Been doing this question with some people lately. What are ten of the most important songs/compositions or hell just whole albums that bring you back to pivotal moments in your life?
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Been doing this question with some people lately. What are ten of the most important songs/compositions or hell just whole albums that bring you back to pivotal moments in your life?
-Marillion - Clutching at Straws - Fish is my favourite vocalist, and I think this is the best album he's done. This is a great album to listen to during a rainstorm.
-Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - This was one of my Dad's favourite albums - since he introduced me to it it's a special album for me. I think it's the peak of Phil Collins' drumming, Tony Bank's keyboards have never been more atmospheric, and of course Peter Gabriel's lyrics/concept and vocals are classic.
-Yes - The Yes Album - I went through a number of years listening to "Starship Trooper" and "Yours is No Disgrace" endlessly in a Windows Media Player playlist - there are a lot of great Yes albums but I think this is the most important one to me.
- Dexys Midnight Runners - Too Rye Aye - This is another one my Dad introduced me to - he became a fan during his time in England. This is their best album, but I think "This is What She's Like" from Don't Stand Me Down is my favourite song.
- Frank Zappa - Burnt Weeny Sandwich - I think this is my favourite FZ album (it used to be the remixed version of Hot Rats, but this one I go back to more). Some great early guitar work, very melodic instrumentals, and a great live performance with Sugar Cane Harris on violin at the end.
- Pink Floyd - Meddle - Echoes was a very important song for me for a number of years - I found it very uplifting. A lot of people would say Dark Side or Wish you Were Here are the best PF albums, but I return to Meddle the most.
- Caravan - In the Land of the Grey and Pink - It was hard to pick just one Caravan album because a lot of them have some really great songs, but since this one has Winter Wine (and there are some good bonus tracks on the remaster) I'm going with this one.
- Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (self-titled debut album) - I listened to this a lot when I was at a cottage one summer - have a lot of great memories around this one. There were some great EP's as well before this album, and both Helplessness Blues and Crack-Up are pretty strong as well.
- Neil Young - Greatest Hits - I've since listened to a lot of his discography, but for years I just listened to this compilation - the tracks from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere sound great on this release.
This last one was tough to choose, because there are a lot of new albums that I've discovered in the last few years that are really great, but that I don't have as long a history with, so I'll just list a few new discoveries -
-The Who - Tommy and Quadrophenia Can - Monster Movie, The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds and SMiLE, The Doors - Strange Days
This will be difficult! This will be in no particular order.
1.Garth Brooks - honestly don’t know what album as I don’t know any album names. Probably one of the Greatest Hit type albums. My mom had an obsession with Garth when I was a kid, and I grew up listening to too much of it. I don’t really like country, but his songs in general bring back a lot of memories for me.
2. Sufjan Stevens: “The Only Thing” - His Carrie and Lowell album came out about the time my great grandpa died. I listened to this song a lot while I was grieving it.
3. Relient K: The Anatomy of Tongue and Cheek - this album and the next two on this list were just my first music I was able to get a hold of. It’s basically when I learned that more existed than country and classic rock
4. Relient K: Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right...
5. Switchfoot: Beautiful Letdown
6. Styx: “I’m Sailing Away”- my dad used to blare classic rock in his car when I road with him. I hated it. For some reason I liked this song though and it would make things bearable when it came on.
7. Brand New: The Devil and God... - I just associate this album with a time I was figuring stuff out in life.
8. The Beatles: “Hey Jude” - first song my dad tried to teach me on guitar
9. Clair de Lunes - this piece just always relaxes me.
10. A Flock of Seagulls - “I Ran” - I just have a lot of good memories with a cousin that I used to hang out with due to this song. We used to play Vice City way too much.
1. Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime - PMC All-Stars
2. Toy Soldiers - Martika
3. The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby
4. Ironic - Alanis Morissette
5. Rock Lobster - The B-52's
6. Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
7. Whip It - Devo
8. When I Was Seventeen - Frank Sinatra
9. Here (In Your Arms) - hellogoodbye
Thinking back to albums that make me think about particular points in my life, these 10 stand out.
Arranged in chronological order of the point of my life they make me think about. I realise that's a clumsily constructed sentence, but you get what I mean, right?
ABBA - Gold: Greatest Hits
I'm pretty sure this is the first album I ever owned. It was on cassette tape. It was actually the only album I owned for a really long time, because I didn't listen to music much until secondary school.
Keane - Under the Iron Sea
My Mum was OBSESSED with this album when it came out. It would go on nearly every time we were in the car. The first sound I think of when someone says "mid noughties".
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Stereophonics - Just Enough Education to Perform
These were two of the albums I listened to the most on the school bus to and from secondary school, particularly the first two years back when the journey lasted a frickin' hour and fifteen because we stopped to pick-up/drop-off students in every piddly little hamlet between Calvert and Buckingham.
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
I used to stick it on a lot when I was reading, especially during the school holidays for some reason. Good background music, not too attention-grabbing.
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside
Imogen Heap - Ellipse
During my college years (by which I mean 16-18, not University) these became two of my go-to albums on the bus to and from college.
