OH SURE WE ALL KNOW OUR FAVORITE ALBUMS OF ALL TIME.

But what about the ones that shaped our life, made us what we are, what got us into music. The first album we shagged to, or the one that reminds you that one time you did something and then something happened and you woke up and somewhere there was also a blow job.

Here's my top SEVEN


1. Nirvana - In Utero
The album that got me into music and shaped me when I was a kid.

2. The Cure - Disintegration.
I remember driving home dejected and defeated one night, and this album came on, capturing just about every aspect of how I felt that day, and continues to BE IMPORTANT to this day. It is also my favorite album, lol!

3. Weezer - Pinkerton.
One time there was this chick I liked and I was waiting for her to get off work so I could tell her how I felt about her, before I ended up talking to her, I was sitting in the cold snow and listening to this album.

4. The Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
One of the important albums of my younger life. Still one of the few that gets to me emotionally. No shame here, well, maybe a little.

5. Green Day - Dookie
Okay, I can't really think of a band I had heard before this. This was THE music for my generation mang. You just don't understand mang, you just don't.

6. Radiohead - OK Computer.
One time me and my friend were driving, he had just gotten his drivers license and I wasn't even old enough to take drivers ed yet. and he was like "Hey u want to go to a comic book convention" and I was like "uh sure ya y not" and he put in OK Computer and it was the first I had ever heard of Radiohead. Later on, we got really lost, ended up in O'Hare airport, but I felt like everything was going to be okay because I had never heard an album this fucking good before.


7. Ween - Chocolate & Cheese
I was really sad for awhile. Ween made me laugh. They saved my life. Enough said.

1) The Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
it was the album that made me seriously love music, and made me want to discover every other amazing album out there.

2) Tori Amos - Boys for Pele
it opened me up to other kinds of music other than Rock, basically it was the first album where i tried something different.

3) Bjork - Post
same as Tori, and it led me on the path to enjoying electronic music, as well as just seeking out "wierd" music

4) Matthew Ryan - May Day
it was a real strange time in my life when i got this album. 3 days later my grandmother died, which set off a chain of 3 more deaths over the next month. this was one of the only albums i listened to during that time, and i a thousand emotions tied up in this record.

5) Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
My first album, and i loved it. Still do in fact.

when i was a radio producer in college, i had interviewees bring in a list of the five most important albums of their life and then would have them talk to me about one of them. that'd be half of the interview.

mine?

weezer - weezer (1994). my parents don't really listen to music. they only have a couple hundred records and half are probably from musicals or holiday-themed. it's been years since i've heard them listen to music outside of the car. it wasn't a big deal growing up. i never placed much value on music as a kid. as i got a little older and my friends were starting to get serious about music, i listened to whatever they had. i doubt i owned any album that someone hadn't told me about first. then i heard "the sweater song" in early summer of 1994. my friends hated it, but i loved it. i bought the album the next day and listened to it over and over. it was the first record that i felt a real connection with. and then i started looking for anything else that sounded like it.

pulp - different class. it was july 4. i was in new york with two friends. it was broiling. we went back to another friend's apartment. their a/c was barely working, but it was cooler there than outside. everyone decided to play chess. i don't play chess, so i just sat there and watched. what caught my attention and kept me sane that day was whatever was on their stereo. i heard great stories about social classes, sex, and belonging. i asked someone what it was. they were too involved in the game to do anything more than mumble. i'd think, "yes, it will be with our minds," "i do want to sleep with common people," "i wonder how she looks in her underwear," etc. before pulp, lyrics were secondary to music. if i didn't know the gist of a song, i could still sing along. that wasn't the case with pulp. the stories were important. they meant something. after discovering them, i've listened to the stories just as much, if not more, than the music.

the avalanches - since i left you. electronic music had never appealed to me. i liked guitars, bass, and drums to be primary in what i listened to. i read some good reviews of since i left you in 2001 and bought it on a whim from a used bin. i listened to it a few times and shelved it. six months later, i put it in my cd case on a vacation. i pulled it out and listened to it on my headphones midway through the trip. it clicked. everything about the album fell into place. it was a like a totally different album than i'd remembered. since then, i don't skip over electronica and i give everything a second chance on my headphones.

Metallica-Master Of Puppets (the first album that assured me music kicked ass. May even be the first cassette I owned).

