Lay my head to my bed, start to thinkin' hard, money is the cause. What can
I do me for? Need to hit a lick, not a bullsh*t, but a real lick, like robbin' a jewelery store."

those verses pretty much sums up this album,so do the verse where bizzy bone said he took his conscience and fried them (with weed) after he robbed someone.

but lets not forget the hit singles like thugish rugish bone which is bone's signature song along with tha crossroads. and who can forget for the love of money song which has great verses from flesh-n-bone(whom is arguably the most overlooked member),and the late great eazy-e.

flesh-n-bone- " Gotta get on the grind
Pop in the clip of my nine
And b*tch if you slip
You hit the chalk and fall in the night time
Gotta get mine
Ain't takin no shorts or no losses
Hop on the phone
Callin' my nigga sin at home
Polishin' that MAC-10 crome
Gotta a lick so bring yo sh*t
Cause once again it's on
To the dome with a fifth of burb
we wig to the curb so we swerve
And rolled out to pick up the triple six thug
And follow the murder for robbin the dopehouse
Smoke jump outta me bong
So high, now comin' to slay with four grenades and a gauge
I'm a play, watch all 'em fall in the grave and lay
Pullin' in the driveway, Wish spotted the place and quickly
rolled up
Bulldozed through the living room
Hopped out of the car and started to blow up
Buck, Buck, and a kaboom
Me blew all them bodies all over the room
Them doomed"

bad ass verse from flesh ,eazy-e comes hard too with this verse

"Standin' on the corner straight slangin' rocks
Aw sh*t! Here comes the muthaf**kin' cops!
So I dash, I ducks, and I hides behind a tree
Makin' sure the muthaf**kas don't see me
Now my fat sack of rocks hell yeah i stuffed 'em
Police on my draws, i had to pause
And yeah, it's still muthaf**k 'em
Now my game is tight, tight as f**k is my game
Easy muthaf**kin E or Eric Wright it's all the same
Now niggas might trip on how I stash my grip
I gotta have it b*tch
For the love of this sh*t
MUTHAF**KA!!"

what a great verse from eazy-e,and its one of my favorites by him.

i also love the bass heavy down for my thang and i like how the song fades out with bone harmonizing the chorus as the song fades out. the intro with the quintet harmonizing along with down for my thang made me understand the relevance of the term HARMONY in the groups name. and after hearing the aforementioned 2 songs i kinda got the style and the gist of the group.

and in turn i couldn't wait for their follow up .because their sound was so melodic/smooth yet hard edged and hard as nails. it was unlike anything i heard before. i will admit though i too wonder how good this album would have been if it was a full LP instead of a EP. but "as is" its a great rap album that gives you only a taste of whats to come from this underrated but legendary group.




http://www.btnhcentral.com/images/albums2/e1999eternallarge.jpg

. this is probably one of the most underrated rap albums in hip hop history. think of it as a rap version of pink floyds dark side of the moon album. this album doesn't sound dated at all,it still sounds fresh even to this day. with its contradictory subject matter of the occult,and god. and its contradictory mix of harmony,and dark gangsta rap sing song hybrid. the album starts off with its trade mark introduction of a menacing and ominous disembodied voice introducing the five rappers,over the backdrop of a old bone song playing backwards which adds to the dreaded hauntingly beautiful atmosphere of the album. then the rest of the album follows. it has this dark melodic,consistent atmosphere for the whole album,each song flowing into the next like water.the album is like one very dark long song.


with a hauntingly beautiful song tha crossroads (both versions are nice). this album sky rocketed to the top of the charts.but even to this day its sill a underrated classic.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

http://missskind.no.sapo.pt/dbimg/Sade-LoveDeluxe199211406_f.jpg

a album that i think was THE best R&B album of the 90's by a solo artist,its sounds timeless. very lush,sensual and organic. Sade's music is like contemporary jazz,modern R&B,quiet storm, and Caribbean rhythms

http://img1.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/1/c/e/9/5/1ce957b0b52cf07d786859012291f644_full.jpg

this is the album (along with living color's "vivid") that showed me that rock can be what ever you want it to be. its a crazy blend of genres like hip-hop,funk,hardrock,and metal. Mike Patton's voice range from a soulful croon to a loud scream

[twilight]

Bob Dylan's Desire was the album that turned me into a music geek.

