Albums That Changed Your Life

Albums that once you heard them you knew things would never be the same again.

The Wild,The Innocent,The E Street Shuffle-Bruce Springsteen
Songs Of Leonard Cohen-Leonard Cohen
The Modern Lovers-The Modern Lovers
Big Country-The Crossing

 

Orange Blossom Special by Johnny Cash. I first heard it at the age of 9 in '65 and I've been a fan ever since.

 

herbie hancock HEADHUNTERS

 

Van Halen I and KISS Alive II.

My introduction to hard rock at age 10 in 1978. Been hooked ever since!

 

See also: A musical moment that changed your life...

 

Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record

Up until this album, I was about as casual about my music, as a teenager could get. Then this album hit me like a ton of bricks shortly after it's release in late 1976. From that moment on, music has been my passion.

 

Rush - 2112. One day while listening to it I said to myself "I wish I played guitar". Then I 'realized'all I had to do was buy one. So I did

Sonic Youth - Goo. Opened the doors for all kinds of newer and totally different music.

Beatles - Sgt Peppers. I'm 33, and probably like many others around my age, I was born already knowing all those famous Beatles tunes. I thought they kicked butt, but nothing else. In my 20s I went as far as buying the white album and Let It Be. Sure, they were great, but it wasn't till I listened to Sgt Peppers start to finish that I 'got it'. It's been a few years since then, and I'm still as obsessed as that day.

Led Zeppelin II. Bought a copy back when I was a teenager because people everywhere kept mentioning them. That was the album that got me into classic rock. Still one of my all-time favs.

 

A HARD DAYS NIGHT - United Artists

A perfect album, full of perfect songs, at a perfect time. Even the instrumental tracks were fun to listen to, after all it was a soundtrack album!

 

Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries (I liked this one so much that I taught myself how to play many of the songs. Playing "Rickover's Dream" is like a religious experience.)

No-Man - Flowermouth

Yes - Close To the Edge (many years after its release)

Van Halen - 1984

Toy Matinee

 

this is kind of like the "if you were stranded on a desert island" question, I change my mind by the minute. but here goes

Pink Floyd...Meddle and / or Atom heart mother
Led Zepplin I
Albert King...Born under a bad sign


I'll change my mind before I can hit enter rhough.

 

Meet The Beatles
Sgt. Peppers
Nirvana-Nevermind

 

Bruce Springsteen's "The River."

I didn't know his music AT ALL back in late 1980 when the album came out. Somehow, I had remained competely unaware of Springsteen even during the "Born To Run" days, though I was just 15 at the time and listened to nothing but The Beatles.

Anyway, in 1980 I bought "The River" partly because I sort of liked "Fade Away," the second single from the album which was getting some radio airplay. More important, though, was the fact that my idol, John Lennon, had some nice things to say about Bruce in the Playboy interview that came out around that same time. A few days after I read that interview, Lennon was killed.

I was pretty depressed by that. I had worshipped The Beatles since I was about eight years old, but in the wake of Lennon's death that music was just way too depressing for me to hear ... and would remain so for a full nine years.

So i went out looking for some new music. I wound up at a Montgomery Ward's store where I saw "The River." I remember being reluctant to plunk down $8 for a double-LP by an artist with whom I was completely unfamiliar. I really hesitated. Kept putting it down and then picking it back up. Finally, I figured if this Springsteen guy had impressed Lennon then there must be something to him. I bought the album and took it home.

Well, the first time I played that album, it took about three hours because after each song I was so blown away by what I had just heard that I kept lifting the needle to go back and hear that same song again. I must have played the opening track on Side One ("The Ties That Bind") about four times before I let it play through to the second song.

I was MAJOR fan before I even hit sides Two, Three and Four. Within weeks, I was buying 45s for their non-LP B-sides, driving to Chicago for bootlegs and imports, looking for whatever I could get my hands on. That was the start of a 25-year Springsteen fixation (obsession?), but what's really significant is how that album totally changed my view of the world and the people in it and my place in it. Everything changed after hearing that album.

In late 1984, during the "Born In The USA" tour, I saw him play an amazing show in Ames, Iowa. Afterward, I lingered around outside the arena, in the snow, just to catch a glimpse of him. After about an hour of waiting, a security guy emerged and took me and the handful of others out there down the ramp to the backstage area where we all got to meet Bruce one-on-one and get some autographs. I was stunned that at that point in Bruce's career -- when he was easily the biggest rock star on the planet -- he took the time to meet individually with a bunch of fans in Iowa after a show that had clearly left him exhausted. It was inspiring.

A few months ago, I saw my 55th Springsteen concert. The man still has it. And, yeah, he's still just as generous with his time when it comes to the fans. After the show, he stopped and signed autographs for the people waiting outside.

Clark

 

When I heard Elvis Costello's Armed Forces in 1979, my collection consisted of things like REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Kansas, Al Stewart, ELO & ELP...my taste in music changed a lot that year.

 

My Top 5 touchstones:

QUADROPHENIA
IN A SILENT WAY
MARQUEE MOON
ON THE BEACH
NO DICE

Bundle 'em in my coffin, cause it's cold way down there.