Misfits-Collection One (Inspired me to pick up guitar. I listened to this quite a lot in jr. hi).

Velvets- s/t (loved those lyrics. Led me to stranger avenues in music.)

Spacemen 3-Sound of Confusion(lost touch with my mind, felt the majesty of the drone at last. Rollercoaster blew my mind).

MBV-Loveless(Holy Shit! right?)

Jesus and Mary Chain -Darklands(for some reason I played this a gazillion times for over a year straight. Now it's not even that important to me).

Aphex Twin- Ambient v2 (started my search for soft electronic tones).

Songs of the Letter People (kindergarten ABCs album that has heavily influenced my musical tastes to this very day. Weird vocals, eclectic sounds from polka to Motown to country music, and questionable non-PC moments abound--the company does not produce the original recording anymore. II had looked for it for many years, until I found a scratched-up vinyl copy at the Mammoth Music Mart before it closed down, and got a friend to burn it for me. When I want to bury myself in solitary nostalgia, I play this at top volume.)
[attachmentid=47]
Songs That Tickle Your Funnybone-The Golden Singers (a beloved bunch of kiddie novelty tunes that also shaped many of my musical tastes)

Sesame Street (probably the first record i ever owned)


The Game--Queen (the first rock record I ever owned)

The Wall--Pink Floyd (I learned that a rock record could tell a story that meant something).

Glee-Bran Van 3000

Absolutely stellar thread idea. Gonna have to put some serious thought into this one.

Songs That Tickle Your Funnybone-The Golden Singers (a beloved bunch of kiddie novelty tunes that also shaped many of my musical tastes)

HOLY SHIT!
My Grandpa gave me that record and I listened to it all the time as well. I still have the vinyl copy and put it on for giggles occasionally. And I like the residents too, go figure.

1) Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
This is the album responsible for getting me into better music. Asked for it for Christmas in the 4th grade, 1987. Two kids about 2-3 years older than me across the street (who were way older in their minds) and I were friends, skateboarded together, etc. They found that tape in my room, teased me and took it outside with them, and promptly smashed it to bits with the end of a skateboard. They then promised to get me into better music, and inadvertently lead to my room being blanketed with posters of The Cure, Depeche Mode, and The Smiths. (I also had a sister 10 years older who was into everything new wave and import of the day.)

2) The Cure - Staring At The Sea / Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Faith / Carnage Visors / Boys Don't Cry / Seventeen Seconds
Strongly gravitated towards the Cure at that time and grabbed all I could. Tapes! So I'm including all these together. May as well have been one album. No one else my age that I knew was listening to this stuff. All of Staring At The Sea was on a mix tape my sister made for me (still have it!) along with Skinny Puppy and some other stuff.

3) The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
The only Smiths album I had around those years, and I think it caught my eye because of the artwork. The vocals really blew me away as did the guitar work. It wasn't as dark musically as The Cure or Depeche Mode, but I remember really listening to the lyrics so intently, going "unhappy birthday? death of a disco dancer? this isn't as cheerful as it sounds!"

Fast forward to 1992, end of 8th grade

4) The Catherine Wheel - Ferment
My sister gave me the tape of Ferment, and from the first notes of Texture I was blown away. Loved the guitar sounds, all the reverb, ambience of it all. Loved the sound of the vocals. Always one of my favorite bands.

(There were tons more great albums from my high school years, but nothing that totally sticks out. Looking back, I've probably gotten into more from that time period in the past 4-5 years than I did back then)

Fast forward to 1996, first year of college

5) Built to Spill - Perfect From Now On
So much from my first two years of college stick out emotionally. Living on my own for the first time, no rules, having girls over and no one saying you can't, dealing with school itself, bad grades and getting depressed about it.
Perfect From Now On followed a friend getting me into BTS' first two albums, and there is no other album in the world like this one. I may go two years without listening to it but never forget that it's there or the thoughts and memories it drums up. I remember getting my girlfriend at the time into it, music like that was totally alien to her. Used to sit and listen to that CD over and over and over missing her or doing homework. I think it's one of the most brilliant and under appreciated albums of all time. The way some people are about Pavement is how I am about BTS. Too few people know the brilliance of Doug Martsch, lyrically, musically and his guitar playing. That said, I don't think I've listened to them in two years!

Part Two coming sometime today...this has been a blast just thinking about this.

"Icka backa soda cracka, icka backa boo!..."

