5 albums that changed your life

cpcompany

Public Enemy- Yo Bum Rush The Show
BDP- By All Means Necessary
Stone Roses Firat album
The Clash first album, still my favourite. 
Duran Duran Arena. First album I ever owned aged about 8. 

Flink_Poyd

Anthrax - Among The Living                       
My introduction to thrash. I liked Iron Maiden before this but they were my first proper concert and convinced me being a skatepunk was the way to go.

Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Complete gamechanger. I had a few imported electro tapes from the US with Grandmaster Flash etc but this had attitude by the bucketload. 

Metallica - Master Of Puppets
The album that "spoke to me" It drew on every bit of anguish, hatred and fury that was (and still is) inside of me.

Richard James AKA Aphex Twin
Difficult to put it into a single album. I hated him on the first few listens, a year later and the same music was a revelation. Anyone who thinks this sort of music isnt "music" can quite frankly fuck off.

I will have his track Tha played at my funeral, Enough said.


Radiohead - The Bends
Just brilliant. I dont care if you dont like Radiohead, I dont like all their stuff myself but when their music gets me it affects me.


Notable mentions

NIN - The Downward Spiral
Beastie Boys - ill Communication
Squarepusher -  Hard Normal Daddy
RHCP - Mothers Milk

TTony

So, now I've got to cull the 25  ....

... down to 5??

Hmmmmmm.

1.  Quo - Live.  B4U was the first "serious" album that I ever bought, but Live followed shortly afterwards.  Live was Quo at their peak, set the direction for my musical taste ever since (basic, simple, loud) and probably influenced the direction of my life too.

2.  VU - 1969 Live.  Lou Reed has released a lot of shit.  But this album allows him to.  This album has "feel".  And to a teenage boy in suburbia in the pre-internet era, this was all sorts of other worlds.

3.  JJ Cale - Shades.  Firstly because it's JJ Cale.  Secondly because, at the time, I was in a relationship that would get the lady involved in a lot of trouble today, and she (a) taught me a lot in that year and (b) bought me this album.  And no, it wan't all about *that* sort of thing.  Looking at my list of 25, she was also involved in the reasons that Imagine and Hotel California made the original 25.

4.  Vibrators - Pure Mania.  There has to be a punk album in my list of 5, because punk was the major thing that happened in my teenage years.  I know that this isn't "true" punk - it's an example of how the industry corrupted the original values of the movement.

5.  John Peel - Tribute.  JP's evening shows were the soundtrack to my teenage years, and really my only access to interesting music back then (think R1 on MW!!).  And then he reappeared with his Sat morning r4 in my later years.  Top.  Man.

Alterlifeson

• Pearl Jam - Ten

I heard Even Flow somewhere and immediately gathered their discography as quickly as I could. One of the best live bands around. The first time I saw redefined the music concert for me. Ten could easily be replaced with Binaural, I love the darker, moodier side of PJ.

• Rush - Power Windows

I first got into Rush when Snakes and Arrows came out. Their show at the NEC was my first ever gig I think. After collecting their discography I keep going back to this album. It was so radically different to their late 70's early 80's material that it didn't seem like the same band this first time I heard it. It really made me realise a band didn't have to do the same thing their whole career to be successful.

• U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (first album I bought with my own money and admired as a music fan)

This was the first album I bought with my own money and admired as a music fan. I think the old iTunes ad with Vertigo as the theme had me hooked. Not an amazing album but it will always hold a special place for me. I went onto discover Achtung Baby and that blew me away as a teenager. Still one of my top 5 bands.

• Metallica - Metallica

Probably the reason I started playing was because I was jealous of my best mate being able to play the intro to Enter Sandman and I wanted to do the same. Not my favourite 'tallica album now, but is still an undeniable classic.

• Above & Beyond - Group Therapy

This was probably the first non rock/indie/metal (i.e. non guitar based album) that I fell in love with. Still not a massive trance/dance fan, but this opened so many doors to other styles of music I had missed out on over the years. GT flows from start to finish, it felt more like watching a movie the first time I heard it. The rest of their catalogue is brilliant too.

mart

Essential Jean Michel Jarre

Early in my teens I decided I needed a walkman, even though I owned no music. After I got it, I borrowed a tape off my brother because I’d heard Jarre at school. One side of the tape had this, and the other side had two thirds of Three Sides Live. I very quickly stopped listening to the Jarre side and started mainlining Genesis, which I’ve been doing ever since.

Invisible Touch

Awful album, the first new release after I got into the band and such a let down. My current wife had a cassette of this when we met, and somehow this persuaded me that we had some common taste in music. Doh.

Wish you were here

Don’t remember how I ended up with this, but it was the first Floyd I’d heard apart from that old Christmas #1 they had, and I was utterly smitten by it. The first guitar notes in Shine still go right through me.