-Twi

[Pepsigirl]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61YKc7hYs%2BL._AA240_.jpg
The Strokes - Is This It
As a kid I listened to pretty much whatever my family listened to and whatever was on the radio. Not that groundbreaking a record, but I heard it right after it came out and I guess it sort of exposed me to more rock music than what I was used to. I listened to this every day for months straight before I even bought another CD.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Y9cYKoliL._AA240_.jpg
The Rapture - Echoes
I bought this and a few other CDs based on the praise from a user here (Zombie, I think it was). I bought this, a Modest Mouse album, and Never Mind the Bollocks all on the same day, but it was this album that I liked the most. At the time I thought it was just a really fun rock record, but now I realize that it sparked my interest in dance music more than anything.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61YZGNK20ZL._AA240_.jpg
Justice - Waters of Nazareth EP
For a few years after hearing Echoes I became more interested in dance music, but I didn't really get much further than the really popular stuff (Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, etc.) and the occasional more obscure Techno album (Kompakt Total 6 ftw). I knew Justice from the song “We Are Your Friends,” but then this EP came out and it blew me away. During the summer of 06 dance music was basically all I listened to. Unfortunately, LA became a sort of hotbed for the style of music Justice make (and it's a very small scene) and before long I was sort of tired of hearing it all the time. So early last year I heard…

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Jr06KL08L._AA240_.jpg
Dominik Eulberg - Heimische Gefilde
…this. I’m not sure what it is about this album that I love. I’ve played it for other people and the general consensus is that it’s actually kind of boring. However, it did send me off on a massive Techno kick and since then I’ve branched out into pretty much every area of Electronic music. Looking at my top 30 of 07, there are only 8 albums that aren’t exclusively dance music or dance influenced, only one of which is a band that I didn’t already listen to prior to 07.

[blackdragon6]

http://www.backspin.de/uploads/tx_bsprintimport/071BITDBone_Thugs-N-HarmonyCreepin_On_Ah-Come_UpAlbum.jpg



http://www.btnhcentral.com/images/albums2/e1999eternallarge.jpg


http://missskind.no.sapo.pt/dbimg/Sade-LoveDeluxe199211406_f.jpg
agreed on all three.......

[4thHorseman]

AC/DC - Highway To Hell

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8062/hellvq5.gif

Most people say ACDC puts out the same record over and over again, but you can't deny the records they have released. Highway to Hell is hands down one of the greatest records ever released. Mammoth, memorable riffs that you can't get out of your head, simple but catchy drum beats that show simplicity can very well beat out technicality, strong bass that wants your heart to rip right out of your chest, and finally vocals so powerful you sit back in awe at the force behind it.

Back in Black gets more recognition from ACDC, but this album doesn't have any "filler" material. Angus lays out some of the best riffs of his entire career, and Bon shows why he goes down as one of the greatest frontmen and vocals in the history of music. His voice is that of a god, something you can't describe in words, but when you're listening to it you know you'll never hear a voice like it again. It's truly a shame that this was his last album.

I think many people don't appreciate just down to earth rock music. This album doesn't make you stop tapping your foot even after the thing is over because now you get the songs stuck in your head and you want to listen to it again. I don't know many people that would deny the greatness of this album and some of the licks that come from it, and anyone that does you may very well question their sanity

[rick]

I’m really sorry to be a walking cliché, but the day I first listened to Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols my entire world changed.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7357/nevermindthebollocksyg6.jpg


Music in the early 1970’s was vibrant and alive and going in some really interesting places. Rock was at it’s height of both popularity and creativity. Zeppelin, Floyd, Queen, Clapton, the Who and dozens of other great bands were just cranking away on some classic albums.

And living in Colorado, these were the bands that I heard on the radio everyday, hell I still do, it’s the type of place that Colorado is. A state where the Eagles would feel right at home and that the Dead would always make sure to play in when they went on tour.

So one night, I’m watching this great little news show titled Weekend that would run on NBC once a month in the mid-70’s giving the Saturday Night Live folks a week off, and the host Loyd Dobbins began a report on a new phenomenon coming out of working class Britain, that embraced both self-mutilation and Nazi symbolism and which quite possibly could be the most dangerous youth movement that western civilization had ever seen.

And then the screen cut to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAsWdUo7r4c&feature=related).


