Five albums that changed your life

I saw this topic on a football forum (of all places) and thought that it was pretty interesting.  Here was my contribution.

I've done this several times before on different forums, but I've got no idea where to and when, so let's try once again.


1. Green Day - Dookie

I'd heard and liked some rock music before, starting with Metallica and Alice Cooper in the tender age of six, but around my tenth year in '95-'96 having heard When I Come Around I copied this album from my cousin. Dookie is my first true love and still a trusted companion after thirteen or so years (and Tre Cool was my first drumming hero, thanks to the brilliant fills in Basket Case). A week ago I gave this the 1537th listen and did it still sound good? Hell yeah. The sh*tloads of nostalgia aside, it's still the best punk rock record I've heard.


2. Iron Maiden - Brave New World

I'd found Metallica again around the late 90s and so renewed my interest in heavier music, but since there's only five spots to fill, I've got to choose the next heavy crush, that had a bigger impact in my life in general. One day in the summer of 2000 a friend came to my house with this album and during the first song I'd become a fan. Later I collected the rest of their works and joined a Finnish Maiden fan forum called Maidenfinland. A couple of people in Maidenfinland put up their own music/pets/life in general bulletin board in 2003 and invited me along. On that board and the accompanying IRC channel I got to know a girl who seemed to have a similar kind of interest in music as me (that was in the early 2005 so I had already expanded my tastes beyond punk and metal). We chatted away frequently, met a couple of times at gigs and of these following four years we've spent the last three together and the last two and a half under the same roof. So Maiden and Maiden fans really changed my life, not just musically 


3. Absoluuttinen Nollapiste - Nimi muutettu

One of my favourite Finnish rock bands has for over ten years been Apulanta, and when their drummer Sipe Santapukki recorded a solo album I of course bought it. On it he invited his favourite Finnish vocalists to sing on tracks he had written and performed entirely by himself. The first song was a collaboration with Tommi Liimatta, the singer in an obscure prog-pop-rock band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste. He had a weird but somehow really cool voice and the lyrics he had written (an exception to the album rule) for the song were brilliant. I had to get my hands on some more of his material, and this was the first album I heard from them. The first song was mostly based on piano and flute and again brilliant lyrics. There were no distorted guitars or fast drums or anything. This album broadened my idea of good music like nothing before and shortly after I found Sigur Rós and via them the next entry...


4. King Crimson - Red

I think it was around 2003 when I visited the same cousin who got me into Green Day. I was flipping though her cd collection and saw Starless and Bible Black by King Crimson. I had heard the band's name before somewhere so I put it on. The first four songs didn't do much for me but the fifth, Trio, was really beautiful and reminded me of Sigur Rós which was one of my dearest new acquaintances. I mentioned later to a Maiden-related friend whom I knew to be a prog fan that I'd liked a Crimso song, he replied by sending me Starless and telling me to listen to the best song in the world. Well, if someone saw my Ultimate PA Song List entry, you know that eventually I agreed with him Red was the first Crimso album and prog album overall that I bought and it was the start of a wonderful journey that still continues...


5. Neil Young - Harvest Moon

Could as well be Harvest or After the Gold Rush, these three albums had been bought by my girfriend some years ago and they were lying amonst our collection with no interest from me at all and very little from her. One day about a year ago I was feeling bored and felt like listening to something new, and put this album on. It just clicked, don't really know why. I spent the following days listening to these three albums and pretty soon I started digging deeper into his catalogue. Now I have about 15 of his solo albums, some CSNY stuff and recently I've taken and interest in other singer/songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake whom I knew before Young (introduced to me by the same cousin), but only recently I've learned to really appreciate his records. These Young albums have been a gateway to my newest adventure: singer/songwriter, folk and country.

This kind of post is always so hard - how do you pick just 5?  But let's try (in no particular order):

The first album I can remember buying with my own money.

I had never heard of him before finding this album, and couldn't stop listening.

The energy this album exudes is incredible, and all the songs are timeless.

If you have to ask, you won't get it.

Made for a powerful soundtrack to an interesting time in my life.

Cool topic. 

Now I've got to think a bit, you're making my head hurt.

1. Rick Wakeman's - Journey To The Center Of The Earth.  Got me in to prog before I actually got into prog.  Shares equal footing with the King Arthur one.

2. Dixie Dregs - What If.  An intense progressive instrumental album.  I would go on to seeing this band perform live more times than I will actually ever see another band live.

3. Kansas - Point Of Know Return.  Kansas was my first band to see live and that was their latest album at the time. 

4. Skeleton Crew - Learn To Talk.  Don't ask me why, it just came to mind.  Saw them live about the time I was just trying to seriously play instruments and had my first keyboard (Korg Poly 61) and a black Electric Kramer with a whammy bar.  (I'm still trying to seriously play my current instruments.)

5. Mahavishnu Orchestra - Apocalypse.  Holy crap, intense classical/jazz/rock fusion.  As a teen when I was off from school I fell asleep one afternoon with one of the sides playing on the turntable on repeat.  Probably warped me for life...



Edited by Slartibartfast - April 04 2009 at 09:13

Back in Black - AC/DC - I started playing guitar because of that record.

#1 
My first purchase from the Purpes, even if it didn't blew me away in the instance, having consider it very heavy, I was completely wrong. Such awesome riffs, stunning vocals, and great solos. The album that introduced me to all the Heavy stuff.

#2
Not a favorite album of mine anymore, but the movie, the album that introduced me to Prog in a certain way, just blew my away, the moment I saw it the 25th of December in 2005. Simply changed my perception of music, and surely 'art'. Any catchy Pop single at that moment that was released I cared less from then onwards, they couldn't show me such brilliance this movie had showed me.

#3
On consequence of having loved The Wall, 1 year later, my brother was really into The Who, and my dad purchased the movie of Tommy. Once again it blew my ears off, fell in love with The Who, and surely also added a big part of my nowadays love of Prog and 70's/60's Rock.

Tommy and The Wall movies just blew all the Pop I was listening, they really changed my music life. While Come Taste the Band, changed my perception of Heavy Rock, and from then onwards love the band, and any band with some fierceful hammond.




Edited by cacho - April 04 2009 at 09:40

Dean wrote: Draconian Times Not Prog, and I have to admit it was Holly Warburton's sumptuous cover picture that prompted me to pick this up, but from first spin I was hooked - this album brought me back to seriously listening to metal and set me off on a trail of finding deep brooding metal that led to Opeth, Pain Of Salvation and Emperor.

These are the big five.  I could easily have chosen five others, but these occupy specific points:

cacho #4 Another very well crafted album in it's entirety, played it to death when I didn't know many other bands, than Pink Floyd and some pop. I know this album by hard, you can see me 2 or 3 years ago, playing every night going to sleep with this great album. [/QUOTE wrote:       A favorite of mine as well, but one of the last Who records I heard. If only Moonie was up to his early 70's playing this would be an undisputed masterpiece. Nonetheless the songwriting and playing from Entwhistle and Townsend was never more succint.   As for me.... 1. The Who

 

Edited by mr.cub - April 04 2009 at 10:18