Your all time most influential albums

[pap]

Marilyn Manson says that music is the strongest form of magic there is.

 

I'm inclined to agree. Music affects my moods and opinions more than anything else, except for intoxicating substances - although in my experience, most of those just make music better

 

I listened to Rage Against The Machine's eponymous debut in 1993, and it's safe to say that I've never really gotten over it. I was 18 at the time, and it blew me away. Still does, because it's as relevant now as it is then, probably more. Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet was my gateway into the world of rock, which I've been into ever since. Sleater-Kinney's One Beat was also a massive album for me; full of post-9/11 questioning. Finally, Kanye West's Late Registration and Ghostface Killah's Fishscale reacquainted me with rap and hip-hop, some 20 years after I used to construct makeshift aerials to pick up the pirate London rap stations from Southampton.

 

All of these albums, and more, are an indelible part of me - and I'm not sure I could now be without them.

 

Which albums have influenced you the most?

[dinger]

Wow, good thread idea man! I'm going to take this to mean records that either opened my eyes to a new type of music, or a new way of listening. And they're all going to be records I first heard in my youth. I don't know if this is the case for everybody, but I tend to find people are more musically conservative when they're young, but some people become more broad minded as they go on. That was certainly the case for me, where now (in my late 30s) I'm hungry for new music from anywhere, all the time, in pretty much any style. So these days records are opening my mind to new types of music every few days but aren't going to be influential in quite the same fundamental, youth-quaking way. Anyhow...

 

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel, which was the only decent record my parents owned and was the first music I remember hearing which could be described as music that tried to be beautiful.

 

Ride The Lightning - Metallica, the first record I had that I was fairly certain my parents wouldn't like and was therefore exclusively mine.

 

Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - The Orb and Selected Ambient Works 85-92 - Aphex Twin, as the Orb sample said, "I've been waiting for music like this all my life". No need for melody, it just goes where it goes...

 

Tri Repetae - Autechre, the first time I had to sit down and work out what was going on, whether this counted as music, how I was supposed to engage with it. Listening to it now, in the light of what I've listened to since, it doesn't sound difficult at all, but at the time it was mind-blowing.

 

Neu! - Neu!, particularly the opening track Hallogallo. It goes on for ages! And pretty much nothing happens! And yet it remains engaging every time I play it! It would be my desert island disc and I could play it indefinitely. Completely changed how I go about making music.

 

There's a few then.

[RonManager]

Not exhaustive by any means, but my criteria are 'emotional attachment to my life at the time and/or now, few if any weak tracks and constantly listened to'

 

motown chartbusters vol 3 - the sound at it's height.

 

joy division - closer. Pure emotion laid bare, I'd heard nothing like it before.

 

siouxsie - juju

 

polly jean harvey - from 'dry' in 1992 through to 'let england shake' 2010. Each album is different from the last and I never tire, she connects to me like no other ever has done or ever will. Tried to pick one album but can't.

Edited 3 May, 2013 by RonManager

[trousers]

Not sure where to start with this one to be honest...

 

[pap]

Wow, good thread idea man! I'm going to take this to mean records that either opened my eyes to a new type of music, or a new way of listening. And they're all going to be records I first heard in my youth. I don't know if this is the case for everybody, but I tend to find people are more musically conservative when they're young, but some people become more broad minded as they go on. That was certainly the case for me, where now (in my late 30s) I'm hungry for new music from anywhere, all the time, in pretty much any style. So these days records are opening my mind to new types of music every few days but aren't going to be influential in quite the same fundamental, youth-quaking way. Anyhow...

 

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel, which was the only decent record my parents owned and was the first music I remember hearing which could be described as music that tried to be beautiful.

 

Ride The Lightning - Metallica, the first record I had that I was fairly certain my parents wouldn't like and was therefore exclusively mine.

 

Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - The Orb and Selected Ambient Works 85-92 - Aphex Twin, as the Orb sample said, "I've been waiting for music like this all my life". No need for melody, it just goes where it goes...