(My first Residents purchase was God In 3 Persons for the unheard of price of $17.99---on cassette!)

This needs to be repeated.

The Cure - Disintegration (one of my favs of all time as well, it was so depressing, I felt every word of it the first time I heard it)

Kitchens of Distinction - Strange Free World (cemented the direction my musical tastes took post HS)

REM - Document (made me realize that college/alternative (pre Q101 mainstream alternative crap) was where all the great music was hiding)

i've got to think on my reply awhile, but i've got to fluff this choice.

extremely underrated band. to write them off as a one-trick pony is a mistake.

great thread, btw.

A few of the more sentimental ones:


Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

The first album I ever bought, and the only modern album I had for a long time. I remember volunteering to wash dishes at night just so I could shut the kitchen door and play it as loud as I could.


The Afghan Whigs - Black Love

Used a few days worth of lunch money to pick this up from a used CD store. Sure I was hungry later that week, but man was it worth it. I'd never heard music that was so cinematic. One of the best opening songs on any album, and the last three songs still blow out as big for me today.


The Stooges - Fun House

I remember getting off at the California blue line one summer afternoon, dirty and sweaty, hungover and feeling worthless. I threw on some headphones and popped in the CD I had just bought. It resonated more clearly than anything else could have at that moment. Still probably my favorite rock album.

I was shocked when I read that opening sentence, but it all makes sense.

This thread isn't complete without DeRo dropping in to list his Flaming Lips and Radiohead discs...

Oh, and using the word "seminal" at least three times.

I'll give this one some thought and post tomorrow.

Radiohead - OK Computer
This was the early 98 I beleive. It had been out about a year, and I'd heard some of the singles, and I had already fallen in love with Paranoid Android. But hearing the entire record, all of those songs in relation to one another, the chaos and beauty of it, made me really begin to understand how amazing a band could really be - primative and and technological at once.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
I was inexcusably late to the party on this one. Partly because I'm lazy, and partly because I had heard all of these mythical things about this record, and I was afraid that when I actually heard it I'd be let down. A girl I worked with and dated/shagged briefly bought it for me as a gift after hearing me mention that I needed to finally pick it up. I recall her telling me that when she went into the record store to look for it the salesguy who helped her told her she was the coolest girl on earth for doing so. I threw it in the stereo, laid back on my bed, stared at the ceiling, and things made sense. I wanted to have that feeling over and over.

Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
This was later in 98, and I was trying to piece together a relationship that I knew would fail in the end. It was a fragile time for me emotionally, and this record seemed to curl around me like a blanket in the dark. This disc and a pack of cigarettes can save your soul.

Pink Floyd - Animals
A lovely girl i used to date had the biggest thing for Pink Floyd. This was say, 95 or so, and I had heard "Money" on the radio about 6000 times and thought "Pink Floyd, how boring and useless and all of that. So one night, after me dismissing the suggestion that we listen to any of her Floyd collection for the umpteenth time, she said "give this one a chance" and put on Animals. Me and the Floyd, we've been like THIS eva since!

Abba - Random Shit
Way back when I was a wee lad, say 3 or 4 (circa 1979 or 80), my family used to drive to my grandparents house in the middle of Kansas - mind you, we lived in KS at the time, so it wasn't a day-long excursion or anything. My grandparents' house had like 4 bedrooms or something, and two of my uncles were still in high school/Jr high and lived there. So people had to be paired up and share rooms beds, etc. I got paired up once with my oldest uncle who was maybe 15 or 16 or so at the time , and when it was time for bed instead of just killing the lights and say "goodnight," he turned on his stereo and put on an Abba record. I recall laying there staring at the glow of the stereo and hearing all these really strange and catchy vocal melodies and slowly drifting off to sleep as various Abba records got spun. On subsequent trips I would adamantly request to sleep in his room, and would beg him to play certain tracks at bedtime. That music will forever be linked to the time in my life where everything was big and elusive, when my grandmother still lived, and when discovering something so simple as playing music as you fell asleep became a life-affirming process - even though the concept of anything being "life-affirming" was far beyond my grasp at the time. I just knew it felt so good. People give me shit all the time for still loving Abba, but I refuse to appologize for it. Some people had teddy bears and security blankets as kids. I had Abba... and held on tight.

A pretty boring top 5, but I'm doing what I can, plugging away here in Alabama.

