Beck - Odelay
When I first heard this in middle school, it set the standards to what I would listen to then on. Just brilliant.

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire
So raw and so smart, they left us too soon.

Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets
Say what you want about them, but they are the best at what they do. This album is just so deep and rich in sound.

Weezer - Blue
What already hasn't been said here?

The White Stripes - De Stilj
I believe this band will be recognized as one of the greatest of our time and all of their albums are fantastic. This is the one that hooked me.

The Beatles - Revolver
Not going to say much here. Taxman has one of the coolest short solo's ever. Elenor is one of the greatest songs ever.

Cake - Fashion Nugget
I think there one of the most underrated bands ever, fantastic album.

The Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin
Another greatly (and fairly) overlooked band, great album.

Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Such an amazing heartfelt album and incredibly depressing. The last before his untimely death. <p>------------------------------------
Perhaps a lunatic is simply the minority of one</p>

I'll list mine for now...I am only 16 so I am definitely sure that this is just the beginning. I know my list may seem like a huge cliche but it's seriously how it went for me.

Marvin Gaye : What's Going On...oh man I do not think I'd be the same person I am now if it weren't for me hearing this album (and other oldies) all the time from my mom when I was a little kid.

Danny Elfman : Edward Scissorhands or The Nightmare Before Christmas...the first time I actually wanted to hear what that noise was behind the action.

The Beatles : 1...It introduced me to the world that is the Beatles. Sgt Pepper confirmed everything for me and if it weren't for this I might not have known all the other music I know. It was my first baby steps into my own taste for music.
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The Beach Boys greatest hits and (definitely) Pet Sounds...checked these two out a little bit after my Beatles experience and, while I enjoy the Beach Boys greatest hits for fun, PS made me unembarassed to love "true" love songs and sympathise with what the artist is saying. With Sgt. Pepper it was the first time I thought that music can be artistic rather than cool.

Pink Floyd : The Wall...Randomly checked it out because of it's status. I Knew next to nothing of their music and I'd say my musical tastes changed the day I listened to that album.

The Flaming Lips : Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots...Like the Beatles situation this album introduced me to The Flaming Lips and left me thirsty for more. The Soft Bulletin (along with the help of some other utterly amazing albums) was the clincher and the reason my belief is that the Flaming Lips are the best.

Edited by: NeuroticKeith at: 12/12/05 9:33 pm

fun.

Melanie - Candles in the Rain
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
My Morning Jacket - At Dawn
Carole King - Tapestry

there are more.

Weezer- Blue, and Pinkerton

Smashing Pumpkins- Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Beatles- Sgt. Peppers

Bob Dylan- Highway 61 Revisited

Pixies- Doolittle

there are a lot more....

radiohead - ok computer
beatles - sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band
beach boys - pet sounds
leonard cohen - songs of leonard cohen
uncle tupelo - anodyne
gram parsons - return of the grevious angel
joy division - unknown pleasures
and a billion more <p>"Well I want to die." - Raleigh St Clair</p>

honestly a great thread -

mine is a fun list - kind of sentamental - and some of the music cheesey - but hey - it led me to some great music

Keep in mind that not all of these are my favorite albums - some are just sign posts or - life changing in regaurds to how I got to becoming a raging music adict

Kool Mo Dee - How Ya Like Me Now
Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
At first I was really into rap - these are easily the first two that I got into - Loved them emensely

Van Halen OU812 - They brought me to Rock - I remember giving my brother the money to go buy this album for me - when he brought it home - i likely listened to it 5 to 600 times

Led Zeppelin IV - I saw something on MTV where Tabitha Soren referenced the "legendary 4th album" - for some reason I decided I wanted to know that this legend was all about - bought it - and then - that is truely the moment that this Drug known as music actually sunk its teeth into me - i could have escaped its clutches prior to this album - but not after

The Beatles - Revolver/Rubber Soul - Really Pushed My limits - showed me that there was so much more to music - I am just not that into Rubber Soul anymore - but man - Revolver - greatness - it just seems to me that rubber soul is a precursor to revolver - the little brother - not there yet - but getting there - which is what i also feel Help! is like - the first time they start to break the mold - and revolver is when they stop being the fab four - or beatlemania stuff and when they become - the beatles

Pink Floyd - Animals/Dark Side of the Moon - This is great - I was on the track team in college - and i had to room with this megadouche my freshman year - from quabec - he would go to bed at about 8:30 - well that meant I would be going to bed at 9:30 - I put in Dark Side of the Moon on head phones in the dark - and this album that I had previously thought of in the noise pollution classic rock sense took me on the wildest journey - I was so blown away - luckily - in my cd envelope I also had Animals - well needless to say I looked forward to traveling with the team and rooming with this megadouche so I could go to bed and be transported to another world via Pink Floyd - the first band that showed me how much depth lyrics could ad to music - before - it was all about rocking out and just having fun

Whiskeytown - Strangers Almanac - showed me that when done right - alt country is likely my favorite music on the planet - unfortunately - it is so frequently horrible


Radiohead - Kid A - This really got me to think outside of the box when it came to music - i never really got Ok Comp - and still don't know that I do - I think it is a fine album - but Kid A to me is the epitome of brilliance. I remember when I heard it i didn't initially think much about it - just - oh - that is kind of odd - then I walked in on a teammate (this time at a different school(I transfered)) playing Everything In It's Right Place on the Fender Rhodes his girlfriend had just bought him - and bam - i went and bought that album and it still blows my mind to this day - Much like Rushmore still does when it comes to films.


