Most Important Album of Your Life
So tell me, whats the most important album of your life? Which one is the one that you have played over and over again? Which one means more to you than any other album you own? Which one won't you let your friends borrow because you know they'll lose it and you'll be without it forever?
Mine is So Much For the Afterglow by Everclear. I got it when I was in the seventh grade. We were pretty poor so it was one of my three Christmas presents. Listening to that CD over the years has gotten me through so much that I would've just had to deal with otherwise. The CD was there for me when I was sad and lonely in seventh grade. It was there for me five years later when my best friend ended up in rehab. It's still there for me now.
So what's yours?
We'd all like some real friends, but what are the odds of that happening?--Cheif Wiggum
Lincoln by They Might Be Giants...
Always makes me happy hoppy skippy jumpy...
Can listen to it, over and over, until I annoy everyone around me...
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
Ana Ng and I are gettin' old and we still haven't walked in the flow of each other's majestic presence...
Annoyed yet?
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
eighty dolls yelling small girl after all?
Pearl Jam's TEN saved my life when I was a suicidal 8th grader.
[i]Your construction
Smells of corruption
I manipulate to recreate
This air to ground saga
Gotta launder my karma[/i]
[img]http://chickenhead.com/bannertown/images/satanism.gif[/img]
thats a really tough question. i know its going to sound cliche, but i'd probably have to say dark side of the moon by pink floyd. something about that album really grabs me. it puts things that i'm feeling into something i can hear, if that makes sense.
you'll just sit there wishing you could still make love.
Yes, that makes perfect sense. I understand. And it doesn't sound cliche, its your choice, your feeling. Your feelings can't be cliche right?
I never knew it, but that's why I listen to music. It puts my feelings into something I can hear, translates them even. It transcribes the mumbo jumbo in my head and makes it all nice and neat for me to look at and evaluate and figure out what I need to do to make it better. Thank you ad4m, for making it clear for me. Can we say epiphany anyone?
We'd all like some real friends, but what are the odds of that happening?--Cheif Wiggum
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by midnightrider [/i]
[B]I never knew it, but that's why I listen to music. It puts my feelings into something I can hear, translates them even. It transcribes the mumbo jumbo in my head and makes it all nice and neat for me to look at and evaluate and figure out what I need to do to make it better. Thank you ad4m, for making it clear for me. Can we say epiphany anyone? [/B][/QUOTE]
yeah, thats exactly why this question is so tough...sometimes i'll be listening to an album...or at a show watching a band play...and a movement in the music will happen and i will think "thats it. right there." and at that moment its like you understood everything there was. you know?
i guess i pick DSOTM because a few years ago i was just kindof in a slump and i listened to this album a whole lot and it would always just complete ideas for me. its tough to explain.
you'll just sit there wishing you could still make love.
I would have to say that it's undeiniably by Nine Inch Nails but it's a question as to which.
The Downward Spiral is what got me into music, art and everything that I love now. It's what taught me it's okay to have everyone hate me so long as I'm happy with me.
The Fragile was what convinced me that I had something worth offering artistically even if it was less than marketable, someone would see the value in it eventually. It also taught me that working for five years on something is a good thing, not a productivity issue.
Still was all I listened to for a year when I lived in a tiny Ohio town. I never made a friend, I had no one to write or call home to, I worked a disgusting job that was mafia owned, and halfway through my stay I had to stop sleeping and start caring for my mother as she died of cancer. Still is all I listened to and it became very sacred to me. My favorite piece of music ever written is "Adrift and At Peace" which (if this makes any sense to anyone) I actually avoid listening to because it's so special I don't want to trivialize it. When I do listen to it I don't let myself do anything else at all but listen, a sort of meditiation. This is the only piece of music I do this with.
Wow. Sorry.
Awesome fucking thread.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
This is a great thread...
And the story given by prototype, I think that's part of the part of music...or movies...or writing.
