I'm going to do the lazy thing like Michael B and c&p this note from my facebook, which is a couple of years old, so I'll make some edits and addenda:
1. Jackson 5 – Greatest Hits (early 1980s)
Okay, I don’t remember which actual album this was. I think it was packaged with a single Michael Jackson glove and a button that said “I <3 J5". I might be conflating a couple different albums. First favorite song: Rockin’ Robin. Now favorite song: I Want You Back.
2. The Beatles – Help/A Hard Day’s Night/Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (mid 1980s)
These were back to back on a tape my dad put together for our annual car-rides to Wisconsin and Michigan. Say that to yourself: “Annual car rides to Wisconsin and Michigan.” The Beatles were my saviors. I made up little stories in my head about what I thought the songs were about. It was all very confusing, but great.
3.) Beastie Boys – License to Ill (1987)
The best damn record to ride your bikes around the cul-de-sac to! Rad! (R.I.P. Mikey) Not my first exposure to hip-hop, but this shaped the late elementary school era for me. Once again, a very confusing record.
4.) Def Leppard – Hysteria (1987)
The other best damn record to ride your bikes around the cul-de-sac to! Yeah! What a combination!
5.) Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood (late 1980s)
Meet me down by Boardwalk Fries - I got the new Motley Crue album! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular shade of green anywhere else. I was first exposed to hair metal a few years before when I saw a Judas Priest video on MTV (shortly before my mom banned MTV) and it had trickled down in little bits here and there, but this album made me an unrepentant grit.
6.) The Ramones – Animal Boy (late 1980s)
Not their best, but my first Ramones album after hearing “Eat That Rat” on WHFS back when that station was good. With all the synths, it was a strange intro to punk.
7.) Dead Milkmen – Beelzebubba (late 1980s/early 1990s)
A happy median between their earlier joke-punk and their later attempts to be serious/philosophical. This album seethes with snide late 80s disgust and paranoia and sadness. I skateboarded to this album every night in my garage when I was 11.
8.) The Cure – Disintegration (early 1990s)
I don’t think I need to say much about this album.
9.) Metallica - …And Justice For All (early 1990s)
Hey. I like the production just fine! Who needs a bass player anyway? Metallica at their most musically ambitious (and pulling it off) and their least lyrically embarrassing. This was the first album I heard that was, I don't know, artistically expansive?
10./11.)The Grateful Dead – American Beauty; Janis Joplin – Pearl (1993)
I didn’t get into them at first because I figured with a name like Grateful Dead and all those skulls, they should sound like Iron Maiden. The Dead album in particular is my go-to for familiarity and reassurance. I’ll be listening to that album until I die.
12. Camper Van Beethoven – Key Lime Pie (1993)
One of the first records where I realized that the lyrics were like short fiction. This probably influenced me to read a lot more.
13.)Phish – Rift (1993)
When I was a freshman, I stumbled upon a couple of upperclassmen who I looked up to who were singing a song from this at a playground near my house. I asked them what it was, then walked 5 miles directly to the mall and bought it. Probably the first real front-to-back concept album I had heard?
14.) Jane’s Addiction – Ritual De Lo Habitual (1993)
I thought of this one last, and am tired to typing out explanations – psychedelic fire.
15.) The Meat Puppets – Up on The Sun (1993)
Most of these songs could have gone on for longer than they did. Why was I so unsuccessful in making all my Phish-loving friends like this band? If Maiden’s Milk had been 19 minutes long, it would have been You Enjoy Myself.
16.) Sublime – 40 oz. to Freedom (1995/1996)
Strong cult love from certain areas of the high school parking lot. I saw them at their final tour stop in DC. One month later (on the day of Jen’s graduation party) I heard that the singer died. Then EV-erybody got into them.
17.) Beatnuts – Street Level (1997)
In the summer of 1997, delivering pizza for Domino’s in my twelve-year-old Volvo, I thought I was “Street Level” when I had this on the cassette deck.
18.) Steely Dan – Katy Lied (1998/1999)
Another album that has a rep for its bad production. I always thought that made it sound as seedy as the lyrics.
19.)John Coltrane – Stellar Regions (1999)
Along with Katy Lied, my official soundtrack for Drawing 101 and 102 at Howard Community College. I put more time into the homework for those classes than any class I’d ever taken and I still can’t draw. Art is a process.
20.) DJ Food – Kaleidescope (2000)
Pretentious music for the stormy summer that I discovered gin.
21.)Thrice – The Illusion of Safety (2002)
Good soundtrack for relationship troubles in my early twenties. I couldn’t get much into screamo as a genre, but this record was remarkably well done.
22.)Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera (2003)
Contains the only song (Women Without Whiskey) that has ever made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. And it happens consistently! I’d call that a profound effect.
23.)Built to Spill – Keep It Like a Secret (2005)
I had always wanted to make music. Then I heard Built to Spill, decided that they had got it right, and gave up. Built to Spill reminds me of skateboarding inside a UFO with a kitten standing on your head while the sun sets.
24.) Fleetwood Mac – Tusk (2007)
I has the best Christine McVie songs and their best moment of raw joy (Mick and Lindsay on "What Makes You Think You're the One”). Used to be that liking FM made you ooooooooold so now I listen to FM and feel oooooold.
25.) The Mountain Goats – We Shall All Be Healed. (2008)
This album was the most fun I had picking apart lyrics in a while. It took me back to when I was a teenager and bridged the gap for me where my habits and those of a lot of my friends diverged. There’s a lot of music about drug addiction, I guess, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else write on that grim topic in such an entertaining and compassionate voice.
26.) Taylor Swift – Fearless (2009)
Broke me out of my "oh yeah, country music? I LOVE the Grateful Dead" thing. Also maybe the “not listening to music by teenage girls” thing. It’s a front-to-back classic to me for the songwriting and arrangements, but it’s also sent me down different paths.
― rustic italian flatbread, Friday, 4 November 2011 18:01 (twelve years ago) link