ONE album that changed music for you
 

What's your one album that made your taste in music take a sharp left turn from which it has never returned?

Mine was Simple Minds' Sons and Fascination, bought in 1981 at the age of 14. I read a review of it in Smash Hits that said it knocked the socks off Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, who were my faves at the time, so I went out and bought it. The fact that it was two albums for the price of one helped seal the purchase. I loved it and played it constantly, including one day at school, where it was heard by a Simple Minds fan a couple of years above me with whom I became friends. He loaned me his entire collection of 7" singles, which included loads of amazing stuff - Buzzcocks, Damned, Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle - that totally blew my mind, and got me listening to John Peel. From there it was a headlong fall for me into the more goth side of post-punk (Southern Death Cult, Danse Society, Sex Gang Children), and from there began the long strange trip to where I am today.

So a big thank you to Smash Hits, to Jim Kerr & Co, and most of all to Bob Bickers, wherever you now are. You all rock.

EDIT - On a whim, 30 minutes after first posting, I've just decided to turn this into a competition. I have two copies of Lee Ranaldo's Road Movies book - The spare one goes to my favourite response to the above question, regardless of where in the world the winner lives. It's not what album you name that I'm interested in, it's your explanation of why it changed music for you. You have a week to post, and the judge's (e.g. my) decision is final. The winner will be notified by pm and by a post in this thread. If the winner already has a copy of the book, he or she can nominate another poster to receive it instead.

Leaves Turn Inside You by Unwound. Since I heard that two years ago when I was still in middle school, it changed music for me completely. It also got me going on how bands sounds change dramatically from one album to the next.

Mine was dirty by sonic youth. I was seventeen and I was into crappy music and when I found this I thought it was an amazing album. Because it changed my perception of ideas, of how a guitar can be played, how to think for yourself, and mostly it was the most avant garde thing I've heard.

Sonic Youth- "Dirty"

I know it's the more popular vote to pick SY, but that was the one that did it. That's the album that squeegeed my Third Eye. It has opened me up to a world of music, that I never knew existed.

nothing changed music for me, its still boring

two albums for me, my drum teacher gave me american prayer and slayer - show no mercy when i was 9

I gotta say Dirty tied with Gang of Four- Entertainment!. The two of them really tore down my notions of rock and roll for me. Devo's the Truth about Devolution was introduced to me at the same time, but that isn't really an album.

Dirty was more about changing what I thought about guitar than what I thought about music.

Entertainment! really changed everything for me though. When I first heard it, I still didn't quite get punk. I liked the Clash, I didn't really like the Sex Pistols, and back in the Napster days of music when I heard about a band, I'd always manage to get ahold of their worst track to sample, so I didn't quite get what the big deal was. So when I first listened to Gang of Four, I immediately noticed how much better than the Clash they were in general, and I thought "this must be what all the fuss around punk rock is about."

I never heard rock music so drum and bass focused. The rhythm was incredible. Before Gang of Four, rock and roll was all about the heaviness to me- I liked Nirvana, Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin for that reason. Then I heard Entertainment! The way the drums and the bass worked together was really incredible to me. The slow helicopter-like drum beat amazed me.

Gang of Four's lyrics were like nothing I had ever heard. A year before I heard the album I did a report about Sartre for honors english. I did my research, and I did decently on the report. But I didn't really understand it. Gang of Four's lyrics really got me to start understanding some pretty deep philosophical concepts, including existentialism. The lyrics hit me as so upfront and observational of society. The mocking of corporate slogans really hit me. I feel Andy Gill and Jon King could really see right through things in society.

There was Andy Gill's guitar playing. His concept of the anti-solo in which he would just stop playing, his incredibly choppy playing, and just his tone in general amazed me. That was pretty different from what I was used to with rock.

yep yep yep.. i bought it because of the nirvana connection. i didnt know one could make so many sounds with a guitar.. the sprawl stood out to me more then any other track. i remember listening to it while laying in bed with 102 fever.. and looving this album

the beatles blue album also. some of the stuff on here freaked me out at first. i dont know why really. the expiremental stuff is my favorite

EDITED- for the contest

Double Nickels On The Dime

there's a few i think.

beatles: rubber soul
from my parent's record collection. listened too it constantly as a kid. first time rock music really got to me and drew me in. made me want to play music.
nirvana: in utero
it's not too hip to admit it, but this band is a catalyst for alot of what i'm into now, even though it's pretty distant from me now. I bought it when I was 13. I saw it on Beavis and BUtthead. I thought the lyrics were "hey, wayne" and that it was about wayne's world. I was a dumbass kid culturally.
sonic youth: daydream nation
nirvana lead into this. teenage riot blew my ass out my ears. and vice versa. lead me to my love of feedback and noises.
ornette coleman: the shape of jazz to come
got me interested in playing my saxophone again, also made me yearn to push music i was writing into more free territories. before that i was writing very nirvana-ish, weezer-ish cookie cutter type stuff.
slint: spiderland
bought it on a whim. first time i heard really textured dynamics. made me want to crescendo insteads of loud-soft-loud.
captain beefheart: lick my decals off, baby
picked up where ornette left off. showed me free music could stick in your head like a pop song.

there's more but i'm too drunk to think clear.