I kind of have the same dilema as to what album to pick. I know it's by Bob Dylan, but there have been a couple which just blew me away at different times when I needed to be blown away.
The Freewheelin' was my true first exposure to Bob Dylan. It also was when I first got into writing. For everyone who I'd heard said, "His voice is shit," after hearing that album, I never understood how a voice could be so genuine and right on, and I fell in love with that harmonica, the guitar, and mostly importantly the voice, as I finally started to understand myself.
Highway 61 Revisted. I mention this album because it's got my two favorite songs, "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Desolation Row" on it. At any time, no matter the place or state of mind, I can put on either one and just get back to that place that I can't really put in to words, or really understand, that just levels me.
Blood on the Tracks. Wow. I've never heard an album capture the essence of a relationship like that. For someone who's struggled to find love, understand it, and deal with all the good and bad that goes along with it, this album was the liner notes to my soul.
Time out of Mind. Many, for me, classics. But "Not Dark Yet" is fucking right on. And after watching The Wonder Boys, and how it was used in the film, it meant that much more to me.
Wow...this thread is really hard. I love music so much, and it has helped shape me so much, that it's hard to just pick one...or a couple..
Tough choice for me, too. At the time, [i]Pretty Hate Machine[/i] was very important to me to a degree that hasn't been matched since, but [i]Undertow[/i] has stayed with me over the years more. [i]Mer de Noms[/i] has more closely mirrored my life than anything else, though, and would probably rate over [i]Undertow[/i].
Warehouse: Songs and Stories by Husker Du.
Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, loses girl, tries to get girl back, fails, life goes downhill, boy pulls self out of the shit and decides to get on with his life - wounded though he may be. Came out a few days after the first time I ate three bottles of sleeping pills over a woman (first convulsions, then coma, baby!). I used ta sit on the floor with my headphones on cranked to 11 and cry my fucking eyes out over and over and over. "You left me standing in the rain", indeed.
whatever skynard album has freebird on it...
Well, gee... Now I wish [b]I[/b] had posted something flippant instead...
but you still liked my answer??? right, little dump truck?
You could have at least gone to Amazon and found out what album Freebird is on. Here, you just sound like some Skynard dilletente.
Possibly Tom Waits - [color=blue]Blue[/color] [color=red]Valentine[/color]
[size=-2]She sends me blue valentines
All the way from Philadelphia
To mark the anniversary
Of someone that I used to be
And it feels just like theres
A warrant out for my arrest
Got me checkin in my rearview mirror
And I'm always on the run
Thats why I changed my name
And I didn't think you'd ever find me here
To send me blue valentines
Like half forgotten dreams
Like a pebble in my shoe
As I walk these streets
And the ghost of your memory
Is the thistle in the kiss
And the burgler that can break a roses neck
It's the tatooed broken promise
That I hide beneath my sleeve
And I see you every time I turn my back
She sends me blue valentines
Though I try to remain at large
They're insisting that our love
Must have a eulogy
Why do I save all of this madness
In the nightstand drawer
There to haunt upon my shoulders
Baby I know
I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go
With a blind and broken heart
That sleeps beneath my lapel
She sends me my blue valentines
To remind me of my cardinal sin
I can never wash the guilt
Or get these bloodstains off my hands
And it takes a lot of whiskey
To take this nightmares go away
And I cut my bleedin heart out every nite
And I die a little more on each St. Valentines day
Remember that I promised I would
Write you...
These blue valentines
blue valentines
blue valentines[/size]
_______________
Five years later, different girl, different circumstances. Similar result only without the pills...
Led Zeppelin - the untitled 4th album
it's just that simple
[img]http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~chenj/brucelee/images/bruceimage0.gif[/img]
I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but the best album in world to me is Incubus - Make Yourself.
I just love it to fucking bits, pure and simple. It's the only album that's held my attention at every listening for longer than 2years. it suits my every mood, and if i listen to it the morning, i always have a good day.
