Lists that changed your life

OK Computer was number one, and The Bends was top ten. I knew I LOVED them, so I allowed myself to fall for the rest.

This was directly responsible for me liking what were for a long time my favourite bands - Velvet Underground and Joy Division. And therefore my favourite album - VU and Nico.

It's how how often that list creeps into my head. Lexicon of Love by ABC still sounds like its trying to prove its top one hundred spot. Revolver still seems like 'The Beatles album you're only dimly aware of/you're parents never bought but still should be as good/better than the rest'. This is probably why its my favourite Fab Four effort.

Half cuz it was more Eddyness than i thought i would ever get in one fell swoop and half cuz it made me feel like my life was somehow validated in some way. I wasn't alone in the world! Things that meant something to me and that were important to me were important and meant something to at least one other person just as much.This can be crucial when you are long past the age where such things are supposed to mean so much.It keeps you going. And same with Chuck's second book as well cuz it is filled with lists and thus i can bring it up and safely remain "on topic". In fact, it meant so much to me that i wrote the author a fan letter after reading it(i looked up his address in the philadelphia phone book).and soon after, he called me and we became friendly and the day that he moved from philly to new york to become the editor of the village voice music section he asked me to write something for him even though, as i told him more than once, i had NEVER WRITTEN ANYTHING outside of a high school book report. and i did it and i liked it and it gave me some weird kind of confidence and i even felt like i was pretty good at it which is something i hadn't felt for a long time about anything. so i kept doing it and it was fun and it's never half as fun when i do it for someone else which is why i don't go out of my way to do it for someone else. AND, my beloved Maria has admitted to me that one reason she sent me a howyadoin' postcard after not seeing or talking to me for 11 years(we had a mutual friend) was cuz she was curious how i started writing and wanted to know more about it and me. long story short:she moved to philly, we got married smack dab on the philadelphia 76ers logo at half court at half time during a 76ers/jazz game on valentine's day with 75 other couples(Bob Eubanks was the celebrity witness), we had a kid, and now we live on an island in the sea happily ever after. Is that what you meant by lists that changed your life?

Heh heh heh. You are not alone.

Looking back on it it's quite catholic. Countdown to Ecstasy at 13, Station to Station the highest Bowie album (rightly so), In a Silent Way's there, as are I Want to see the Bright Lights Tonight, Here my Dear, Odyssey & Oracle, Here come the Warm Jets, etc. Sgt pepper's at 50 which seemed like sacrelige to me then; now i'd put it even lower.

And it's also interesting for what's not there: After the Goldrush, Dark Side of the Moon, Queen is Dead, Let's Get it on, Court and Spark, Who's Next, Kind of Blue, Aja, Live at the Regal, etc.

Also no representation for Elvis, Aretha, Lennon, Coltrane, Fairport Convention, Elton John, U2(Hurrah!), Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson, Grateful Dead.

Quite a quirky list overall. I've probably got 90% of it now. It's definitely a better influence than those trash-aesthetic dominated NME lists, or the crusty Rock 'n' Roll Canon of Rolling Stone.
I'd say it probably had a kind of wisdom about what mattered and what would last, which is obv. highly subjective, but seems to still make sense to me, though i certainly don't agree with all its choices. But threre's a benevolent feel of personal choice and the numerous surprises that come fom trying different types of music on yourself without prejudice. The Rolling Stone list is so tediously uptight in comparism.

I think The Ego-Trip Book Of Rap Lists is slowly changing my life too.

* Lou Stathis's Stranded-riposte list in Heavy Metal - October issue 1980

* NME Top 100 Albums Of All Time in 1985

* DJ Magazine's Top 100 DJ's list in (1992?) (many of the DJ's divulged their Top 5 all time dance tunes!)

plus the original Rolling Stone Record Guides 5-star albums, of course (surprising as it may now seem)

also, that DJ Mag list was less key for me but definitely got my attention as well

Lou's list was prog, krautrock and new wave / post-punk -heavy.

NME's list (their 2nd such?) was R&B-heavy, reflecting London's soul/rare groove revival/scene (& Magazine, ACR & Colourbox had already primed me).

DJ Mag's list was full of the DJs & DJ/producers we now think of as classic ones, along with lesser-known adherents of Larry Levan, etc revealing underground classics like "E2-E4", "Let The Music Use You" and "Sweet Power Your Embrace", although you could think of Mastercuts even more impactful reissues of the time as a sort of list (continued by the likes of Barely Breaking Even, Strut, etc).

Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton's Rough Guide To Reggae might be my fave discography/list of all time.

and then there's THIS! :
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Concert/9201/discographies.htm

A lot later on I really dug that Alt-Rock-O-Rama book, too, especially when my old band was on tour. The list of the 7 dumbest things the Replacements ever did was hilarious.

yeah that Spin list hit
me hard like 89 bricks:
"it takes two" BEST SONG!

Don't forget Chris Mars' drummer jokes too!

Kurt Bloch's list (of mostly stuff I'd never heard of at the time, except, I remember, the Pixies' Bossanova at #1 which I thought was a cool and unusual choice) got me to not only seek out the records on it, but also pushed me to check out the Fastbacks. And I sought everything I didn't have already from King Buzzo, Mark Arm, and Steve Turner's lists.

Rolling Stone Record Guide -- 1978 version (red cover with the five-star albums pictured)
Dave Marsh 1,001 Singles
Rolling Stone Top 100 of the Eighties list (more library visits -- they had Entertainment! on vinyl!)
Christgau 70s book
Pazz & Jop ('87 was the first I saw because I was a huge Prince fan and I happened upon it at the library -- with him on the cover; 89 was the first I really devoured)
Christgau 80s book.

After that, nothing's been as influential, but the Spin list in the back of their record guide, the discography in Stranded, and Spin' singles list (which I saw at the time but didn't appreciate for a couple of years) have also been meaningful.

Thirded. Well, I'm not sure it necessarily changed my life, but it definitely made me think record reviews could be funny and good.

The copies that my grandparents owned had them cut out. I figured they didn't want to know and neither should anyone else in my family. ;-)

it definitely made me think record reviews could be funny and good.

My own recognition of how I write reviews is that it's essentially 'serious,' more Simon R. than Chuck E. Not that Chuck isn't serious of course, but I find myself needing/wanting to explain more -- usually pedantically in my mind -- which cuts against a freer flow, more of a joy in the explanation. But to try and write in that style specifically would be too self-conscious for me, I think.

Haha, yeah.

I took another look at it recently. It's pretty horrible.

np: Smashing Pumpkins - Silverfuck - 2000-12-02 (final show)

I'd be more than happy to burn you a 4-disc'er, though. Least I can do to repay the favor! I'll email you when it's ready.

Young Sterl and Young JM both find this list in er 97 or so and talk about it an insane amount. Some part of me ph34rs that this list was by DeRogatis or something since it seemed to mention Chicago somewhere.

Anyway, I think we both found it looking for the Left Banke when I became interested in because Lotion covered them who I became interested in coz Pynchon wrote their liner notes who I became interested in because... I sorta trail off and forget. Maybe from a Lingua Franca article? Yeah, its weird like that.

But the list yes. It was one of those "wow you can think about music like THAT!?" type moments coz it was probably my first exposure to rockcrit proper. I learned how to look for moments in pop from it, but didn't really hunt down the stuff I hadn't heard or anything.

Scott's story was great, by the way!

There was another list too that I kept, of every indie-rock band played on this one college show while I was in high school.

But it was my list, although I guess it was their playlist too.

I ended up finding out about a lot of those, but then I ended up not caring?

Why don't you send me an email (henrik.franzon@bredband.net) and I will add the list to my site Acclaimed Music. But first take a look here.

BTW, my favorite list is from the defunkt Swedish magazine Pop from 1994. Actually, I didn't like it at first, since I was mostly into 80's and 90's music at the time. But I bought some of the albums I had never heard of (Stand!, I'm Still in Love with You, Moanin' in the Moonlight, Back in the USA, Scott 4, Happy Sad...) and now I don't understand how anyone can live without these albums. In the beginning I was also upset about what I thought was pure elitism (Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme instead of Bridge over Troubled Water, Soul Revolution instead of an Island recording). Now I know they were absolutely right!

NME polls in the first year or so I started reading it (88/89 ish) had an undue influence.

Stairway To Hell I love but it's not really changed anything for me.

Dave Marsh's The Heart Of Rock And Soul is in many ways a rotten book but was a very fun thing to be reading at the same time as getting into classic soul and doo-wop.

Writing my Top 100 Singles of the 90s had a biggish impact on my life in that it was a bit of self-discipline and therapy at a difficult time.