 

i have a few that hit me at pivotal moments or changed my musical tastes.

led zeppelin IV - i was not into music at all in jr. high, but all of the cool kids were, so i went to peaches and bought this on 8 track because it had "stairway to heaven" on it, and that was the only song that i knew.
i may have still been a geek, but suddenly i was a music geek.
to this day it is still one of my all time favorite albums.

the clash - london calling - prior to picking this up shortly after it came out (once again on 8 track), i was into the typical midwest hard rock / fm radio staples. this album changed everything. it's in my top 3 to this day.

van morrison - into the music - let's just say this album accidentally helped me through the most difficult period in my life. my all-time favorite album.

john coltrane - a love supreme - i decided in the late 80's that i was bored with popular music, and maybe i should explore jazz. i knew nothing about it, and walking down the jazz aisle was confusing to me, so i picked up this only because i "knew" who john coltrane was from listening to the dream syndicate. i have been a jazz geek ever since, and now more than half of my entire collection is jazz.

 

Freak Out
Sgt Peppers
In the Court of the Crimson King
The Yes Album
Crime of the Century
Nirvana - Never Mind

The one that probably changed my life the most was the Japanese stereo pressing of 'A Hard Day's Night' which I got when it was released in the middle 70's. At first I actually thought it was not the Beatles but an incredible simultation since it seemed like a multitrack mix. Of course it was done on 4 track machines.

Of course I got all the US Beatle albums as they came out, but I had no idea that AHDN was so well produced. This led to my reawakening to the entire Beatle catalog, but this time around I went with the UK versions.

Had to include Nirvana as I had gotten totally out of pop music in 1986 until I saw them on SNL. I reemmersed myself into the alternative scene of the 90's and there was much good music to come.

 

Born To Run --as I moved on to college, so did his music move up one notch

The Basement Tapes --I never 'got' Dylan until this. I never knew how making music in such an intimate setting could reflect in the grooves.

Tyranny and Mutation--showed me when I stepped away from the pack annd took a chance on a band no one heard of, sometimes the pack followed me

and my first album, Rubber Soul.

 

I was going to post a similar sentiment...The same month that I discovered this LP, I had just began buying LPs with my own money. The River, Double Fantasy, Pink Floyd The Wall and Glass Houses all purchased toward the end of 1980...I remember this was around the first time I considered playing hookie and going record shopping...Now that I think about it, not much has changed in all these years

 

Alice Cooper's "School's Out". Heard it at a birthday party when I was 12. David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane" was also pivotal, maybe even more so, but it happened as a consequence of having discovered Alice Cooper. Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of The Moon" was also a landmark for me. From then on, my friends went on listening to pop music (Philadelphia soul and the like) while I started exploring "cooler" sounds without caring for what they thought about it.

 

"Meet the Beatles" - Enuff said...

 

The Police - Ghost in the Machine.
To put things in perspective: I didn't start buying records and CDs until I was in high school six years ago. I actually was turned off a bit the first time I knowingly heard these songs on the radio, but after a few months (and a few dreams!) "Spirits in the Material World" and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" REALLY got under my skin and I began to appreciate them as songs with an almost ethereal quality to them. I found this used LP soon after, and loved it. Reggatta de Blanc is my favorite Police album nowadays, but Ghost in the Machine remains a favorite of mine.

Peter Gabriel - So.
I bought this CD two years later (although it seems later than that!), when I was in my senior year of high school. That was probably the most frustrating year I had, and I turned to music a lot as a means of "escape." This was my first Peter Gabriel album. I liked the music a lot: "Red Rain" and "Mercy Street" were very atmospheric songs, I found the lyrical themes of songs like "Don't Give Up" and "That Voice Again" easy to relate to, and "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" was a great coda to end the flow on the CD edition after the sheer power of "We Do What We're Told." It also interested me in many of his other albums from 1977 on, and early Genesis material as well.

These three albums knocked me out the first time I heard them! They remain favorites of mine, and greatly influenced my appreciation of older music:

Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark
My mom had this CD (having sold off all her albums years ago ), and one day I became so curious about Joni Mitchell that I sneaked off with it to find out for myself, and decided to skip directly to "Car on a Hill." Considering that I had little idea of what to expect, I was blown away! This remains one of the finest albums I've heard of any kind.

Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
I listened to this over and over again after buying it. Peter Gabriel's vocal start on "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" gave me chills when I heard it, and it became even better after the instruments kicked in!

Yes - The Yes Album
I bought this almost precisely a year ago. The first few seconds of "Yours Is No Disgrace" alone may be the most heavenly thing I've heard!

And seriously...the first two Third Eye Blind albums, and Collective Soul by Collective Soul. I listened to these CDs a LOT in high school, and they had a major influence on forming my thoughts and memories of the time.

 

Jimi Hendirx, "Are You Experienced?".

I was sitting at my desk doing homework, listening to the radio...and hear "Foxy Lady" for the very first time. Got a ride to the record store the very next day, and picked up the album (noticed that Jimi was a black guy - totally unexpected), came home and wore that puppy right out on my meatgrinder record player.

I still love Jimi, but could do without ever hearing "Foxy Lady" again in this life. But that song and that LP at that moment completely changed everything for me. Like many, may others, I listened in awe and wonder as Jimi created sounds that were literally unbelieveable to my little Catholic school-boy ears.

 

You must be a very good guitarist!

 

I'm loving hearing the stories behind the choices, rather than the "laundry list" that threads like this often see. Keep those stories coming!