Now these days in the post punk world of Radiohead and Korn, ol’ John isn’t that big a deal. He’s just this young, brash guy with a decent song lyric and one nasty sneer, but in 1977 I had never seen anything like him.

I was listening to stuff like Seals & Crofts and Elton John. The roughest, meanest album I owned was Houses of the Holy, and here was these ugly little thugs, shrieking at the top of their lungs, with just plain sloppy guitar work, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

Now I know that Iggy, the Dolls and the Ramones were already out there, but at that point I had never even heard of them let alone bought any of their albums. It was 1977 and I was only 15 after all.

I had spent the next couple of weeks trying to find out about the Pistols records and had no luck at all getting any of their singles, of which there were a couple of at that point. In October they finally came out with an album, Never Mind the Bolloks, but it hadn’t been released in the US yet.

Luckily I had a secret weapon around that problem, in that about a block from the capital in Denver exists one of the three or four finest record shops on this entire planet, the legendary, Wax Tracks. I called them up and they told me that they had a dozen of them and would happily hold one for me.

At that point I had to “borrow” my brothers car and get myself up and back, which is a long story all it’s own, but one I’ll leave off for now.

The point is that I got the damm album.

I got home, put on my headphones, turned the volume up and put the record on.

The very first line sung on the album on the song Holidays in the Sun, is ” I don't wanna holiday in the sun I wanna go to the new Belsen”.


It was just so angry, rude, raw and with something actually to say other then, let’s get high or baby I love you, that it just shook my entire view of not just music, but just about everything.

Sure I still smoked dope and listened to Dark Side of the Moon, but I also went out and bought a copy of Talking Heads 77 and Wires, Pink Flag too.

I started thinking about politics and the way the rest of the world lived for the firs time after hearing that album. And sure a lot of those discoveries would have happened anyway because of my age, but the British punks, especially the Pistols shaped a lot of how I saw things from then on.

Thanks John, Paul, Steve and Glen, you made 15 much more interesting then it had shaped up to be.

[howyadoin]

I'm a visual guy, so:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JGAF.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://midnightcafe.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/born_to_run.jpg

http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/300x300/2027523-831000926.jpg


http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/guns_n_roses_-_appetite_for_destruction.jpg

[howyadoin]

Round two:

http://blogueisso.com/re:bacana/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/exile.jpg

http://www.ryanadamsarchive.com/bertk/SAl_JPN.jpg

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000C28K.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/616gQKyHQUL._AA280_.jpg

[Sanagi]

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here
Yoko Kanno - Macross Plus

Also, the soundtracks of Mega Man 2 and Final Fantasy 4.

[PunkMC]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41H62046AHL._SS500_.jpg

I dont know what it was about this album. There wasn't anything special about it musically. But for some reason I connected with this album more than any I ever have. The way Billy would go from quite to almost metal like in the same song shook my world. What was going on. Was this suppsed to happen in music?? It changed the way I looked at music.



http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WV1VT99SL._SS500_.jpg
The first time I heard Diamonds in the Soles of her shoes I was hooked. At the time I would listen to whatever my friends were listening to. And would say music that I actually like sucked just to agree with my friends. But after hearing this song, and the whole album, all bets were off. I would defend Paul Simon from that day on. I still do. I don't think there has ever been or ever will be a more gifted lyricst as Paul is. I finally got that music could tell a story. Not something just silly like "I'm Bad" no these songs spoke on a different level.

[the goddamn batman]

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/r_sail/last-rights.jpg

I grew up on The Beatles, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd... all the classics. I was there when Nirvana and Pearl Jam broke... I already had heard Sonic Youth... basically, I had the fortune of growing up on really good music. So all of that stuff was just standard rock and roll to me. None of it shook my world or made me rethink things.

In 92 I was 12 and someone gave me a tape (because I sorta liked NIN Pretty Hate Machine) of Skinny Puppy's "Last Rights" album and I was never the same. Ever.

This was music like I'd never heard, and my world was never the same after that. It's still one of my favorite albums. Thanks for the tape, Jason!