Electric Warrior - T. Rex

I was 13, my parents had just split up and money was tight, and I'm fairly certain I received more than this album for Christmas, but this is the only thing I remember from that year. Right after opening it, I went down to the basement (where I spent the better part of my time for about 2 years) and listened to it for the rest of the day. It was the first album I owned that I thought was perfect, and it remains to this day the most played album in my collection. There is no group more dear to my heart than T. Rex. I feel this kinship with them that makes me approach the subject of the band with ridiculous amounts of honor and humility. Even though I was also listening to Led Zeppelin, Bowie, and Hendrix around that same time, I still favored T. Rex above them all. I really had to work hard at being a T. Rex fan. Their albums weren't exactly easy to find, and I couldn't turn on the radio and hear anything more than the occasional "Bang A Gong," which is a good song, but they have plenty of others that kick its butt. The fact that it took a lot of effort to maintain that level of interest made the whole experience very personal. I didn't have anyone to share it with. Actually, this marked the first time that the kids at school openly mocked the music I listened to. They thought T. Rex was a stupid name. I had a T. Rex shirt that I wore sometimes, so they stared asking me if I listened to Stegosaurus and Velociraptor as well, which was just so clever, I'm sure. They thought my haircut was stupid as well, so my appearance in general was often the target of many insults. Junior high aged kids usually are not very welcoming if you are totally and pathetically into the whole glam rock thing. So if you're trying to cut down on the number of times you get called "fag" in a day, I don't recommend pursuing an interest in glam rock.

there were three of them:

Radiohead - The Bends (age 15)
Sonic Youth - Washing Machine (age 19)
Flying Saucer Attack - Distance (age 20)

Sonic Youth: ESJ - Yes, I'm serious. After Dirty, which I wasn't too fond of, it actually got me into Sonic Youth. Which then led to nearly every indie/experimental/jazz band I listen to now. It's still my favorite SY album, nearly tied with DDN.

John Mayer: Any Given Thursday - Got me out of my snobby "pop music sucks" attitutude, which, it seems, many poor souls are still absorbed in. Also, it got me into blues guitar, which is the majority of what I play now.

No albums really. I mean, there were albums and EP's in particular when I was in single digits, that I lionised. But I've always listened to a wide range of music. So not one album has taken me anywhere that I can't return. To me, that would mean I listened to say, Nirvana, when I was a kid, then only ever listened to Grunge music and anything related to it nowadays. So I can't really answer it, honestly. I still listen to alot of the music I did when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Interesting thread, though.

Cliche, but I'll say Nevermind because before that I just listened to my parents old records (Stones, Beatles, Cream, Beach Boys etc.) and MC Hammer. I can remember hearing Teen Spirit on the radio and just being like "Whoa, what the hell was that?" Dave Grohl made me want to play the drums and take over the world. Not to mention I got into SY because they admired/toured with them....and then Dinosaur Jr....and all the other bands on TYPB......which lead to Mudhoney.....Pavement.....L7 etc. etc. etc.

But do you return to these bands?

Well, here goes my explanation for my pick.

I remember seeing "Dirty" (deluxe edition) on vinyl in my local record shop. & before that point, I hadn't heard much of SY, maybe a tid-bit here or there, but never a whole album. & so I see this glamourus box set of SY vinyls, so I figure why not go all out & get as much of SY as possible to listen to. As it turned out, that was the best money I ever spent.

That's the acquiring part of my story, now actually listening to the record.

Up until that moment of hearing "Dirty", I was expecting something different than what I was hearing, & I was happy for that difference. SY taught me that you can incorporate ANYTHING into music if you want. That there's no such thing as the perfectly structured song. That you can go all-out w/ yr music. & not to mention all the music, arts, & culture that album would open my eyes to. I've learned so much from that album, being it my first SY album, that I had no other choice but to pick "Dirty"

I hope tthat's a good enough explanation. ;-)

Sonic Life
JDR

Mine was Never Mind The Bollocks.

The year was 1978, I was about 12 and my favourite band was Showaddywaddy. I shared a bedroom with my older brother & he played NMTB constantly, to my disgust.

We had pretty violent fights over it for months until one day I found myself actually LOVING it. I didn't admit it for a while, but eventually ripped down all my Showaddywaddy posters and bought The Clash's first LP.