1.

the only album I listened to from 6-8th grade (my heaviest 'brooding' years), and an album I still put on and enjoy a few times a month. I probably should've outgrown it by now, but I can't seem to get enough.

2.

my favorite album throughout high school, I listened to it so much that by graduation, most of my friends were hardcore ween fans. Chocolate and Cheese and White Pepper are fine and all, but this is their masterpiece.

3.

my first favorite album. my whole family used to dance along to this album in our living room when my brother and I were kids...some of my best memories growing up were soundtracked by Rubber Soul.

4.

One of my girlfriends in high school got me into bright eyes, and for better or worse, both her and this album will both be etched into my memory forever. I listened to it on repeat for weeks after the breakup, crying like a little bitch. I still listen to it from time to time, and I never know beforehand whether it'll drag up good memories, bad ones, or both.

5.

the first time my friend played Is This It for me, I declared it to be the best album I'd ever heard. It came out at just the right time in my life, 16, just got my driver's license, and I would listen to this over and over again in my car while cruising around with my licenseless friends. God, I felt like such a badass back then.

ace of base - the sign

1. cinderella - night songs


first tape my cousin bought me when i was five. i used to listen to it on a care bears tape recorder with one speaker.

2. metallica - and justice for all


first good tape my cousin ever got me.


3. the replacements - let it be

got this when i was 14. my favorite album of all time.


4. stooges - funhouse

cocaine.

chipmunk punk
soundtrack to grease
kiss alive 2
80's house music mix tapes
u2 - unforgettable fire
led zeppelin II
beatles - white album
metallica - ride the lightning
replacements - let it be
rem - life's rich pageant
dag nasty - can i say
all - allroy for president
dinosaur jr - bug
danzig - s/t
neil young - after the goldrush
soundgarden - ultramega ok
pavement - slanted and enchanted
archers of loaf - vee vee
rheostatics - whale music
neutral milk hotel - aeroplane
sea and cake - nassau
godspeed you black emperor - first record
manitoba - up in flames

there is some sort of autobiographical order to these and why they were important to me...

It still amazes me that they covered tunes like "Good Girls Don't" and "Call Me" on that one. What innocence we had then!

talking heads- remain in light
(my mom always played this tape when I was really young)
depeche mode- violator
(my first time with electronics AND vocals; again very young when I heard it)
pink floyd- dark side of the moon
(yeah its easy but my first listen was also my first acid trip at age 14)
david bowie- low
(how can something so minimal be so amazing)
The Verve- A Storm in Heaven
(why 85% of my albums are British)

[
The Verve- A Storm in Heaven
(why 85% of my albums are British)
[/quote]

the only verve album I like from start to finish.

#1. The Cure: Disintegration

The most compelling song cycle of all. Dark beauty meets pop reverie. A visceral moonlit epic awash in the soft dance steps of Animus and Anima in the rain. The point at which I fell in love with the bass guitar.

#2. Interpol: Turn On The Bright Lights

The disc that re-awakened my long shelved passion for new music. The kind of music that undo's the process of skeptical pragmatism for sheer experience. Resonant, full of space, and smoldering noir.

#3. Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts Of The Great HIghway

Sheer beauty awash with Americana and the wonder that is Mark Kozelek's falsetto. Some of the best lyrics ever.. couplets that include K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton. A trip down a road where the angel of loss is at once shown to be adorned in unspeakably beautiful form via "Carry Me Ohio"

#4. PJ Harvey: Is This Desire

An all together too real confrontation with the sinewy, sensuous, and utterly frightening intelligence of Miss Polly Jean Harvey. The disconcerting sirens call of a brilliantly articulated projection of the muse who demands to be approached but never lets you in, in this we find her vunerablity and her ferocity.
Feral Genius that can hold you silent. "Her vocal on "Is This Desire"could strip away a million illusions.

#5. The Trembling Blue Stars: Her Handwriting

The ultimate it feels so good to be sliced into small pieces for the romantic susceptible to the twee virus.
Bobby Wratten acolytes only need apply. The only thing missing here is that he didn't re-record "Sensitve" for inclusion on this disc.

#6. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme/Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue(Tie)

Both being perfect I can not choose. This is where men make music that transmigrates the human to the divine.

#7. My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

Primordial volume, the guitar as an alchemical forge, density of genius that can only be what it sounds like when the sun suffers a broken heart and explodes.