Status Quo live

A friend adored Quo and got me hooked through this album, and got me to learn guitar so we could form the next Quo. I was completely unmusical, so it seemed a long shot, but he was persuasive and encouraging. Thirty years later I’m still learning, and I reckon in another three hundred years I might be good enough for a Quo tribute band.

Rock and roll animal

A little later on a friend got massively into Lou Reed, especially this album, and asked me to help him figure out how to play Sweet Jane. I could, and did, which showed me I had actually learnt something about music, and that maybe my music teacher had been wrong when she’d drummed into me that I was an utterly useless waste of space.

Only two of these are among my favourite albums, but these are the five that most changed my life.

lasermonkey

BintyTwanger77 said:

lasermonkey said:

David Bowie- Low
 Cocteau Twins- Treasure
 Brian Eno/Harold Budd- Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirror
 Big Star- #1 Record
 Boards Of Canada- Music Has The Right To Children

Absolutely adore Big Star, and their Bellshill progeny Teenage Fanclub

I love the Fannies with all my heart, but I discovered them because of Big Star.
 One of the perks of having a friend who was in the re-formed Big Star is that I got to see them and the Fannies from the side of the stage at the Connect Festival a few years back.

thumpingrug

Ive been thinking about this a lot, probably too much.  ! currently have around 600 albums so picking just 5 is hard going.

Chris Rea - On the Beach
Neil Young - On the Beach

Both these got me through some very rough times in the 80s and early 90s so as per the thread title , they have to get a mention regardless of how cheesy,

Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound of Thunder,  Yes a live album, but the opening to Sorrow is incredible  and the solo on Comfortably Numb is probably the best I have heard recorded.  Regularly reduces me to tears.

Marillion -Clutching at Straws.   For Rotherys solos on Warm Wet Circles and Sugar Mice.   Got me into Rothery the guitar player and Marillion the band and the family of fans.  Its a lifestyle.

U2  - The Joshua Tree  - Music as a soundscape.  Big expansive and passionate.

I could go on as there are too many times when music has played its part in my life, good and not so good.
Springsteen, Dylan, Pearl Jam, Marillion, Mike Scott even Fields of the Nephilim, all played their part at some stages.   

fandango

Trying to keep to the OP, and in no particular order:

Pink Floyd - Animals - my first Floyd album (on cassette!) and opened the way into the Floydian world. Played it so much it became a bit warbly, and the tape eventually jammed and died a death. Still a great album after 40 years.

Goombay Dance Band - Seven Tears - boy, this was shit, and put me off second-rate disco forever. Fortunately, it wasn't a purchase, so I didn't waste any money. Just my time listening to it for a few runs, before it found it's way out the house in a black bag.

Herp Albert & the Tijana Brass - Greatest Hits - grew up with this when my pa ran a successful restaurant back in the 80's that had an 8-track tape machine providing the ambience. Herb Alpert's album was one of the regulars every evening. Grew to like it, and partly because of this I prefer instrumentals to vocal songs.

Chuck Berry - Best of - can't remember how I got hold of this, but have always loved Chuck Berry because of it, and my favourite two tunes of his are Havana Moon and Memphis, Tennessee. I would go as far as to attribute my desire to play the guitar to him, although it took a lot of years to eventually take the plunge. RIP Chuck.

The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - this got me into ambient, and significantly broadened my musical horizons. I still don't think they've ever bettered it.

Rowby1

Made In Japan - Deep Purple

Powerage - AC/DC

Live and Dangerous - Thin Lizzy

Joshua Tree - U2

What’s The Story - Oasis

Deadman

The Damned - Live at Shepperton 1980 (first thing I ever heard by them. I was 11, so 1981. It was taped and given to me by my mate's brother).

The Jam - Sound Affects. I used to listen to this till a good 3am when I was a teenager. Sometimes in the dark with my headphones on. 

The Smiths - Hatful of hollow. The Peel Session variants, especially of The Charming Man really struck a chord with me. I found Marr's guitar on this album in particular completely enchanting.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Bloodsugarsexmagik. I scoffed American music until this was released in 1991. It made me pick up guitar. A Strat, naturally.

The Police - Regatta de blanc. Where it got serious for me. I was probably about 8. Up to this point I liked The Muppets and The Smurfs. This album is the reason I like 'guitar' music.

scrumhalf

These albums are not necessarily my favourites but are, as requested, as close to albums that changed my life as they can be.

Are You Experienced - Jimi Hendrix Experience
Abraxas - Santana.
I was about nine when I heard these, and the degree to which they differed from the pop stuff on TOTP or the radio that was my normal musical diet was such that they set me on a journey that's lasted years.

