Five albums that changed your life

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.

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.

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