Kudos to Saus For a great topic.

Nirvana: Nevermind
The Ramones: Ramones Mania
Public Enemy: Fear of A Black Planet
The Stooges: Fun House

Yeah, awesome topic. I need to let this one marinate. I'll post from home after some research.

Mine makes it pretty evident I haven't been listening to music very long, but anywho:

1. Muse - Absolution
I heard a few songs of this and thought they were great, so I downloaded the full album. Up until this point I didn't listen to music. While looking for reviews of this album I stumbled upon...

2. Arcade Fire - Funeral
I fell in love with this right away and started furiously listening/looking for more music. Many albums later, I still haven't had anything compare to my first listening experiences with it.

1.

This has been talked about on this board before, but for people of a certain age, their introduction to "grown-ups" music was likely made through these three albums. I can't remember what was the first album I owned, the first album I was able to keep in MY room with MY record player, but I know these three were among the first.

2.

While I was in high school, rock music and I took a break. Disco sucked and radio stations that weren't playing disco were overplaying "The River" and "The Wall". During that time I listened to a lot of jazz fusion. It was a good time for that genre and it allowed me to be "different" (this was high school). As high school ended I began to transition back to rock/pop/soul music, a transition that would take hold in college. I remeber this as the album that started that transition.

3.

There are so many albums I associate with my college experience, it is difficult to pick just one. Although I was late to the party, I finally discovered punk and new wave music at college, through the college radio station and party dance tapes. This album best reflects that experience -- an album I listened to on my walkman to and from classes, on my college radio station while doing homework, and while dancing it up during my frat's parties at night.

4.

After college I was thrown back in to the real world -- a world where the radio stations sucked. It wasn't until 1990, when I moved out to California, that I was recused. There I was able to listen to Live 105 out of San Fanscisco and whatever that staion in San Jose was called. The heydey of "Modern Rock" on broadcast radio, until Nirvana, grunge, and MTV combined to ruin everything. I could easily have picked an album for here by The Smiths, The Cure, or Depech Mode, the holy trinity of these Modern Rock stations. But these two albums are more personal selections and were the two key albums from my first few months in CA.

5.

Broadcast radio stations still suck, but luckily it doesn't matter so much any more. Thanks to the magic of illegal downloading, the Internet has been my main means of exposure to new music for the past 7-8 years. The Ben Folds Five was one of the first acts I discovered soley from downloading their songs. This may be the first album I bought due to the Interent.

1. Kiss--Destroyer. The first music album I ever owned (age five).

2. Iron Maiden--Number of the Beast. The one that really got me into metal (age 10).

3. Slayer--Reign in Blood. The power of this album was frightening. I would listen to it all the way through. Never just a track or two. I wore out a couple of cassettes in my time before getting it on CD. This was also a gateway album to hardcore punk (age 12).

4. Dead Kennedys--Plastic Surgery Disasters. Unusual vocals, sarcastic lyrics, fast guitars, darkly comic title and album cover, Heaven (age 14)

5. Sonic Youth--Daydream Nation . I listened to this one almost every day for close to a year. Went through three cassettes before finaly getting it on CD. Also a gateway album to other great art/noise bands. (age 16).

6. Pere Ubu--Terminal Tower and Datapanik in the year Zero box. Discovering Pere Ubu insured that I would be a record geek forever. The energy of those early singles and the artiness and experimentaion of the later albums still blows me away. They are and always will be my favorite band (age 24)

7. Flaming Lips--The Soft Bulliten. I bought this just before I went to Korea and it was the only album I carried with me. I would listen to it while I walked around the city. Strange new music in a strange new land (age 27).

1.
The second half of my life starts here.


2.
The immediate mind-blowing experience so many people attest to didn't happen for me. Instead this album has burned slowly for me over the last 9.5 years or so. With every life-changing experience I have, it reveals itself anew. Don't ask me what I mean by that.


3.
For the first time this was an album that was all mine. The Breeders were a band no one else I knew was into, and though it was the radio single that brought me out to buy it at Target, I relished the feeling that what I had was a secret that no one else was privvy to. Last Splash, like Dirty and Loveless, is also probably the biggest reason I didn't have a girlfriend until well into college. I encountered Kim Deal at a formative age and suddenly none of the girls I knew seemed that cool anymore.