The Smiths - Singles - greatness -


David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust - i really just include this because it is the album that I have listened to the most over the last year or so - also - it showed me that music could be fun and playful again - for some reason i had forgotten that

i love music

In chronological order of when they affected my life:

Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary: My first introduction to underground music. I listened to it 3 times a day for 4 months.

Slint - Spiderland: I've listened to this hundreds of times. This album showed me some of the beauty possible with restraint.

This Heat - Deceit: My first introductions to more experimental, arty rock. I think I actually listened to This Heat before hearing an entire Sonic Youth album.

Jim O'Rourke - Eureka: My first introduction to experimental, arty pop. Because of this, I'm probably the only person I've met who's bought Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle without knowing he worked with the Beach Boys (it's O'Rourke's favorite album of all-time). I bought Song Cycle in 2000, when I was 18, prompting the owner of the record store to inform me that no one my age ever buys that record, although that may have changed now that it's been reissued.

Rushmore Soundtrack: Got me interested in 60s music. This led to the Nuggets comps, Ritchie Unterberger books, my dad's old Free Design records, sunshine pop, psych, the folk revival and folk-rock revolution, and appreciation of the recording studio as a tool and medium for art. Before that, I thought records should just sound like a band's live show.

Eric B and Rakim - Paid in Full: Made me appreciate hip hop for the first time (along with DJ Shadow's Endtroducing). I now DJ, and played on a single coming out on Stones Throw Records, so I guess things have changed.
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The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds: Convinced me that the Beach Boys run laps around the Beatles, and that great pop music can be great art.

Two albums that changed my life are Beastie Boys Ill Communication and White Stripes De Stijl.

The first one I suppose is rather embarrassing now, especially since I haven't listened to it in years (I'm assuming I would still enjoy it, I know I still really like Ricky's Theme and Transitions), but when it came out I was obsessed with it. I started reading everything about Beastie Boys I could including their own Grand Royal magazine.

This in turn got me into Sonic Youth which opened an enormous musical vein that led to other indie/underground music like Pavement, Smog, Sebadoh, Palace, Superchunk as well as older or more avant garde artists like Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Television, Boredoms, Can.

Ill Communication next got me into punk rock like Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear, Buzzcocks, Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Fugazi. At first it was whatever they name dropped but then like anything else once you get into it you start investigating and exploring.

Next it turned me onto jazz and funk and I got into Sly and the Family Stone, Lonnie Smith, Eddie Harris, Miles Davis, James Brown. Just like punk I started exploring these genres.

Lastly it got me into hip hop, which I had a very basic understanding of at the time, I think I owned some Public Enemy and Run DMC and whatever else was pretty big but it got me into a Tribe Called Quest which led to all that late 80's early 90's hip hop, De La Soul, Wu Tang, Jungle Brothers, Aceyalone and Abstract Rude and then it was more exploring.

As far as the White Stripes De Stijl album, I never had much desire to listen to the blues, I think I had a fixed notion of what they were and so didn't even give it a chance, but listening to the son house cover and then getting into Son House and Robert Johnson, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, and way too many to list, I now feel like that form of music is probably my favorite ever created and can't really imagine not listening to it. It's so pure and raw and for recordings that are 70 years old they feel so alive.

There are other albums which have changed my life, but no two albums have had such a dramatic impact.

whatever - i think ill communication is great - shouldn't be embarassed at all - i listen to it likely once a month - fluteloop is great - and i love that line where the guy goes- if its gonna be that kinda party i'm gonna stick my di@k in the mashed potatoes

first time i heard taht line was on an airplane at about midnight- i laughed outloud - luckily everyone was soundly out

I know I'm embarrassed to include the SDRE album, but hey, it was important to me at the time. But man, Gob's right. Ill Communication is a good record (actually, that and Paul's Boutique are the only two Beasties records I care for that much)

The Smiths - This Charming Man: A few of you mentioned the Smiths and they were definitely huge for me. I inherited a 12" of this single when I was about 14 and it was the beginning off good music for me.

Braid - Frame and Canvas: I got into this whole scene a little late considering it was happening all around me. I'm from Illinois. Anyway, this album along with Nothing Feels Good by The Promise Ring and the American Football album are pretty great.

Elliott Smith - XO: Not my favorite of his albums but the first one I bought, loved, and thoroughly digested before doing the same with all of his others.

The Beatles - Revolver: The only good band I listened to before I was 14 or so. Remarkably, the first things I heard by them were their old singles on an album called Past Masters Volume 1 which ended with the stuff they did around the time of A Hard Days Night or maybe Help! so when I heard Revolver it was a revelation.

white stripes - elephant
led zeppelin - IV
the who - tommy
bob dylan - highway 61 revisited
black sabbath - paranoid
the doors - the doors
rammstein - mutter

Sondre Lerche - Faces Down
Damien Rice - O
Ben Harper - Burn to Shine (my first ever ben album.. live from mars was more intensely awesome to me, but this one changed my life cus it introduced me to him)
Spoon - Gimme Fiction (so what if it was just this year - it changed the way i listen to an album!)
Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (of course)


and thats all for now

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Paul Simon-Graceland
Neutral Milk Hotel - In a Aeroplane Over the Sea
Songs:Ohia - Didn't it Rain
Avalanches - Since I Left You

Dignan88 made me remember The Who's Tommy...I should have put that in my list...Quadrophenia is better and by far my favorite Who album though.

Edited by: NeuroticKeith at: 12/26/05 1:02 pm