Best of Freddie King - wow, you mean that blues can be happy as well as sad?
Rising Force - Yngwie. I'd always wondered about classical-style music played by a rock band. A musical slap round the head.
On The Boards - Taste. My first Rory album. If you need to know more, go and listen to it.

Should any of these albums not be able to fulfill their duties then Stray's Saturday Morning Pictures will take their place.

fandango

scrumhalf said:

These albums are not necessarily my favourites but are, as requested, as close to albums that changed my life as they can be.

Are You Experienced - Jimi Hendrix Experience
Abraxas - Santana.
I was about nine when I heard these, and the degree to which they differed from the pop stuff on TOTP or the radio that was my normal musical diet was such that they set me on a journey that's lasted years.

Best of Freddie King - wow, you mean that blues can be happy as well as sad?
Rising Force - Yngwie. I'd always wondered about classical-style music played by a rock band. A musical slap round the head.
On The Boards - Taste. My first Rory album. If you need to know more, go and listen to it.

Should any of these albums not be able to fulfill their duties then Stray's Saturday Morning Pictures will take their place.

^^^^^ This. Says it all.

I was fortunate* that my school was a 'rock' school. The music-based graffiti on exercise books etc were Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Eagles, Deep Purple, Queen, Genesis, Asia, Yes, Rush, etc...

We weren't a punk/ new wave/ dance or pop school by any stretch, yet, it's also the time Madness hit the big time. I suppose the soundtrack to my school years was "Another Brick in The Wall" and "Baggy Trousers". Yet we dug The Police and Blondie too!

So no time or space for Kool and The Gang, Michael Jackson, Soft Cell, Kenny Rogers, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Commodores, Olivia Newton-John, Billy Joel, George Benson, or even Prince - all big sellers and successful in their day. But if we weren't buying their records, who was?

*subjective, I know.

Hoof

Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. The first LP I really got in to and got passionate about. I was 10 at the time.

Mudhoney - Superfuzz Bigmuff. Made me want a guitar.

Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power. I was blown away by the expression of frustration and anger and unlike other metal I'd heard up to that point it was about personal experience instead of fantasies of war or demonic bullshit. Of the course the riffs were incredible too.

Kyuss - Blues For The Red Sun. I'd never heard anything like it at the time. Total game changer for me at the first listen of Allen's Wrench on John Peel's show.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain. Maybe because it was the current album when I discovered the band, but the mix of  brutal metal, psychadelic, Hinds' weird banjo style picking, album concept was all I needed to convince me I'd found a new favourite band.

earwighoney

Flink_Poyd said:

Richard James AKA Aphex Twin
Difficult to put it into a single album. I hated him on the first few listens, a year later and the same music was a revelation. Anyone who thinks this sort of music isnt "music" can quite frankly fuck off.

I will have his track Tha played at my funeral, Enough said.

I remember the first time I heard Windowlicker which I think was in Tower Records, Picadilly the week of it's release and it just blew my mind. 

RDJ has been an important part of my life since I was a teen in the late 90's.  Been listening to the Analord series a lot recently, I think it's some of his best.

Neill

Well this won't do a lot for my street cred but there's really only one LP I can think of that was genuinely life changing and this is it.



It came free with our first "stereogram" and there's one track on it "Soul Coaxing" by Norrie Paramor (and his strings) that I used to play at full volume over and over again.  Made me realise what a wonderful thing great music played really loud is.  I still love it, over 50 years on.

Apart from that, maybe the first Ramones album.

punchesjudy

Nirvana - Bleach. 
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie. 
Beatles - White album. 
David Bowie - Hunky Dory. 
Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral. 

TTBZ

The only one i would class as life changing is a Hendrix greatest hits - my dad had it on and it really made me want to play guitar. Especially the Voodoo Chile (slight return) intro. Without guitar I don't think I'd have the job I have today. Other than that I'd struggle to think of anything truly life changing !

Dopesick

Faith No More - Angel Dust
Got me into alternative music in 1992
Metallica - The Black Album
Got me into metal in 1997
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Got me into more progressive, extreme metal in 2001
Alice In Chains - Dirt
Got this in 2000 and it is the greatest album I've ever heard
Neurosis - Through Silver In Blood
Possibly the album (along with Odd Fellows Rest by Crowbar) that got me started listening to noisy, fucked up sludge stuff in the early 2000s

Phil_aka_Pip

Sweet Baby James (James Taylor)
Mirage (Camel)
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers Beano album
Moving On (one of the two John Mayall "Jazz/Blues fusion" albums) with Freddy Robinson on guitar
In Rock (Deep Purple)

each of these gave me a fresh outlook on music, as did the Cream Live album

Neylus

Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion 1&2
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Nirvana - Nevermind 
Stone Temple Pilots - Core