5 Albums That Changed Your Life

[fossiltooth]

I've really loved reading everyone's replies so far.

I went back and edited my post include how old I was when I first heard these records. I was young! 9. 13. 14. 15. 16. I suppose that's when we're most susceptible to "having our lives changed".

But.... Surely the way I see the world has changed a few times since then! I'll have to write a follow-up at some point. I probably don't have enough perspective on my twenties to write anything remotely meaningful yet... but I guess I can try anyway!

[EasyGo]

Rawk albums
Jimi Hendrix 'Electric Ladyland'
Stooges 'Fun House'
Spacemen 3 'Perfect Prescription'
My Bloody Valentine 'Loveless'
Velvet Underground 'Velvet Underground'

Reggae albums
Eek a Mouse 'Wa Do Dem'
Yellowman 'Mister Yellowman'
Scientist 'Wins the World Cup'
King Tubby 'King of Dub'
Barrington Levy 'Too Experienced'

[JGriffin]

I went back and edited my post include how old I was when I first heard these records. I was young! 9. 13. 14. 15. 16. I suppose that's when we're most susceptible to "having our lives changed".

But.... Surely the way I see the world has changed a few times since then! I'll have to write a follow-up at some point. I probably don't have enough perspective on my twenties to write anything remotely meaningful yet... but I guess I can try anyway!

Interesting point. All the records I listed, I heard before I was 16 I think, except for "OK Computer" which didn't come out until I was almost 30.

[Joe P.]

The Smiths-Hatful of Hollow... I wore out two cassettes of this album, and I could still listen to it today. Maybe I will.

7 Seconds-New Wind... I was fourteen or fifteen and a skater in the eighties. These were some of my anthems.

Agent Orange-Everything Turns Grey... The orginal Vision/Sims skate video turned my head inside out. We'd watch it every day after school at the local bike shop (skateboard shops did not yet exist!)

Stone Roses-Stone Roses... Their definitive effort, and the coolest album out at the time. Now sounds a bit trebly, but the songs are great as ever.

Ride-Nowhere... This one took like six months for me to warm up to, but when I did there was no turning back.

Ask me tomorrow and I might change a couple of these.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Holy cow - agent orange - I was daydreaming yesterday and I got to thinking that I should have listed "living in darkness" for this thread - I actually still have a vhs of that vision-sims video somewhere.

On at least a weekly basis I am reminded of that line: "the public gets what they deserve, not what they demand"...

How about those scenes at del mar where the skaters come up out of the keyhole bowl and the agent orange guy is up on the lip doing a swipe motion with his guitar headstock ... Ahh classic. I was sufficiently young when I saw that so it's going to be with me forever.

(The music in the santa cruz video "wheels of fire" was even cooler though ...)

[Electro-Voice 664]

Holy cow - agent orange - I was daydreaming yesterday and I got to thinking that I should have listed "living in darkness" for this thread - I actually still have a vhs of that vision-sims video somewhere.

On at least a weekly basis I am reminded of that line: "the public gets what they deserve, not what they demand"...

How about those scenes at del mar where the skaters come up out of the keyhole bowl and the agent orange guy is up on the lip doing a swipe motion with his guitar headstock ... Ahh classic. I was sufficiently young when I saw that so it's going to be with me forever.

(The music in the santa cruz video "wheels of fire" was even cooler though ...)

Ah yes, Agent Orange rocking out in the bottom of that bowl is classic. I also loved a Faction VHS that had some funny skate rockin. Don't even get me going on D.I., Doggy Style or Mc Rad.....

[darjama]

Beatles: White Album
Velvet Underground: Andy Warhol Presents...
Sex Pistols: Nevemind the Bollocks...
Fugazi: 13 songs
A Tribe Called Quest: Low End Theory

I felt like there should be a Coltrane record on there, probably Giant Steps, but I grew up on a steady diet of 'trane, so it's hard to say it changed my life, it was more of a constant force.

Another runner up would be the Leonard Bernstein recording of Requiem. One of those pieces that sends shivers down my spine. It made me rethink my gut reaction against vocal classical music.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Another runner up would be the Leonard Bernstein recording of Requiem. One of those pieces that sends shivers down my spine. It made me rethink my gut reaction against vocal classical music.

Whose requiem? Mozart? Berlioz? Verdi? other?

[darjama]

Mozart, doh! I thought I mentioned it, but I'm a dunderhead. It's this recording:

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-McLaughlin ... B000001GAO

[sears]

blonde on blonde
parallel lines
this is the sea
birth school work death
bee thousand

[Brian Brock]

*is surprised and relieved to see another Suzanne Vega fan here*

I was a fan. Not a life-changing fan, but I suspect she informed my songwriting more than I recognize...

[Brian Brock]

The five albums that changed my life. Awesome.

The Police - Synchronicity. The first tape I owned. I stole it from my 6th grade music class, which met once every two weeks or something. You could either play music, or learn about music, or go into the corner and listen to music. The tape didn't have a case, so I wrote the track titles onto the case for a blank cassette. I remember I also listened to the Judds.

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln . This was the first album I liked in my own way. I would listen to it while I read Piers Anthony sci-fi/fantasy novels in seventh grade.

John Coltrane - Impressions. My dad gave this to me - I don't think he liked it. I understood that jazz was improvised, and to me that meant no composition whatsoever, so I listened to it entirely from that frame of mind. I was disappointed when I learned that jazz isn't, for the most part other than melody, improvised. I love that pre-disillusionment part of my life.

Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert. OK, this is improvised. I was in my second year of college, and discovered it randomly in the library. It slowly revealed itself to me. A good time.

Glenn Branca - Symphonies 8 and 10. The immediate counterexample to any apparently weird or messed up music. After I heard this, it's been all filling in details.


See, those are life-changing. I really wish I could tell you how much I like OP8 - Slush, Smog - Knock Knock, Sonic Youth, the Grateful Dead, Bach, Villa-Lobos, and so forth, but none of those actually changed my life, they are mostly refinements or products of non-album life-changing events...

b

[nordberg]

wow this is a tough one...

ok computer-radiohead
the ascension-glenn branca
unknown pleasures-joy division
magical mystery tour-beatles
taking tiger mountain by strategy-eno

i suppose close runners up would be rage's first album, loveless, a night at the opera....blah blah blah

[caffiend2049]

7 Seconds-New Wind... I was fourteen or fifteen and a skater in the eighties. These were some of my anthems.

I remember one fateful day when I walked into a Camelot music store in the nearest podunk mall to our podunk town and bought "The Crew" and New Order "substance."

This was '86 or '87

I loved them both.

That pretty much set up a dichotomy which made me the odd ball out with both the punk kids and the dance kids.
God I loved that early Fugazi stuff. It was like the sound of justification.

[caffiend2049]

birth school work death

+1