It was no looking back after that: The Clash led to The Damned led to Ramones led to Dead Kennedys led to Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Sonic Youth........etc.

my way was like that:

void void void -> Radiohead -> Sonic Youth (this is the point when it all exploded) -> Mogwai, Flying Saucer Attack, Tortoise, GY!BE and post-rock in general -> experimental electronica (Oval, Autechre, ambient in the likes of Terre Thaemlitz, Ghislain Poirier, Desormais and 12k, mego, touch labels) -> now I'm really fond of free rock such as Lightning Bolt, Pink&Brown, Erase Errata and japanese noisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssseeeeeee

baaaaaad moon rising.

for me its got to be The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness and SOAD's Toxicity, I know nobody here like that album, but for me its kinda defined my youth. Daydream Nation was also a huge influence. But if I was to pick 3 (sorry cant pick less) albums that have had the most obvious and lasting effect on how i write music it has to be Mellon Collie, Daydream Nation and Dark Side of the Moon.

Dirty, by Sonic Youth. You may know this band.

For me it has to be offspring's smash. It's what lead to my love of rock and eventually my discovery of sonic youth.

Up until 1994, I listened to straight hip hop. Growing up in the bay area, my friends, and my older cousins, basically everyone I knew was into hip hop. So I developed the same tastes. We all shared a hate for rock, and couldn't stand it.

Anyways, I was watching MTV one day and on comes the video for self esteem. I was about to change the channel like I always did for rock songs, but the bass line into had me hooked. Plus the video was visually pleasing. So I watched the video, and after I remember thinking that rock music is actually good.

Of course now, with my taste for rock so developed, The Offspring is just another pop band to me, but that was still the turning point.

There are at least several, but whenever asked this, I always think first of Patti Smith's Horses.

Then probably Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.

Then Never Mind the Bollocks, the first Ramones LP, the Talking Heads' More Songs about Food and Buildings, Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, Elvis Costello's My Aim is True, and Devo's Are We Not Men?

All of those had a huge impact on me and how I listen to music, especially since I bought them "in their time" (except Dylan), and that made them especially significant for me.

blonde on blonde

Jim Kerr = Worst hair

ever

Once upon a time I had Once Upon a Time (1985).

I really believe mine is this: (the cassette's cover is so much better)


or this:

For me, Leaves Turn Inside You by Unwound at the time I heard it was really different but still sounded so good and actually beautiful at times. I was getting into bands like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Blonde Redhead, Yo La Tengo and Unwound at the time. While all these bands were great, I didn't quite understand Daydream Nation the first time i heard it through and I heard some older YLT album that didn't make my jaw drop like some of their other stuff (Painful, Electr-O-Pura) and Fugazi was kind of more straight forward rock to me at the time.

I went from listening to whatever the media was into and what was on mtv to these bands that had a lot less mainstream attention and were more of an effort to find and get into, which was part of the fun in it. It was a bit more challenging to discover. The sound and stories and characters presented in Leaves Turn Inside You were so real and fantastic that I listened to it on repeat for months at a time and got really lost in it.

From these first few albums, like Leaves, I started to listen to the bands' older work and got into bands that had ties via location or record label and am still constantly looking for new bands that wow me or just are really enjoyable to listen to. But i'll always think of Leaves as the first album that really sprung my interest in music and got me more involved in the music culture/world, whatever you want to call it.

For me it would have to be Nirvana's Nevermind. I vividly remember seeing the video premier of Smells Like Teen Spirit at the age of 13 and just being completely blown away. Nirvana eventually led the way for discovering many of the great bands I listen to today such as: SY, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers, Boredoms, VU, etc. Before that time I largely listened to alot of thrash/death metal and rap. Which I still listen to somewhat, but not nearly as much as I did.

I'm sure there is several other albums I could choose as well, but I think Nevermind had the largest impact on what I listen to in general.

I can see how Nevermind would do it for ya. It would have had a huge impact on me, I'm sure, if I'd been a little younger. I'd already heard of Nirvana and was very familiar with their first SubPop LP, Bleach, and so I also was kind of into the grunge thing--Melvins, Mudhoney, etc.--before Nevermind broke. When Nevermind came out, it was like, what the fuck, and then wow, I guess I was onto something all this time.

As it was, I fell hard for that one, and played it constantly for like six months, driving friends, family, and pets nuts.

In my case it was Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. I heard a track from that album on the radio at the end of 2000. I was completely charmed by the sound and I thought that it might be one of the best albums ever made. I bought it after two years of searching and since then I consider it as the most important record in my liife.

Of course before I found out about MBV I've listened to a lot of bands (like Radiohead or Smashing Pumpkins) but none of them had such a huge impact on my perception of music.

Ramones Mania - got this in 8th grade coming off a teeny-bopper girl phase and went from cheerleeder-type to skater-lover punk wannabe in a matter of a month. i was never all that hardcore a punk though, just kinda "different." but this definitely opened my mind to new music.

its impossible to say one but ill go with-

sunburned hand of the man - shitless

Sonic Youth - Goo
Because that's the album that opend a new world for me and got me here.

the album that opened up the "new world" ie alternative rock for me was hole's live through this.

Led Zeppelin - II

That's cool. Yeah, after I purchased that album I played it non-stop for such a long time. I'm sure my friends and family were very annoyed. But I was just in love with it.