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Albums that changed your life - Article on CNN.com


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the Clash - London Calling

Wilco - Being There

the Beatles - A Hard Day's Night

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

the Band - Music from Big Pink

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

 

Something like that. The really big one is London Calling, I would be listening to shit for music if it weren't for that album. And I could name a whole slew of Beatles albums, but I think A Hard Day's Night is the first Beatles album I really "got."

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REM - Murmur - Freshman year in high school... pulled me from the grasp of average 'classic rock'

 

My love of REM, led me to purchase any and all Pete Buck produced stuff...

 

Uncle Tupelo - March

Replacements - Let it Be

 

 

I haven't really looked back.

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1979 - Sophmore year in high school, my oldest brother Clay (29) died and I inherited his Sansui 2000, a pair of Jenson kit speakers and about 100 or so records. Since his girlfriend had jacked all ones she liked, I was left with the older stuff. Jimi, Yardbirds, James Gang, The Who, Dylan, Beatles, Stones, etc. I started taking music more seriously when the songs on these albums provided some kind of link between me and my brother. To this day, I find great joy and comfort in music and if I had to look back and pick just one, it would have to be Are You Experienced?.

 

 

....that was the first one I listened to.

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They didn't change my life but I have fond memories (some old, some new) of the first time I heard them......In no particular order......

 

Sgt Pepper / Beatles

After the Gold Rush / Neil Young

John Lennon Plastic Ono Band

Let It Bleed / Stones

White Album / Beatles

Home Free / Fogelberg

Live At Leeds / Who

Good Feeling to Know / Poco

Sky Blue Sky / Wilco

Let it Be (bootleg version) / Beatles

Sweetheart of the Rodeo / Byrds

Marx and Lennon / HCYBI2PAO (Nick Danger) / Firesign Theatre http://www.firesigntheatre.com/albums/hcyb2.mp3

4 Way Street / CSNY

Girlfriend / Matthew Sweet

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Hootenanny - Replacements - My brother bought it for me because we learned to ski on Buck Hill. I wonder if I would've discovered elsewhere.

Workbook - Bob Mould - Hit me in the gut emotionally. Never listened to Husker Du, bought it strictly because of the Rolling Stone review (which I re-read periodically)

Mingus Ah Um - Charles Mingus - The first jazz record I really, really dug.

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Desire (for serving as my proper introduction to the work of America's greatest artist, living or dead), Automatic for the People (for being the first great album I ever listened to that still rings significant today), Being There (just because), Swordfishtrombones (for introducing me to Waits and the stranger, more exciting side of American song), Sloan's One Chord to Another (for showing me that I could actually love modern rock back when I was a high school naif), and Harvest Moon (because every 13 year-old should be allowed such a graceful contemporary opportunity to fall in love with Neil's body of work).

 

Also, I think the Replacements are an okay band, but I hated Tim the first time I heard it. I still think it's a middling record by their standards. To each their own!

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During March break when I was in grade 8, I was sent to my Grandma's and so was my older cousin. Up until then I was listening to top 40 radio- he introduced me to a whole new world of awesome music that week:

Nirvana's Nevermind

Red Hot Chili Pepper's BSSM

Ned's Atomic Dustbin's God Fodder

NIN's Pretty Hate Machine

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In order:

 

Squeeze - ArgyBargy

Elvis - This Year's Model

Elvis - Get Happy!

Beatles - Abbey Road

Dylan - Blonde on Blonde

Wilco - YHF

YLT - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

GBV - Alien Lanes

 

all changed my life and taught me something new about myself, the world, and my place in it.

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First REM album I bought was Out of Time. I was 11 when it came out. It really blew my mind. Funny thing now is it is probably one of my least favorite REM albums as it stands now. Anyway I have been a diehard REM fan since 1991 and haven't looked back.

 

Other albums that had a big impact on me were Radiohead the Bends (In my opinion the best rock album of all time!) Every time I listen to it I discover new hidden sounds and layers. Listening to it on headphones is an expierence no one should miss.

 

Bjork Post had a big impact on me as it helped me get into electronic music. This album is a scortcher. Listening it at night hypnotizes me. I can't explain it.

 

Medeski Martin and Wood Combustication also helped steer me in a new direction. It was a type of jazz I never heard before and I was captivated. The band is really unbelievably skilled!

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Minutemen - Double Nickles on the Dime... blew my mind the first time I heard it, still surprises me every time I listen to it now.

 

 

 

For me, "Three Way Tie (For Last)" is still near & dear to my musical heart............That record showed the path of where Boon was headed as a creative force to be reckoned with...

 

-Robert

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Add me to the list. I don't know if I'd say Tim changed my life, but it definitely was my "gateway drug."

 

 

Oh yeah, my "gateway" to the underground:

Meat Puppets - Up On the Sun

 

Odd, in the time when REM and The Smiths were rising in popularity (late 80's) that the Pups would be the band to turn me on the the underground. But I read an interview in a guitar magazine and HAD to hear them.

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The first album to change my life:

 

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

 

The next:

 

R.E.M. - Murmur (or possibly Chronic Town)

 

Then:

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

 

Followed by:

 

Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

 

Then:

 

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

 

And finally...

 

Uncle Tupelo - No Depression

 

That takes me up through 1990. I'm not sure anything since then qualifies as life-changing.

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I'm not a big fan of the "changed my life" tag, but these are a few that were quite influential to me:

 

Kiss - Alive II (One of the first records I ever owned. This record made me want to play guitar and be Ace Frehley. I started with a cardboard facsimile, then started playing my Dad's old El Degas acoustic with strings about a half inch from the neck.)

 

The Replacements - Let It Be (like others here, this was the one that introduced me to my favorite band and songwriter.)

 

Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (Made me realize that lyrics could be something more than just words to sing over music. Also made me realize that you don't have to have a perfect voice to be a good singer or interpreter of songs.)

 

Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson/Son of Schmilsson (Showed me that great rock music could be quirky, eclectic and still catchy as hell.)

 

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (These guys really got me to delve into Funk and Soul music a lot deeper than I had up to that point.)

 

Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On

Curtis Mayfield - Curtis

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

The Who - Who's Next

Townes Van Zandt - Those early records of his

 

 

So many more I could mention, but I'll stop there for now.

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Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (These guys really got me to delve into Funk and Soul music a lot deeper than I had up to that point.)

 

Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

The Who - Who's Next

All of these could have been on my list too -- though Maggot Brain was my next Funkadelic acquisition after first being hooked by Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On.

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