The Perishers - Let There Be Morning
They played this album a lot in the bookshop I worked in on Saturdays. Quite soporific, particularly towards the end of the work-day.
The Cat Empire - So Many Nights
It was a present from one of my aunts for my sixteenth birthday, but for some reason I didn't get around to listening to it until I was 17. But when I did get around to it, I frickin' loved it. The definitive album of my last year of college. I saw them live about six years ago, they were fantastic.
Metric - Fantasies
I listened to this album a ridiculous amount during the summer before I went to University.
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs but TIMES TEN
Err. . . I thought of six. :shobon:
L.A. Woman - The Doors
Country music was the family preference for most of my early childhood, but none of it left any impact on me that I can still detect today. What I do remember is my step father's absolute love for The Doors, and his eternal quest to somehow convert the ever flooding basement we had at the time into a somewhat useable stoner haven. There is no love lost between us and neither of us see each other as positive forces in the other's lives, but I'll always appreciate the love he gave me for this band, and this album in particular, which I still count as one of my favorite albums. There's a kind of peace I get here when relaxing on a couch after a long day I don't find anywhere else.
Portrait of an American Family - Marilyn Manson
There was a time growing up I didn't have much a musical identity of my own, often just adopting whatever was popular with my various social groups and running with it. Portrait was kind of the end of that time for me, as it was one of the two albums I heard and fell in love with that NO ONE else around me had a high opinion of, and I actually ate some social kickback over this one due to all of the strange rumors of the mid nineties surrounding Manson. Listening to it recalls a subconscious memory of defiance in a way, and it is oddly fitting for the strange sound of the album, quite unlike everything Manson has done since.
Countdown to Extinction - Megadeth
The other album that I diverged from the mid nineties TRL kid group with, this one was always the much more socially acceptable, but it still represents that same kind of memory. Unfortunately, while I still enjoy the album, I don't hold it with the same regard I do Portrait, as it feels much more same-y to the time and doesn't hold up to several of the band's other offerings, Rust in Peace most notably.
The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem
Rap . . . was an odd beast for me growing up, and, though certain bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn made occasional collaborative works with rappers, very few made any form of penetration into either my social or personal musical circles. The sole exception to this came with Eminem's Slim Shady LP, which one kid in the complex I lived in picked up and everyone else seemed to outright adore. The thing is, that album feels very . . . silly, both due to lyrical content and the way Eminem sounds in it, and while I didn't dislike the album, it was like "Mike's Hard Weird-Al" and never really caught me. That changed with the follow up album -- The Mathers LP is not a happy album, it is not a silly album, it is filled with raw emotion and anger, and it was quite unlike anything I had really encountered before. Em has a fantastic flow in the album, and his storytelling in the non-collaborative tracks is top notch, creating something easy to simply listen to or examine, and the album quickly became both my gateway into the genre and favorite offering it has yet produced.
World Coming Down - Type O Negative
You ever randomly encounter a sound that just seems to resonate with your soul? That's what I had with World Coming Down, which I picked up on a whim after seeing its cover art and taking a gamble with it. My Grandfather had recently died around the time, and there was a lot of other crap going on in my personal life, and this album's slower, drawn out sound, especially on the title track and White Slavery, kept it on constant rotation in my room. It was the right album at the right time, and if it weren't for the noise tracks and Creepy Green Light it would be my favorite Type O release.
Mechanical Animals - Marilyn Manson
While I'm sad that Manson abandoned Portrait's sound immediately after the album, I can never be too disappointed, because Antichrist Superstar led right into Animals, which is easily my favorite album he has released thus far. Falling right around the same general time in my life as World did, this album is kind of like its complement; whereas World is dark in content and musical delivery, Animals is equally dark in content while being much more of a rollercoaster musically, but generally more upbeat. The thing is, this always made tracks like New Model and Rock is Dead feel like something vile putting on a mask and smile for the crowds, and it wasn't terribly off from how I felt at the time.
The 10 most important albums of my life. Certainly the albums with the most plays.
There really isn't any connection that ties these all together. They were important to me through different parts of my life, whether it was the mood I was in or the people I listened to them with.
The Rasmus - Dead Letters
Escape the Fate - This War is Ours
Kill Hannah - Until There's Nothing Left of Us
Senses Fail - If There is Light, It Will Find You
HIM - Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights
D'espairsRay - Coll:Set
Dir en grey - Kisou
Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness
Savage Garden - Self Titled
Oh, ten.
The Bloodhound Gang - Hooray for Boobies
Take the Long Way Home and the Ballad of Chasey Lain may randomly get stuck in my head.
From the Choirgirl Hotel - Tori Amos
Savage Garden - Savage Garden
No Need to Argue - The Cranberries
Fallen - Evanescence
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge - My Chemical Romance
Actor - St. Vincent
Alpinisms - School of Seven Bells
Funeral - Arcade Fire
Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
Born to Die - Lana del Rey
I didn't think I'd be able to come up with a full list (I tend to like a few songs rather than entire albums) but I did it! Listed in order of when they first made their appearance in my life in a meaningful way.
In no real order...
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
The Cure - Disintegration
Between the Buried and Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Yes - Close to the Edge
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse
Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
Carpenter Brut - Trilogy