5 Albums That Changed Your Life

[GooberNumber9]

1) R.E.M. - Green. First CD I ever bought, the first album I ever played over and over and over again all day, and the first band that I completely fell in love with and had to buy all of their music. I consider my life before this as a time when I "didn't really like music that much", even though I was exposed to a lot of it.

2) Led Zeppelin - Box Set 1 (1990 - four discs w/ crop circles). This came out almost exactly when I was ready to appreciate Zeppelin, is the reason why I started playing guitar, and will be the standard in production I will forever hold myself to but never acheive.

3) Tool - Aenima. I'm not even sure what to write about this. The closest anything has come to unseating the Led Zepplin catalog from its place in my mind as the pinnacle of music production. This was the main unifying music of my first real band, and I made many memories with this music as a backdrop. This also marks the beginning of my love affair with Bob Ludwig's mastering, and the final incentive for me to start recording and engineering.

4) Nirvana - Nevermind. Ok, I'm not a big Nirvana fan or Cobain fanatic. This album did change my life because it changed the face of music at a time when I was learning to play guitar and listening to as much music as I could get my hands on. After telling myself and others for years that Nirvana was no big deal, I have to admit looking back that things might have been a lot different if "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hadn't forced the record companies to try to figure what all this "alternative" stuff was all about.

5) Various Artists - Poor Impulse Control, Vol. I. You don't know this album, I have the only copy in existence. It's a burn with hand-drawn cover art. It's the first mix CD the woman I am going to marry made for me, and I was listening to it when I realized I was hopelessly in love with her, and partly because of her taste in music. Sorry for the "awwwwww" moment.

I gotta honorably mention Suzanne Vega, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Indigo Girls, The Funky Meters, Rage Against the Machine, and really so many others. The above five really changed my life. Everything else just helped.

Todd Wilcox

[Jay Reynolds]

Poor Impulse Control

Waaaay out on a limb here, but is that a Neal Stephenson reference?

[GooberNumber9]

Poor Impulse Control

Waaaay out on a limb here, but is that a Neal Stephenson reference?

Not that I'm aware of. It's a personal joke between me and the lady in question regarding our own personalities. E.g., I am impulsively staying up late to post on the TOMB when I should be getting to sleep because I'm going into the studio tomorrow and need to be at my best.

[seeabove]

Poor Impulse Control

Waaaay out on a limb here, but is that a Neal Stephenson reference?

If we were doing a top 5 books list, The Diamond Age would be on mine.

[Jay Reynolds]

Poor Impulse Control

Waaaay out on a limb here, but is that a Neal Stephenson reference?

If we were doing a top 5 books list, The Diamond Age would be on mine.

Yeah, that guy is freakin ridiculous. Back in 93, while waiting for an young barista to go on her dinner break at our local Borders, I picked up a copy of Snow Crash (it was on an endcap next to Douglas Copeland's "Generation X"). Read the first chapter, had lunch with said barista, bought the book, and went home and stayed up until 6 am finishing it.
Was taking my second crack at Quicksilver when the new Tape Op arrived.

[wren]

If we were doing a top 5 books list, The Diamond Age would be on mine.

Hell yes. I remember finding Snow Crash in a pile of books someone was throwing out when I was around 13, and I was completely enthralled. I don't think I could pick a single favorite Neal Stephenson book, but at least one would be in my all-time top 5 for sure.

Either of you read Zodiac? Quite a few Stephenson fans I've met haven't, so I've started asking as I think it's one of his best.

[Jay Reynolds]

If we were doing a top 5 books list, The Diamond Age would be on mine.

Hell yes. I remember finding Snow Crash in a pile of books someone was throwing out when I was around 13, and I was completely enthralled. I don't think I could pick a single favorite Neal Stephenson book, but at least one would be in my all-time top 5 for sure.

Either of you read Zodiac? Quite a few Stephenson fans I've met haven't, so I've started asking as I think it's one of his best.

Twice, maybe three times. The only fiction I haven't checked out from him is The Big U.
I hope one of us left a trail of bread crumbs so we can find our way back to the topic

[Joe P.]

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 ...)

'Living in Darkness' that's the correct album name. 'Wheels of Fire' was definitely a cooler, more savvy vid. I still can't get my head around Natas' ollie-to-fire-hydrant-spin! But that Vision/Sims vid was incredibly influential. Remember when Gator (pre-murderer days,) gets Lester to stop break-dancing and to come skate? Classic awesomeness.

[Knight79]

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
Ride - Nowhere
Prince - Sign of the Times
Sonic Youth - Evol
New Order - Substance


I am really dating myself with this collection

Nice Selection! I'll have a go.....

1) Station to Station: Bowie

I love the Berlin stuff but I've worn out so many copies of this....Stay is the best Cocaine song ever, I don't do the stuff but I know what it feels like now!

2) Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

I guess this was the first sound I heard that didn't sound like it had a lot of money behind it, "Lo-fi" if you will. I remember thinking when I was 13 (now I just dated myself) Wait! What? you can do that? I want to do this!!

