<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Bluuuuue.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> I'm so unnerved to see your first post was clipped by the board's inner (and at-whim) HTML Nazi. Ohhh, I wonder how long your list was there. Man! Welcome to the board. :\
This is a weird question to me, because I think if something were life-altering, I'd make an effort to be part of the world out of which it came. I never have, not really, been into music to the point I thought I'd create my own.
That said, what I love and how I connect to it makes enough impact upon my *whatever* that when I'm in serious pain, it's the first thing I drop. Nothing makes me feel like music does.
So I have intermittent, huge gaps in music attention and knowledge. I often thank god I heard 'Creep' before the big one in the mid-90s, because I might not have found Radiohead later on. Some singles, some albums, depending on what my life was like then. Radio or player.
Up to like 5th grade:
Blondie, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Parallel Lines</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
Supertramp, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Breakfast in America</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
KISS, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Double Platinum</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Xanadu</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> soundtrack -- ELO, Olivia Newton-John, and Gene Kelly all on the same deal? Hell yeah.
Growing up:
U2, "New Year's Day" and then <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Unforgettable Fire</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
New Order, all of it, and much later on Joy Division
Echo & the Bunnymen, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Crocodile</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and "The Cutter" -- that sounded awesomely effen weird to me, beginning of the end. I love the Bunnymen.
I still love INXS. All of it.
R.E.M. <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Pageant</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
And then <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Document</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, and <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Green</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. Man, they put out a lot, fast back then! They did!
And then I went goofy for a bunch of bands on 120 Minutes, but here's who stuck:
Trash Can Sinatras
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Cake</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> is a great album, but I think <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>I've Seen Everything</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> did something more for me. I love it still SO MUCH. And I think their latest release, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Weightlifting</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> got me through a really bad life patch. Frank Reader and I might be little soulie twinsies. He's the one songwriter for whom I thank the universe every chance I get.
The Judybats
For their loveable, sharp-tongued, gently mean (honest) wit and funness. Jeff Haskell's crazy with his range. <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> is the best album they put together. If memory serves, I danced in public at one of the four shows I'd seen of theirs. ;)
John Wesley Harding
I thought I might love him when I heard the album, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Name above the Title</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. And then I knew it was true, with <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Why We Fight</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. He's a smart man. And a funny one. And he can play. He set the bar for my recorded and live expectations. I just wonder if anyone else knows what they're doing when I hear him on stage.
Actually, I saw JWH for the first time in jr. high, when he was on MTV. Elvira hosted scary videos, and he had a single you might recall, "If You Have Ghosts." Ha. He always got support from MTV in the early goings, when video-making was still not the first mode of music marketing strategy.
Anyway. JWH:
Radiohead: Kid A recaptured my attention, and Amnesiac made me go uuuuuuuuugh. Unbelievable. Duh.
Most recently, I've been working in music a little bit (administrative role) and I have to say, much of what I've listened to, that I felt sort of defined me, has been very lyrical and somewhat polished in the way of style or niche. But I never listened to much local, live, original music until now. I really dig the bar bands around here. I've gained such an appreciation for their gifts. They're pretty fearless when they're pretty sure no one is paying attention.
Go out and hear a local band you've heard pimped a million times on a radio station, but never bothered with before. They would love a crack at your attention and support.
(Wiggum, I was talking with some band dude around here and he started talking about DBT's... and I was all ...
)
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