[MWGallaher]

Suicide (http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-First-Album/dp/B000040OBS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1200529044&sr=8-1). Their "first" album.
I had seen these guys on an episode of Don Kirchner's Rock Concert in 1980 or so, as guests of that night's hosts The Cars. They did 2 or 3 performances, all of them causing all of my gang of viewers' jaws to drop, as we waited for the band to do something more than they did at the start of the song...and they never did. It was unsettling to experience minimalist rock for the first time, and I went out the very next day and bought this album, only to discover something even more mind-blowing: the song Frankie Teardrop. Official soundtrack of Hell itself. Gangsta Rappas who think "they" hardcore would be tempted to "pop a cap" in "they" own "azz" after a few listens to this one. Ten plus minutes of torture.

[Voncaster]

Pearl Jam Vs.
I listened to this the first time in some middle school radio project. Another kid brought it in...I thought it was the essence of cool. I've been a PJ fan ever since.

Dead Kennedys Frankenchrist
I had never heard of the Dead Kennedy's before and someone put this record on at work. I think this is the lyric that caught my attention

Sorry hate to interupt,
but its against the law to jump off this bridge,
you'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else,
a tourist might see you...and we wouldn't want that

It was so bizarre and cynical I had to listen to it again and again and again. I'm envious of you if you have never heard a Dead Kennedy's record. Its a real trip.

[Spike-X]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SKCG055ML._AA240_.jpg

The first time I heard this was like seeing the face of God.

And I wasn't even stoned.

The next one's a double shot:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X8dY66CsL._AA240_.jpg http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/ac/85/b58c4310fca0f35298e97010._AA240_.L.jpg

"Oh my God! Who are these people he's singing about?"

[Laughing Mask]

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k4/greyshirt2/Music/Loureedtransformer.jpg

its one of the albums i listen to all the way thought every time.

and it helped me get into the velvet underground.

[jesse_custer]

^I'm convinced "Satellite of Love" is one of the best rock/pop songs of all time.

For me, it was:

http://www.stevesbeatles.com/cds/album-covers/magical_mystery_tour.jpg

First time I heard "I Am the Walrus." Completely dismantled everything I believed about music. It abandoned everything I held dear. Madness for comprehension. Tape effects for instrumentation. Later I learned that Lennon had tried something similar on Revolver with "Tomorrow Never Knows." So listeners in 1967 probably weren't as surprised as I was with "Walrus." Yet even knowing this I still believe the song is a disparate voyage, one that will never be matched by any musical explorer.

The rest of the album also affected me but not as much as that track.

[Spike-X]

http://www.ryanadamsarchive.com/bertk/SAl_JPN.jpg


...here are some details about the Deluxe Edition reissue of Whiskeytown's 1997 album Strangers Alamanac, due out March 4 via Universal.

Disc One of the two-disc set will feature the original album plus five tracks recorded live on Los Angeles radio station KCRW on September 10, 1997. Three of those tracks are album cuts ("Houses On The Hill", "Turn Around", "Somebody Remembers The Rose") and two were not on the album ("Nurse With The Pills", "I Don't Care What You Think About Me").

The 20 tracks on disc two include outtakes and alternate tracks from the Strangers Almanac recording sessions and demo sessions. A few of them were issued separate from Strangers Almanac at the time: "Theme For A Trucker", "My Heart Is Broken", and alternate versions of "The Strip" (a.k.a. "Dancing With The Women At The Bar") and "Houses On The Hill" comprised a double 7-inch gatefold release by Bloodshot Records in early 1997, and "Ticket Time" and Alejandro Escovedo's "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over" were on a limited-edition bonus EP packaged with initial pressings of the Strangers Almanac CD.

Aside from "The Rain Won't Help You", other cover songs on Disc Two include Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", Gram Parsons' "Luxury Liner"*, and a Ryan Adams solo version of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone".

Previously unreleased outtakes from the Strangers sessions featured on Disc Two include "Kiss & Make-Up", "Indiana Gown", "Barn's On Fire", "Whispers" (a.k.a. "Streets Of Sirens"), "Breathe", and "10 Seconds Till The End Of The World".

Disc Two also includes alternate studio versions of Strangers tracks "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight", "16 Days", "Somebody Remembers The Rose", "Avenues", and "Turn Around".

* I've heard both of these. Don't get too excited.

[Nightstar1441]

My first ever record really set me up for what I listen to now. I was about 8 year old and had made some money working a paper route.