4.
I was proudly drug-free through my teens, and until I came across The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld in high school, I loathed the idea of psychedelic music in general. This changed all that.


5.
Stumbled across this just when I needed it. It didn't really help me out of the fucked situation I was stuck in at the time, but it at least offered condolances that I might not be alone.


6.
When TNT came out, I had no knowledge of post-rock or any expectation of what a band like Tortoise could or should sound like. It was a simpler time and my ideas of rock and jazz and electronica were very set in stone and compartmentalized. After hearing this, there were no more barriers.


7.
First album I owned. Okay, it was my mom's tape. Life was never happier than it was in those days, but those feelings are locked into this album and still come out every time I play it.


8.
High school angst soundtrack.


9.
I don't think I've listened to an album as many times as this and still been able to completely lose myself in it every time I play it.


10.
All of my friends who heard it thought this album was trash. I never looked at some of them the same way ever again.

This is fast becoming my favorite thread ever. Everyone should jump on this.

just imagine anything that sounds similar to these and you get the drift.

oh, and the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack

1. The Beatles - Help! / The Beach Boys - Endless Summer:
The earliest memories I have are the ones of my siblings and me running around the living room to my dad's vinyl copies of these two records. I was 5 year old who knew all of the words to "Help!." I loved that movie as well. My kids will be brought up on these records two, more than likely.

2. Nirvana - Nevermind:
My best friend in grade school had an older brother. I did too, but his was much cooler. He was into much cooler rock music (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana) than my then current favorites (Ace of Base, Jon Secada... whom I liked because they were all over VH1 and I wasn't allowed to watch MTV). I remember the very first day I heard of Nirvana was the day Kurt Cobain's body was found, which also was the day I learned what "suicide" was. A few years later, "Come As You Are" would be the first song I ever learned to play on guitar.

3. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
This band was the first band I singled out as my absolute favorite band. I was already listening to modern rock radio religiously, so how could I escape this album when it came out? It just felt like it belonged to me and only me. I even did a project in sixth grade about them.

4. Korn - Follow the Leader
Though I am more embarrassed by this album, I cannot deny how high I placed this album on a pedistal in those stupidly self-hating middle school years. It was heavy and spoke directly to my disatisfaction with everything around me. Listening to it again only brings up bad memories and makes me very angry... which I guess was the whole point in the first place.

5. Radiohead - Kid A / Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Then came these two, #1 and #2 respectfully on my list for my favorite records of all time the last SOMB album poll. "Optimistic" got played on Q101, and it opened the floodgates of great music. I didn't know it could be this weird and yet this wonderful to listen to over and over again. It was the soundtrack to school almost every morning. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came and felt very similar to Kid A. Both were about bands who were deconstructing themselves and coming back with something greater than what they started with. These records signaled change, and being like most kids who dreamed of leaving home, change was the greatest feeling in the world.

Honorable mentions
The Arcade Fire - Funeral / Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
My #1 records from the last two years already feel like they'll be with me for a long time. Funeral is a record for every kid who wants to grow up, but can't seem to figure out how. And Illinois is just something special... I'm tempted to just spew hyperbole all over the place. So I'll just end it here.

Many people aren't aware that the Sundays album is good from beginning to end, outside of the radio hit. I LOVE the guitar work on that album!

rem... murmer
metallica... and justice for all
guns and roses... appetite for destruction
janes addiction... nothing's shocking
beatles... everything after but including "help"
achers of loaf... icky mettle, vee vee, vs. the greatest of all time
pavement... slanted and enchanted, crooked rain crooked rain
the multiple cat... the entire catalogue
smashing pumkins... gish

these records got me to 30 in one piece

kid a

~~R.E.M. "New Adventures in Hi-Fi"
The first album I ever loved from start to finish. I remember my mom picked it up for me while I was at school and it was there waiting for me when I got home. But I can tell you the exact time it sunk in for me. My family took a train cross country for two days to get to Vegas to visit my uncle. I came on the train armed with a Game Gear, walkmen, and a taped copy of "Hi-Fi." It's all I listened to for four days. The only album I can say I have ever done that with.

~~Weezer "Pinkerton"
I was probably in 8th grade when I heard this for the first time, and it struck me deep. The emotion and power in the lyrics really got to me. Also to have underlying humor scattered throughout really just mixed and jibed well for me.