 

Tri Repetae - Autechre, the first time I had to sit down and work out what was going on, whether this counted as music, how I was supposed to engage with it. Listening to it now, in the light of what I've listened to since, it doesn't sound difficult at all, but at the time it was mind-blowing.

 

Neu! - Neu!, particularly the opening track Hallogallo. It goes on for ages! And pretty much nothing happens! And yet it remains engaging every time I play it! It would be my desert island disc and I could play it indefinitely. Completely changed how I go about making music.

 

There's a few then.

 

Why thanks, dinger.

 

My experiences are largely the same as yours. I was a closed minded bugger when I was a nipper; to my detriment as well. As a little metaller, nothing else would do. I even sneered at the Pixies! The Pixies, FFS! At that time, I was much more interested in discovering the roots of rock. Listened to a lot of Led Zep, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple - along with loads of Hendrix.

 

The club scene was really the dam-bursting moment as far as becoming musically eclectic was concerned. Once I'd accommodated that into my life, everything else was fair game.

 

btw, Ride The Lightning holds a special place in my heart too. Saw them at Wembley Arena in the early 1990s. Didn't have time to bone up on all their albums, but managed to get through RTL. Still love it now. Who doesn't love the rousing bass drum in Creeping Death for example ( except perhaps the first-born Pharaoh son ).

[pap]

Not sure where to start with this one to be honest...

 

 

I'm a little indifferent to Mr De Burgh, trousers - but my dad used to love him at one point, iirc*.

 

* Although not like that

[Sheaf Saint]

Give me a little bit more time and I will come up with some more to offer up, but for right now I'll simply stick with the one album that completely blew me away upon listening and began the process of removing my musical blinkers: Portishead - Dummy.

 

As a teenager I was single-mindedly all about the rave scene. I was a budding DJ and had an attitude that I would only listen to anything over 130 bpm with a pumping beat. The first time I came across Portishead was in the middle of a Radio 1 essential mix by Laurent Garnier in 1994 that I copied from a mate of mine. Right in amongst his trademark driving techno, he dropped Numb. At first I thought "What the hell? This isn't techno! What's he doing?" but as I listened and absorbed the eerie beauty of Beth Gibbons' voice, and the dark, menacing rumble of the production, I had a eureka moment. I checked the tracklisting in DJ mag and went out and bought the album, and before I had even finished listening to it, I knew that something had awoken inside me and I had taken my first steps on to a journey of musical discovery.

 

This album to this day still gives me goosebumps whenever I listen to it (after 19 years!) and it's one of those albums that demands you listen from beginning to end. I was fortunate enough to go and see them live when they reformed for their Third album in 2008, and it was one of the most incredible things I have ever witnessed. My GF and me both said afterwards we felt like we had been crying for the last two hours, it was such an emotional experience.

[KelvinsRightGlove]

Great thread Pap. Really interesting reading everyone's choices. Some crackers in there.

 

I think it's a bit different for me, I'm really lucky to have a mum with great taste in music. A punk in her youth, but also with really diverse taste in music. She still asks me for new stuff to listen to, and we go to gigs together still, some may sneer at a 24 year old doing this, but I love it.

 

For me, All Mod Cons - The Jam. I grew up listening to this album, dancing around the living room to Mr. Clean & A Bomb in Wardour Street with my mum are some of my earliest and happiest memories. I still love Weller 20 years later, the mother and I rarely miss him when he plays in London, I love the anger and angst and the sort of call to arms in his younger days.

 

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me - The Cure. The first Cure album I really remember hearing, again it was my mum's and I've been obsessed ever since. It bugs me the stick Robert Smith gets for being miserable and morose, he's actually just a soppy old sod, usually singing about his wife.