My father brought me to the reocrd store to pick out some music and I had narrowed it down to Police - Ghost in the Machine and Styx - Paradise Theater.

I went with Styx and I knew immediately it was the right choice. Half Penny, Two Penny, Best of Times, Snowblind a complete album with a nice balance throughout.

My tastes in music would eventually evolve but every now and then, I'll drop this CD in (and yes, I still own the record too :D ) and just let it play on through.

[jesse_custer]

Wow. To each his own is the thing to say here. After hearing Ghost in the Machine I couldn't ever imagine preferring any Styx album.

[ZombieHavoc]

I have no idea how to post images, so here's a list:

-life-altering albums:
1. The Monkees greatest hits. For no other reason than I was eight and listened to it every day.

2. Guns N' Roses- Appetite for Destruction. I was ten or so and GNR was the first music I discovered without the help of my parents (though my mom ended up liking them too).

3. Alice Cooper- Trash. Eleven years old when I saw "Poison" on MTV. Eighteen years later I've consumed thirty AC albums and loved every minute.

4. Metallica- And Justice for All. Holy shit! Music could be angry as hell, and I first realized that listening to this album.

5. Faith No More- The Real Thing.

6. Sex Pistols- Nevermind the Bollocks. I was twelve and in my world music began and ended with metal. Then, after hearing Megadeth's cover of "Anarchy in the UK," I picked up this cassette and was in love.

[howyadoin]

I really can't leave this one out, either:

http://www.truemetal.org/metalwallpaper/images/kissdestroyer.jpg

Easily the best thing they ever did.

[mindcrime]

1. Kiss-alive
2. Thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3. Judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
4. Iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
5. Metallica-kill'em All
6. Queensryche-operation Mindcrime
7. Dream Theater-images & Words
8. Blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-british Steel
5.iron Maiden-number Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-british Steel
5.iron Maiden-number Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
5.iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
5.iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
5.iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

1.kiss-alive
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
5.iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[mindcrime]

I really can't leave this one out, either:

http://www.truemetal.org/metalwallpaper/images/kissdestroyer.jpg

Easily the best thing they ever did.



1.kiss-destroyer (totally agree)
2.thin Lizzy-live & Dangerous
3.u.f.o.-strangers In The Night
4.judas Priest-hell Bent For Leather
5.iron Maiden-# Of The Beast
6.metallica-kill'em All
7.mercyful Fate-mellisa
8.queensryche-operation Mindcrime
9.dream Theater-scenes From A Memory
10.blind Guardian-nightfall In Middle Earth

[Pepsigirl]

Whoa, dude. Hit the post button a few too many times?

[Spike-X]

Whoa, dude. Hit the post button a few too many times?
The server glitches a lot around the time he posted.

[Pinball]

AC/DC, Back In Black - I'd never heard vocals like Brian Johnson's before

Metallica, Ride The Lightning - "Fight Fire With Fire" scared the hell out of me, i figured these guys had to be European:o

Faith No More, Introduce Yourself - disco punk, anyone?

Shonen Knife, some early album with "Twist Barbie" on it - Who knew punk rock could be so darn cute?

These are some of the albums that basically said to me "Anything is possible."

[Paul McEnery]

There's one record store that'll always live on in my affection. Long gone now, I should think; but for the only not-Woolworth's in a tiny Kent village, it had a pretty solid selection.

And they couldn't shift the Ornette Coleman record they had, so they cut the price like crazy. And I'd just read him being approved of in the NME, so that was for me.

Fuck me sideways with a bent banana.

It's still an amazing record: Crisis. Cherry, Haden, Redman, and Denardo aged, what, 12?, on the drums. Five guys going off in five different directions, but somehow all on the same page. That's some deep shit, there.

And speaking of five guys going off in five different directions, Pere Ubu's Datapanik in the Year Zero EP. Completely modular music, with screaming paranoia and the weirdest actual sound on every instrument. I mean, anyone can get the right kind of synthesizer to sound weird. Judicious use of a whammy bar in an odd context -- weird. Crazy singer? Why yes! But how in hell do you make straightforward punchy bass sound weird? Don't know. Tony Maimone did.

Both of these, coming at the same time as I read The Dispossessed and heard Rotten yelling I Wanna Be An-Ar-Chy! That was me done for. Anarchy it is, then.