~~Deltron 3030 "Deltron 3030"
I was just getting into some hip hop, and Del the Funky Homosapien was one of the artists I was really a fan of. I heard the track "Virus" on one of the DirectTv music channels, grew excited, and ran out to pick the album up wherever I could. I actually had Threshold special order it for me. When it came in, I went home and flipped it on, and it took me to this whole different dimension of music. It was one of the first concept discs I had ever heard, and everything about it was magical. The samples, the beats, the rhymes and flow. Everything about it was magical. It painted such a vivid, dark, and bleak look into the future. To this day, it is my favorite hip-hop disc ever and one of my all time top 5 I would say.

~~The Strokes "Is This It?"
I was absolutely blown away by "Last Nite" the first time I heard it. To me, there was nothing even close to its sound. It's raw anger and power. The video for it was really what sold me. It was ballsy to make your first video a live performance, but the Strokes did it, and with energy, passion, and a drunken stuppor. I picked up the album after hearing the hype, and yeah, sure enough it was a whole 30+ minutes of that packed neatly together. Everything from start to finish on that disc sounded so fresh to me when music was being overrun by nu-metal and the likes. I remember sitting in my ex girlfriend's bedroom and listening to it and really not saying anything. Just enjoying it as she did her homework. It was rare that I'd ever do things like that when I had the chance to pounce like a horny schoolboy. But the Strokes held my attention.

~~Grandaddy "The Sopthware Slump"
The album that really brought me into the world of "indie" music. I caught the video for "Crystal Lake" on M2 and thought the video was hilarious and that the music accompanying it was really different, but good. I picked the cd up on a whim at Threshold, and it captivated me. It was a little to bizarre and hard for me to fully comprehend at points, but still it was the first time I went to school ever with my walkmen and when people asked what I was listening to, I told them and they had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. It made me feel better than everyone. My egotism only got worse from there.

U2-War
Rush-Moving Pictures
Fugazi-13 songs
Naked Raygun-Jettison
Slint-Spiderland
Ministry-Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste
The God Machine-Scenes from Second Storey
Hum-Electra 2000
Jane's Addiction-Nothing's Shocking

I forgot....Helmet "Meantime"

oh god Rush!!! i could i have forgotten about them for my list. Test For Echo blew my 10 year old mind. and they were also my first favorite band, all thanks to Test For Echo.

Charlie Rich - Behing Closed Doors - Uncle bought me a copy after I wore his out 3 years old
Kiss Alive II and then many others 4 yrs to this day
Journey - Escape about 8 I'd say
Culture Club - Color by Numbers Duran Duran - Rio 10 and 11
Motley Crue 12
Metallica - master of Puppets - 14
Guns N Roses Appetite 16
then its a blur of Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim until Nirvana came and blew my mind. Now I really am open to anything as long as it is good

i've thought on this enough. i'm just afraid that i'm going to forget some cherished childhood gem, and someone else will name it first.

ac/dc - highway to hell / dirty deeds
van halen - I
pink floyd - the wall

the albums with which i most equate elementary school; the joys of sharing a room with a brother 5 years my senior. to a fifth grade boy, is there a better song than "big balls"?

iron maiden - number of the beast
judas priest - defenders of the faith (even moreso than screaming for vengeance)

7th grade; a troubled LA youth in OP shorts, Vans, and an ozzy shirt. i'm pretty sure there was a painter's cap involved here as well. i wore out the grooves on both of these records. at the drop of a hat, i could still sing every word to number of the beast unaccompanied, including a better vincent price than vincent himself. and how about that unfortunate epiphany of a few years ago upon a new examination of priest's lyrics with the knowledge that rob halford was gay? ah, to be a naive 13 yr old again.

metallica - ride the lightning

when my family moved to the SF bay area in the summer of 84, sports and music were my tickets to making new friends. my new group of friends turned me on to this up and coming local band. an otherwise experienced metal ear had never heard anything like this. so damn fast and powerful, this album turned me on to a genre that would be the soundtrack to the pregame of every football game i ever played (HS and college). and though i'm looooong past the notion of it ever being by my own hand, i'd still like "fade to black" to be playing when i die.

rem - document

this actually might be my least favorite rem album now, but i'll always love it for two reasons: it was the first actual CD i ever bought (bye bye vinyl), and it was my gateway record, expanding my horizons to accept non-metal types of music - a pretty big step for a high school kid. again, i'll give a nod to the older brother (in college by now) for turning me on to rem, even though he hated this album when it came out.