 

Discovery - Daft Punk my introduction to electronic music, what an album, frothing at the mouth for Random Access Memories. A genre I have dipped in and out of, but been coming back to of late. So much love for people like The Chemical Brothers (them at the Warehouse Project in Manchester is probably in my top 5 nights of my life), Fat Boy Slim and many others. Been listening to a lot of Electro/Indie recently (Scandanavians are incredible at this genre) and I think I can trace that all back to this incredible album. Who can hear One More Time and not want to dance and scream along at the top of your lungs?

 

In Utero - Nirvana. I was an angsty teen, who wasn't? Kurtz Cobain may have been dead just under 10 years by the time I was a teen, but my Christ did hearing this for the first time make every hair on my body stand on end. It was incredible, it was loud, and angry in a way I hadn't experienced previously. It was like punk for me, in the way that grunge had something of a DIY feel to it, Nirvana rent the most accomplished musicians but the energy in their sound was staggering. Still a big grunge fan to this day, Pearl Jam & Smashing Pumpkins at Reading remain some of my favourite live experiences - what I would give to get in a time machine and go to Reading '92.

 

Sorry, this kinda turned into an essay, there are countless others, notably Funeral - Arcade Fire, Stories from the City, Stories from The Sea - PJ Harvey, Whatever people say I am... - Arctics & 2001 - Dr. Dre.

 

Thanks for sharing guys, really enjoyed reading all your choices.

[Lord Duckhunter]

These were my 2, got me into their great music and then everything else I liked flowed from there. If John Lennon said he liked someone, BB King for example, I would check it out. Leon Russell played on Georg's solo stuff so I started checking him out. For me all my music leads back to these 2 albums.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BadgerBadger]

Dire Straits - Communique

Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same (live album)

The Doors - The Doors

Pink Floyd - Meddle

Mike Oldfiled - Crises

The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St

Guns 'n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Metallica - And Justice For All

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Radiohead - OK Computer

I Am Kloot - I Am Kloot

Roy Harper - The Dream Society

 

These are all defining albums that have stopped me in my tracks from my my early teens to present day, each album has cajoled me into listening to every facet of every track, music is great

[Hamilton Saint]

"Which albums have influenced you the most?"

 

Here are a few. Significant because they served as entrees into whole areas of music.

 

 

Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. This was my entry into jazz. From here I went on to explore Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, etc.

 

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook. From here I discovered her entire songbook series on Verve (Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hart, Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Johhny Mercer). Then on to Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.

 

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning by Frank Sinatra. Previous to discovering this great album of his from the 50s, I thought Sinatra was just "My Way", "New York, New York" and "Strangers in the Night". Found out that he recorded about a dozen great albums in the 50s and early sixties - alternating between albums devoted to ballads, and albums featuring dance tunes. Within a couple of years, I had bought most of them! Quickly discovered that he is probably the greatest singer of the "American Songbook" - nobody can rival him for the ability to get inside the essence of a song and deliver a definitive interpretation. Nobody.

 

Unhalfbricking by Fairport Convention. Introduced me to the whole English folk-rock scene. From here I discovered the likes of Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Davey Graham, Shirley Collins, June Tabor, Sandy Denny and the great Richard Thompson (the latter two are former-members of Fairport).

 

McKinley Morganfield A.K.A. Muddy Waters. This double album compilation on Chess Records was my entry into the Blues: Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Elmore James, etc. Muddy's still my favourite!

 

Sweet Baby James by James Taylor. I was already a Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen fan, but this LP kicked off the entire singer-songwriter era of the early-to-mid 70s: Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Jackson Browne, etc. I was a huge fan of the entire genre.

[sussexsaint]

The Wall - Pink Floyd

 

Misplaced Childhood - Marillion

 

... And justice for all - Metallica

 

Once upon a time - simple minds

[Saint Luke]

This is most influential - not favourite right?

 

Pink Floyd - Wish you were here - 1st Pink Floyd album I ever owned

Rainbow - Rising

ELO - A new world record

Marillion - Brave

Journey - Departure