The "Mojo" list was great for finding out about hoary old rock that doesn't get as much mainstream press props as Dylan, Beatles, etc. do

If Robert had ever bother to finish his 100 best Soul albums list on CultureDose I'm sure it would be up there, too.

And then there's this

xpost: yeah, "Worst Rock & Roll Records Of All Time" sort of had an influence on me, too, but more along the lines of "I GOTTA HEAR THIS STUFF!" than anything else.

Is this the first time that one of those "to thread" messages have actually been followed by at least some of the people mentioned? :-)

That being said, I prefer the Acclaimed Music site to Larkin's books, for the following reasons:

1. Some of the typical public choices in Larkin's lists are obviously wrong. Hell, he even has Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys in there, just because they are popular doesn't make them good. The Top 100 is OK, but further down the list there is a lot of filler.
2. There are albums loved by critics that have for various reasons never been discovered by larger audiences. Thus, the Acclaimed list can turn you into masterpieces by the likes of The Soft Boys, Elliot Smith, Super Furry Animals (not that I hadn't already discovered SFA tho) etc., masterpieces that are not to be found anywhere else

3. While a list voted by some fans over a limited period tends to favour that particular period's "hip" tastes, The Acclaimed Music list doesn't only cover recent taste, but also past taste. Several of the prog albums on that list, for instance, would never have been riding so high if, for instance, NME were to make a survey today. But they were loved by critics back in the day, loved by those who were around at the time to appreciate them. The Acclaimed Music site probably covers a varied time spam more than any other list.

wot, the top100 singles thingie? I liked that a lot, but I don't see how it could be representative of ILX-think, nearly devoid of Chartpop and Hip-Hop as it is...

http://www.memphisflyer.com/MFSearch/full_results.asp?xt_from=1&aID=1113

One of things I would like to do is to give an indication of whether an album or single is on the way up or down in the Acclaimed Music list. But first I will add all the best of 2003 lists, and I will also extend the all-time lists to include 2000 albums and 200 singles.

It's...unique.

http://www.tomhull.com/ocston/nm/a-jazz.html

There are around 1800 albums in the list now, to my knowledge, which includes most of the most critically acclaimed albums from 2003. While some more 2003 albums will probably enter the list as a result of all the 2003 lists (particularly lots of typically British favourites that will be riding high in NME, Q and Mojo's lists) I guess there will still not be 2000 of them.

But then, there are still a lot of albums that probably would have been in the list if you had calculated them. For instance, "Butterfly" by Hollies and "Odessa" by Bee Gees are found in a lot of old critics lists. Also, Bowie's "Heathen" would probably score enough to get into the list (and possibly "Lodger" too - I know that one is a fave of several ILx regulars, for instance)

The only new albums I have included this year are the 2003 albums. I have gone through all old lists and I have found some "forgotten" albums. In addition, newer lists like the Rolling Stone 500 albums will of course also have impact on the new inclusions.

"Butterfly", "Odessa", "Heathen" and "Lodger" are all bubbling under. We'll see.

Not just the anti-snob thing of admitting where you discovered things or the pro-snob thing of collating and listing etc. But it seems like everyone posting seems to be letting you into a secret world, where we're all still the wide-eyed enthusiasts we always knew we were and not the cynical, sarcastic geeks we think we've become.

Lovely.

Knowing what I know now, there's no doubting the dullness of this list, but this was the first time I somewhat obsessed myself over one.

Not all unlikely in the case of Colin Larkin. Considering he is a music writer, he'd belong here, I mean :-)

Oh, really? Where are all those Poco or CSNY threads of yours then? ;)

Which Rhino box set? Loud, Fast & Out of Control?

Draft rankings of 1973 -- confirmed my lottery number and assured I would not die in Viet Nam. Changed me life, literally.

Why what records did you get into?

Take me outside and draft me.

YES!!! A nice selection of hits, tons of wonderful rarities, the liner notes are great, too. I love how it mixes Rockabilly, R&B and even some old Swing and Jump Blues stuff, and still totally works, it doesn't sound contrived at all.

Also: the first time I came into contact w/ it was my mum giving it to my uncle fer x-mas, so I'd listen to it after the grown ups went to sleep. Since it was at my uncle's house, I couldn't go wild, so I had to listen to the stuff quietly in order not to wake anyone...I think that actually enhanced the listening experience, I felt like a 50's teenager trying not to get caught listening to the R&B station!