steve miller band's greatest hits

what was the wayne's world line about frampton comes alive... something to the effect of, if you live in the suburbs, it was practically issued to you? ditto for stevie "guitar" miller. some fun times in HS with this on repeat in the background.

mama's & papa's greatest hits
james taylor - greatest hits

a couple of discs that my parents may or may not have noticed missing when i packed up and left for college. don't feel too bad folks - consider it confirmation that your musical taste didn't [/i]completely[i] suck!

toad the wet sprocket - fear

ok, you can officially make fun of me now. the first concert i ever saw with my future wife, and i bought the album shortly thereafter. hootie opened for them, if you really wanted to know.

nirvana/soundgarden/pearl jam/alice in chains

my jr./sr. years in college, you couldn't swing a stick without making one of these CD's skip. loved em all then, and still do.

dave matthews band - under the table and dreaming

i hated it when these guys got as big as they did. i hate even more the backlash that it resulted in. my first post-college year. when i think about this record, i recall my two roomates and all of our girlfriends embarking on our careers, yet still gathering every thursday to watch seinfeld and friends. it was a fun, last year for me in california before we all went our separate ways. my life is so vastly different now, but this album flashes some fun glimpses of the past.

creed - human clay

why God, why?!?! after about 6 hours of labor, delirious from a lack of sleep, and drugged to the gills, how does my wife have the wherewithal to recognize that stupid "Arms Wide Open" song is playing softly on the radio as our son decides to make his grand entrance into the world?

no matter how. just know that i had to buy the album for posterity's sake, and that me & creed are forever, inextricably linked.


file these under: "ask me in 10 years":

shins - chutes too narrow
sufjan - illinois
rogue wave - descended like vultures

that was a great and brutally honest reply

I won't make fun. I still love this album. It has a pretty special place for me too actually. My wife and I practically lived on this disc for 6 months or so.

Lets not forget this one:

I been thinkin' about this one before the topic was posted. This list is by no means complete:

Leonard Bernstein's Concerts For Young People
I can't find a picture on the web of the box set we used to have. It was my first introduction to music when I was a child. It had Aaron Copeland's Billy The Kid on it, which I still love to this day, even though people slag off Copeland.

The Beatles - Abbey Road and Revolver
I spent the summer of 1979 listening to these albums. Drove my family crazy.

The Blue Aeroplanes - Friendloverplane
I put on the CD and Veils of Colour came on. I programmed the CD player to just play that track, and I played that song for about six hours.

The Jazz Butcher - Cult of The Basement
Susie is the only song that's ever physically pushed me out of a building.

Big Country - Wonderland and The Crossing
All recorded during the same sessions. Great writing, tight delicate guitar playing, or huge roaring noises (an e bow has a lot of range). Steve Lillywhite's drum treatments. Tony Butler's nimble and muscular bass. Not for everyone, but it was like air for me.

Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
Most people pick their nose at Dire Straits, but this album still catches my attention.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Izzy covered this.

Sugar - Copper Blue
A great angry record. An angry time in my life with my job, my relationship, etc. I could put this CD on and go go go. Got me through the day's friction. Speaking of which...

Rush - Moving Pictures
My life is late-blooming. Moving Pictures was my first "modern" pop music purchase-- and I was in my first year of college. Most of my musical education happened after I turned 30.

The Cars - Panorama
I had heard the first two records, and I really enjoyed them. But the approach on this record caught me offguard. The pop band melted away into these nasty dark synth chords, odd timings, odd time changes, and fairly bleak lyrics. I really dug it.

Barney Kessel - Easy Like, Vol 1
When I started learning to play the guitar, I got this record. I'll never be able to approach Kessel's ease and grace with the guitar, but he has (at least on this record) the ability to make the guitar breathe. You can feel the whole instrument pulsing, even between the notes.

This album will definitely make my list. EVERY song on it was either about me at the time, or about someone close to me. Screw anyone who thinks toad wasn't a great band. Fear/Dulcinea/Coil is one of the best three album runs of the 90's. You should absolutely check out Glen Phillips' solo stuff, if you haven't already.

toad/Glen had this habit of having bands open for them that eventually became huge as well...Hootie, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Nickel Creek...

Brian

thanks guys!

Fear is a great record.