Oh, and my mum let me listen to Live from Folsom Prison when I was a little kid. 25 minutes to Go scared the living kiddypoop out of me. Still does. Diamanda does a version of it that DOESN'T HELP ONE TINY BIT thank you very much. Slap the Mercy Seat on top of it and I'm really not a happy bunny.

[Spike-X]

my mum let me listen to Live from Folsom Prison when I was a little kid.

There's a shop in town has that bundled with Live From San Quentin for fifteen bucks. Reckon I should pick them up on the weekend.

I still use the line, "I'm sorry, was I talking while you were trying to interrupt?" on people.

[Alex]

I kinda wish i had something obscure to post, but then i'd be lying and that's no fun.

Neat variety of stuff i will say, i'll try to go in some sort of chronological order, list isn't incredibly long. It's not without humor.
http://www.engel-cox.org/images/Covers/sRushMoving.jpg

I just love Rush. I always will, i can't even explain why. And my friends will talk crap, especialy if i decide to play Farewell To Kings or something, but it always just blows over me.
I think it came out in 82, so thats a year before i was born. I found when i was about 8 or 9, while going through the novelty of my dads records.
My dad owned like every Rush album too, which was kinda weird. He was a vietnam vet who loved Nat King Cole, but he apprently loved Rush too.
Anyway, it's not as concepty as some of their other stuff, so it wasn't so weird that i couldn't enjoy it, but it's easy to say it didn't sound like what i was hearing on the radio. And i loved it.

http://www.motherjones.com/riff_blog/mojo-cover-radioheadkida.JPG
Thats why i kept listening to music really. I loved Ok Computer, probably still my favorite album musicly from them, but just from where i was at when that album came out, it's one of those albums that just means something to you.

http://quimby.gnus.org/4ad-pics/Pixies.Doolittle.cd.jpg
I think, for everyone who is maybe under 18 (i think that works out right), im only 24, but until i was about 15, everyone didn't have a computer. The only way to get mp3s was napster or downloading off webpages. There weren't a million music sites you could go too. You had mtv, you had rolling stone, spin might have been out. Borders and Barnes and Noble weren't everywhere yet (IE, they weren't in my city of any surrounding area yet) so you couldn't go buy NME, we didn't know there were other music magazines. Rolling Stone was still shitty a decade ago. And with few radio stations unless you were in college, no one really knew who the Pixies were, most people (normal people who don't talk about music online i guess) still don't know who they are.
And that album blew me away, and just made me look for more music that i couldn't get off the radio or the tv. And given how little variety you can find in those two places, im really happy about that.

That makes me sound like an old man, but seriously, a lot has changed in your music options since i was 8, holding up a tapedeck to the radio to make my own mixtapes.

[mindcrime]

The server glitches a lot around the time he posted.


damn, i guess so! that was not me..:D

[howyadoin]

I just love Rush. I always will, i can't even explain why. And my friends will talk crap, especialy if i decide to play Farewell To Kings or something, but it always just blows over me.A Farewell to Kings is one I should've mentioned earlier, actually. When I was in junior high, I saw them play the title track on some TV show, and it absolutely fucking fried my brain.

I think I'll listen to it right now.

[Alex]

A Farewell to Kings is one I should've mentioned earlier, actually. When I was in junior high, I saw them play the title track on some TV show, and it absolutely fucking fried my brain.

I think I'll listen to it right now.

http://vagalume.uol.com.ar/rush/discografia/farewell-to-kings-remastered.jpg
Just go ahead and link it because it's a cool cover.
Side story. My senior year of highschool we had this wacky english teacher who must have been on a million different medications, and we were reading Ballad of Kubla Khan, and one of my friends convinces the teacher to let him bring in Farewell To Kings, so he could play Xanadu.
That was one of the funniest things ever.

[jessecuster3]

I am sure there are more but the most influential album to my state of mind about music has to be:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BaMHBw5ZL._AA240_.jpg


Growing up, I listened almost exclusively to Top 40, with a brief foray into rap and punk when I was skateboarding at 13. Then, at around 15 years old, a friends older brother was driving us around and started playing the album. We got about halfway through Ted Just Admit It, and it was totally different that anything I had ever heard and was something that I never heard on the radio or any of my "tapes". I was introduced to discovering new music that wasn't spoonfed to me, and now i have never been the same. To this day I haven't listened to a radio station in at least 10 years.