(and i met José!)
God, what a difficult question. I have no idea. It'll come to me when I'm marrooned on a desert Island...
Radiohead - OK Computer...Yeah the album is impersonal and abstract at times, but I was able to really identify with the emotions present. Maybe it's because of that small shred of hope that Thom sings with that shines through amidst the paranoid and chaotic world he's describing. I don't know, I guess I just find it comforting.
Then again, I might be wrong.
Jesus man, some of you guys got some major problems....so it looks like I'm in good company.
This one's a toughy (not to be confused with Tuffy), since there's so many albums I'm in love with, but my ultimate choice would have to be the fine workings of Antonio Carlos Jobim in his Greatest Artist of the Century album. For those of you that have no clue who he is, he's a Brazilian artist, sings and writes bossanova songs, he sang the original "Girl from Ipanema".
Suck me beautiful...
Dang it. Now I'm going to have Girl From Ipanema in my head all day. The Frank Sinatra version.
Da-dum-dum-dum-da-da-dum-dum-dum.......<---my poor attempt at mimicry.
There is hope, but not for us.
F that! Astrud Gilberto's version with Stan Getz is clearly the most superiorist.
Maybe Mudhoney, Best of the BBC recordings...
But most likely the 'new' Dr Zhivago soundtrack.
When I was a kid, definitely, the Beatles White Album. Currently, I can't stop listening to the the Peppers Californication, though By the Way has some cool tunes on it too.
There are no mistakes.
The Downward Spiral is what got me into music, art and everything that I love now. It's what taught me it's okay to have everyone hate me so long as I'm happy with me.
The Fragile was what convinced me that I had something worth offering artistically even if it was less than marketable, someone would see the value in it eventually. It also taught me that working for five years on something is a good thing, not a productivity issue.
Still was all I listened to for a year when I lived in a tiny Ohio town. I never made a friend, I had no one to write or call home to, I worked a disgusting job that was mafia owned, and halfway through my stay I had to stop sleeping and start caring for my mother as she died of cancer. Still is all I listened to and it became very sacred to me. My favorite piece of music ever written is "Adrift and At Peace" which (if this makes any sense to anyone) I actually avoid listening to because it's so special I don't want to trivialize it. When I do listen to it I don't let myself do anything else at all but listen, a sort of meditiation. This is the only piece of music I do this with.
Wow. Sorry.
Awesome fucking thread.
proto, i *heart* you. can i have your babies? please? you and i are musical soulmates, methinks.
for me, in answer to the thread, it would undoubtedly be [i]The Downward Spiral[/i] by Nine Inch Nails. It's my (our?) generation's [i]The Wall[/i].
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
Well, Offspring's album 'Smash' was the first cd I ever bought, and kinda got me on the road to listening to my own music, rather than just listening to whatever my parent's listened to, but I certainly wouldn't call it my favorite.. I mean, it's still a good album, but...
I can't really pick a most important ever...
If you had asked me a few years ago, I probably would have picked one of Stabbing Westward's albums or maybe Gravity Kills' album 'Perversion'.. But my tastes just change too often for me to have a real solid favorite...
Right now I'm in love with Portishead - Dummy... And actually I've already moved out of that phase and the last few days I've just been listening to raver junk.
And of course, anything by Radiohead is worth mentioning.. And really, System of a Down's self-titled album was incredible for a metal/hard rock type band...Too bad the rest of their stuff is sub-par.
And 'Hide the Kitchen Knives' of The Paper Chase is absolutely amazing.. Just... beyond words, an incredible album. And you gotta love Weezer's blue album and then there's Rua by Clann Zu...
Too many to pick.. I'm helpless.
Kitty, I feel like The Fragile is more like The Wall than The Downward Spiral. The latter feels more like Dark Side of the Moon.