3) The Idiot: Iggy Pop

The best of the Berlin stuff in my opinion

4) Yes: Fragile

From my nerdy prog rock phase.......this is timeless great stuff

5) OK Computer: Radiohead

I was 18 and it was the late 90's, this album immediately takes be back there.

[Zoltar]

I'm going to try to branch out a little. Many of the alsums already listed greatly affect my life in music:

The Smashing Pumpkins : Gish - would guitar have survived without this?

Eric's Trip : Love Tara - no excuse to not record

Neutral Milk Hotel : In the Airplane over the Sea - Instrumentation and Songwriting.

Josquin des Prez : I'm listening to the Tallis Scholars choir recording. - Not for everyone, but the space and texture of this medieval music is beyond modern more 'complex' composition in many ways. I think undoing a few rules might lead to step forward.

Fourtet - Pause : Music doesn't have to be either boring or the focal point of an experience. Mice Parade and Mogwai also get it.

[Mklein]

I'll Play!
In no particular order:

Seam - The Problem with Me
-- Sooyoung Park can floor you with a whisper. A lesson in dynamics. The beginning of my obsession with Touch & Go records

American Analog Set - Know By Heart
-- Soft, sad, and beautiful. The beginning of my obsession with brushed drums

Godspeed! You Black Emperor - Slow Riot for the New Zero Kanada EP
-- I spun this record every night for like, a month straight. Just huge. The beginning of my obsession with Constellation Records & "post rock"

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
-- Everyone's already said what this album means to me. The beginning of my obsession with noise.

Radiohead - OK Computer
-- Well, duh. The beginning of my obsession with music.

[AnalogousGumdropDecoder]

The Beatles - Revolver/Magical Mystery Tour
When I was about 8 or 9, my dad dubbed these albums from vinyl onto a cassette, which I promptly ganked. I was fascinated with "Tomorrow Never Knows" and begged my dad until he got me a drumset. I would sit around all the time trying to copy what Ringo was doing (say what you want, he's my #2 of all time - between Levon Helm and Pete Thomas). When the drumset wore out its welcome, I switched to guitar. George Harrison was even harder to copy than Ringo Starr, so I ended up learning guitar by NOT trying too hard to actually sound like the record. While that meant my early cover bands were pretty wretched and nothing ever quite sounded right, somehow I think that actually helped me in the long run.

Son Volt - Trace
The best unwanted gift ever (Christmas '97)! I was 13, and I had been ensnared in the world of alternative rock radio. Even though this album was on Warner and had a kinda-hit on it, it opened up my brain to the possibility that there were things going on outside of the mainstream of music and that they seemed to be, for the most part, better. This got me into Elliott Smith, Wilco, Big Star, Whiskeytown, Teenage Fanclub, the Posies, Jeff Buckley, and a bunch of other shit the kids at my school didn't listen to.

Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
My senior year of high school ('02) I finally got around to buying that OTHER Big Star album that I had heard wasn't very good. After hearing "Holocaust," all that mainstream alternashit that I was already starting to lose interest in just sounded that much weaker. Which opened the doors for...

Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
The whole concept of music having "no rules" really sank in. After hearing this 2 or 3 times NOTHING sounded weird to me ever again, and I started completely losing touch with the mainstream of music (simultaneously losing my gauge of other people's tolerance). I tried to persuade my high school friends that this faggy English guy named Morrissey was a genius if you stopped cringing long enough to actually listen to him. I obliviously blasted Steve Reich in my dorm room, prompting my roommate to comment "Hey, dude - your CD's skipping." I also started to like punk rock, hip-hop, and metal.

Carla Bley & Paul Haines - Escalator Over the Hill
Holy shit.

[AnalogousGumdropDecoder]

GOD! That limit of 5 thing is killing me because I keep thinking of records.

Stolen from my dad's cassette collection:
Cream - Strange Brew (best of)
Elton John - Madman Across the Water
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
The Who - Tommy
(I cannot begin to explain how many times I listened to the albums listed above)

Oasis - What's the Story Morning Glory
(made me realize new music didn't have to suck, but unfortunately kickstarted my "Alternative Rock" phase. Also, along with Buffalo Springfield Retrospective, the first CD I ever bought with my own money)

Two albums that figured heavily into my junior high years were the self-titled Collective Soul album and Four by Blues Traveler. I don't like those so much anymore, but they probably influenced me because I was listening to them a lot while I was learning to play instruments. I was also listening to Gin Blossoms and Primus a lot, both of whom I still like in spurts.

XTC didn't so much change my life as they made me very very very mad that I didn't hear them until I was about 19 or 20. They also helped me validate to myself what I was trying to do with music at the time, yet simultaneously gave me the "Damnit, someone already did it and better!" complex. Seriously, fuck those guys. If you're trying to push boundaries while staying within a "pop song" context, what do you do after you've heard Drums & Wires, Black Sea, and English Settlement???

[Tears of Rage]

John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night
Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On
Led Zeppelin - II
David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name

[Jay Reynolds]

Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On

Freakin amazing record. Especailly when you consider what went into it. Talk about DIY. To me, the version of "Thank You" on Riot is the better of the two.