[Jessica Drew]

Until I was about seven or eight, music to me was either just pleasant little ditties on the radio ('70s K-Tel stuff), music my dad drummed and danced to (soul music), music my mom warbled again and again ('60s girl groups and Doo-Wop/Post-Doo-Wop stuff), or old-folks music (which is what I called country music, because the only folks I knew back then that listened to it were my grandparents and their older cousins). Music, to me, was basically innocuous.

Then came the big move--from one side of our small town to the other. This other side of town--unlike the previous side--had kids my own age, and one of these kids introduced me to this:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/wp-content/2007/01/kiss_destroyer.jpg

Whoah! This shit was heavy! This shit had power! These guys were looked like Morbius the Living Vampire! This was the cool. Music now had power and drama! Tragedy! Heartbreak! All on one album!

...and then, everything was all KISS all the TIME...until I was about nine or ten, when my high-school aged cousin took me riding around with her and her friends on a Friday night. And everyone was honking at each other down the strip, hanging out the window waving, and my cousin's friends were oh-so-pretty, and they laughed (but not at me), and they listened to this:

http://www.vinylzart.com/images/AlbumCovers-Journey-Infinity(1978).jpg

...and I never forgot that music. In fact a few years later, when I got my first walkman, Journey's Infinity was the first tape I bought, and I listened to it over and over and over again at night, trying at first to recapture, as Springsteen said, "a little of the glory of," but soon letting Perry's voice and Schon's solos take me to a transcendent place, somewhere I had never been. I had experienced music as art for the first time.

...and life progressed, and I began wanting to want to learn more about rock and roll music, so I started buying Rolling Stone, and--in my junior or senior year in high school--they published their "100 (or was it 200) Best Albums of All Time" magazine. There were two records there I'd never heard of--not just the record, but had not heard of the artists. So, the next time my family went to the nearest metropolitan area, I stopped by the record store in the mall...and no luck. Nobody there had heard of those artists either. So I waited until the Beta Club or FBLA or Quiz Bowl team (I forget...which for damn sure makes it not the latter one) went to convention/competition down on the coast, wherein I found a record store that had both those albums, and so I bought both (on tape), and I started listening to them on the way back home the next day on the bus...and I had to cut that shit off. Headache. Both tapes. Both sides. Awful. Horrible. Worst shit I ever heard.

...until a month or so later, when I had to stay home one day with the flu or some such shit, and I was bored, so I decided to force myself to listen to those albums, because, dammit, they must be something there I was missing. Didn't work--the first time. That night though, I was in bed, but I wasn't sleepy (as I'd slept late that day), and decided to give them both one more shot...and...well...poor ol' Captain Beefheart and his Trout Mask Replica album: I didn't get around to listening to it for another month or so, because--finally--I was able to listen to the entire version of

http://gospelbiscuits.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/coltra_john_lovesupre_102b.jpg

and I was captivated. The music--at first maddening--became hypnotic, and it made everything else I heard on the radio--except for Prince...maybe--seem trite, predictable, and bland. It opened my eyes (and ears) to a entire other world, one where experimentation and dissonance and non-4/4/ or 3/4 structure weren't shit...that there was more to the world than meets-the-little podunk society in which I was raised.

...and I'm (at least somewhat) non-conformist to this day...rightly so or not.

[howyadoin]

...and then, everything was all KISS all the TIME...until I was about nine or ten, when my high-school aged cousin took me riding around with her and her friends on a Friday night. And everyone was honking at each other down the strip, hanging out the window waving, and my cousin's friends were oh-so-pretty, and they laughed (but not at me), and they listened to this:

http://www.vinylzart.com/images/AlbumCovers-Journey-Infinity%281978%29.jpg

I'm not remotely a Journey fan, but that's an awesome story.

[Outsider]

This is the album that did it for me.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/LedZeppelinLedZeppelinIIalbumcover.jpg

I probably heard Zeppelin all my life, but I used to think of it as old people's music when I was a kid. Then, I was probably about 18 when I found my dad's old vinyl record of Led Zeppelin II and decided to put it on. I couldn't stop listening to "Whole Lotta Love", and it wasn't long before I was hooked on Zeppelin and really began to appreciate classic rock, which has become easily my favorite type of music.