The most important album to me is Wish You Were Here by, of course, Pink Floyd. It was the first CD I ever had, bought for me by my father, whom I love very much and very close with. Pink Floyd is what attracted me to Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead and Godspeed and all those post-progressive bands (or what I see as post-progressive). I will never forget or rid myself of Wish You Were Here.
Its also got one of the best album covers ever.
My musical tastes have changed so drastically over the years that hardly a band has survived from my beginning entrance into music. So, I am unsure.
That's why I chose Pink Floyd. They're timeless and genre-less.
I of course, used to love Green Day and Offspring and Limp Bizkit and Korn and all these bands I now realise are immature and shitty.
Then I grew up and went back and listened to Pink Floyd again, and it was a way of connecting with something I had lost.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Fucko [/i]
[B]Jesus man, some of you guys got some major problems....so it looks like I'm in good company.
This one's a toughy (not to be confused with Tuffy), since there's so many albums I'm in love with, but my ultimate choice would have to be the fine workings of Antonio Carlos Jobim in his Greatest Artist of the Century album. For those of you that have no clue who he is, he's a Brazilian artist, sings and writes bossanova songs, he sang the original "Girl from Ipanema". [/B][/QUOTE]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am SO in love with this man's composition. "Insensatez" is one of my top ten all time favorite pieces of music.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by leonardshelby [/i]
[B]Kitty, I feel like The Fragile is more like The Wall than The Downward Spiral. The latter feels more like Dark Side of the Moon.
The most important album to me is Wish You Were Here by, of course, Pink Floyd. It was the first CD I ever had, bought for me by my father, whom I love very much and very close with. Pink Floyd is what attracted me to Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead and Godspeed and all those post-progressive bands (or what I see as post-progressive). I will never forget or rid myself of Wish You Were Here.
Its also got one of the best album covers ever. [/B][/QUOTE]
As a huge Floyd fan as well, i go with Kitty and say that The Fragile is only more reminiscent of The Wall because of Ezrin and the fact that it's two discs.
I don't think The Fragile can be compared to any Floyd release- excepting maybe, MAYBE Animals.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Looking over some of these albums/comments I'm finding harder and harder to be a critic about certain things.
I love to argue about music. I love to argue about movies. About just about anything. But when you staple someone's heart to on the fabric which helped form it, I mean, damn.
I think about instances like hearing Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" for the first time and thinking "What the fuck was that?" and then falling in soul with all of his work because it just fucking hit me. And then hearing, "New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel for the first time and hearing my passion for that city being put into words. I guess my point here is not so much to indulge my personal ties to music, but to recognize the fact, and the power of music on the makeup of who we are, and how we got there.
Keep up the responses everyone. I'm compiling a list of "Must Have Records" so don't let me down...
The Fragile definately gets an honorable mention because it got me through some tough times, but then again I considered these times "tough" when I was 14 so that whole era is really just a pathetic series of trifles.
I will say this: The finale of The Day the World Went Away is one of the most amazing moments in any music I've been exposed to. And "Where the fuck were you?" from Somewhat Damaged has to be one of my favorite lines from any song ever.
Then again, I might be wrong.
Hmmmm....I'm gonna go with a few for different reasons.
Modest Mouse: This Is A Long Drive For Somone With Nothing To Think About
Modest Mouse: The Moon and Antarctica
Camper Van Beethoven: Key Lime Pie
Cryptopsy: Whisper Supremacy
Cephalic Carnage: Lucid Interval
YOU FUCKED THE WORST, NOW FIGHT THE BEST!
[b][url=http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/557/the_satanic_ballerinas.html]The Satanic Ballerinas[/url][/b]
Also have really over the years enjoyed Billy Bragg, kind of folk/pop music with a *very* political bent...
Talking with the Taxman About Poetry
Worker's Playtime
Other Stuff
You'd only enjoy if you're a lefty pinko anti-American like me though, hahaha... 
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
Sounds like I'd love it, then.
He has a terrific version of The Internationale, with updated lyrics.
