A popular note going around Facebook requests that one list…
…[fifteen] albums that had such a profound effect on
you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you
in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the
albums that you can use to identify time, places, people,
emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of
musically shaped your world.
Well, I don’t know if I’ll reach fifteen, but here are my
picks:
- Nevermind (Nirvana)
- If you were alive in 1991, you know what I mean. With one
album—really,
one
song—what I thought I knew about music was turned completely
on its head. It was revolutionary, and it was well-done,
unlike so much of the grunge which would follow (Pearl Jam, I’m
looking at you).
- Use Your Illusion I & II (Guns N’ Roses)
- I didn’t really know a lot about GnR at the time, but I
understood from the news that Use Your Illusion was a
highly-anticipated release. My buddies and I could
watch video
for November Rain over and over and over (due in no
small part to Axl Rose’s then-girlfriend Stephanie
Seymour’s role therein) and loved that great guitar
solo (it still gives me goosebumps), and I remember spending hours
trying to
hold the final
note of Don’t Cry for as long as possible.
- Cooleyhighharmony (Boyz II Men)
- Another album that came out in 1991 (I was thirteen then—see a
pattern?), the absurdly long-titled It’s So Hard to Say
Goodbye to Yesterday seemed very meaningful at the time.
I’ve grown up since, but those were good times then.
- Top Gun, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
- I’ve written
about Top Gun before; suffice it to say that
it’s one of my all-time favourite films. The soundtrack
itself is magnificent: from Kenny
Loggins’s Danger
Zone to
Berlin’s Take
My Breath Away to
the Top Gun
Anthem, it’s superb. There are only a few lame tracks,
but the vast majority are grand. If you don’t like Top
Gun you’re a commie, and if you don’t like the
soundtrack you’re deaf. It’s that simple.
- Different Class (Pulp)
- This one came out before I entered college, but I didn’t
discover it until after I’d graduated. I was still fairly
young, living in my first apartment and used to visit a CD store
within walking distance every few weeks. I found Different
Class one day and played it near-constantly. Had it been
vinyl, I’m sure I would have worn the grooves thin. As it was,
I managed to discover Britpop nearly a decade late. Better late than
never!
- slowdrown (Dim Reflection)
- This was the first album I bought that featured friends or
acquaintances of mine. Now known
as The Farstar, Dim
Reflection were a pretty damned good band that my buddy Shannon put
together in college.
- Are You with Me? (Cowboy Mouth)
- My junior year of college I decided not to go home for spring break
and instead spent it hanging out with my buddy Phil and his girlfriend
Jess. We played golf, ate out, went shooting, bought canes and bowler
hats, got hit by a car on a freeway exit—and through it all,
this tape was playing in the cassette player. It became the
soundtrack for one of the best weeks I’d had up until that
point. To this all I need is to hear the first few notes
of Jenny Says
and I’m in vacation mode.
- The ’80s Hit(s) Back!)
- I’m not certain, but I believe this is the first CD I
ever bought in college. It was a simple compilation, but I played it
and played it my freshman year. Good stuff and good times.
- The Best of Bond…James Bond
- In the fall of 2002 I returned to London for a weeklong vacation; on
the way over and back British Airways
had this
CD playing on one its channels. The trip itself was a bit of a
washout—I discovered that it’s always better to travel
with people—but as soon as I got home I bought the CD and
I’ve never looked back. As a small boy I imagined that I looked
like James Bond whenever I wore a bow tie (my mother says I looked
more like Barney Fife) and rather expected that I’d spend my
adult life wearing tuxedos, drinking martinis, driving fast cars,
playing with cool gadgets and chasing
exotic double-entendre–spouting women. Those dreams
might have been disappointed, but this CD never lets me down.
- Get a Grip (Ærosmith)
- Ærosmith is one of those bands whose lives are pitiable, but
whose music is just spectacular. Ironically, I’ve never
owned Get a Grip,
but Cryin’
(which launched Alicia Silverstone’s brief career)
and Crazy
were huge favourites in my early teens in Virginia,
while Amazing
was constantly on the jukebox while I was at an engineering program
shortly after moving to Denver. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and the rest
have done a lot of things they should be ashamed of, but they sure did
make some great rock & roll.
Well, that’s nine, and I honestly can’t think of any more
so I’ll stop here. Besides, nine is so much more pleasant a
number than fifteen anyway.