The Internationale is a beautiful, moving song.
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
I have no idea who any of those people are or any of those songs.. But I'll probably check it out. Sooner or later. Everyone knows I'm the resident anti-American asshole, anyhow.
The Fragile has that connected-ness that The Wall has. Every song on the album is connected one way or another, or flows with the others, if you get what I'm saying. I don't want to argue over it, but that's just how I feel.
And one thing you can't argue about, is that the cover of Wish You Were Here is so awesome.
That's what 'Hide the Kitchen Knives' is like.. The Paper Chase's latest album.. Then again, all their albums are like that... Can't just listen to one song, have to listen to the whole album.. I rove it.
When I was younger and having the most problems, I listened to all classic rock and classical music. So I would either have to go with Carole King's "Tapestry" or the White Album.
There is hope, but not for us.
A bit like Woody Guthrie, a bit more updated maybe and definitely a bit more British.
I like him, he makes sense to me. Anyone who says, "If you've got a blacklist--I want to be on it," that, I like.
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
the most important record i could never do without?! JEBUS theres WAY too many but i guess i have to go with the obvious
PIXIES: surfer rosa
PAVEMENT: terror twilight
any LED ZEPPELIN
and RADIOHEAD: the bends
and any cure or siouxsie & the banshees < for my GOTH days as a lowly 8th grader
OH MY GAWD how could i forget the one album i would never leave earth for jeeze!!!!!!!!
ANY FUCKIN BOB DYLAN ALBUM EVER!!!!
Billy Bragg did a couple a good albums with Wilco too. They took a lot of unrecorded, maybe even unperformed Woody Guthrie songs, and went into the studio. They emerged with the Mermaid Ave, Vol I and II. Not as good as Wilco's own stuff, but deserving to be next to those Wilco albums in your collection.
We'd all like some real friends, but what are the odds of that happening?--Cheif Wiggum
I found a site to download some of his stuff...
[url]http://www.iea-edu.org/contract.html[/url]
I have it already of course but it's fun to have it on my computer. I'm listening to some of it now...
I will check out those Wilco sets too, thanx.
"I've never caught a jewel thief before. It's very stimulating."
Frances Stevens, To Catch a Thief
"Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see? You and me with long faces plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known."
Lisa Fremont, "Rear Window"
watch out, the RIAA will sue you.
j/k.
the fragile got me through some tough times, too, but i would never have gotten into NIN if not for TDS, so that's why it's my no. 1.
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Tuffy the Dump Truck [/i]
[B]F that! Astrud Gilberto's version with Stan Getz is clearly the most superiorist. [/B][/QUOTE]
Totally fucking yeah Tuffy.
For me it was also Ok Computer, possibly one of the greatest, if not [I]the[/I] greatest album ever made.
i'm sure i won't be the last person to say "this is a difficult decision," but for sure, one of the most important albums of my life would be the reality bites soundtrack.
when this movie came out (1994), my reality did, indeed, bite. i can't remember why i bought the cassette in the first place, but it had to be a cassette because iwas driving a car that was as old as i was, and while my sunbird originally came with an 8-track, my dad put in a cassette player for me. anyway, i listened to that tape so many times, i ruined it. twice. thank god it was back in the day when you could bring damaged stuff back to the wall for a replacement. when the second tape broke, i finally bought the cd, which still enjoys regular air-time.
some of the featured artists include the knack, lisa lobe, u2, crowded house, ethan hawk, and squeeze. "life don't have to be no bed of roses" was both a lament and a wake-up call for me at the time. and "tempted" by squeeze will always remain a sing-along classic.
anyway, i love some of the other choices for most important albums...lincoln, downward spiral, wish you were here, the white album, tapestry, fucking pavement, the cure, tom waits, l. cohen, dylan, joel...love it all.
Nirvana [i]In Utero[/i]
It's not easy having a good time.
Even smiling makes my face ache.