Meaning, the five albums that had the most impact on the music you chose (or choose) to listen to. You know, everyone at one point just listened to whatever, and one day found an album that completely expanded or shifted their musical tastes. The idea is to list five of those, with descriptions, if you wish.
1) Pretty in Pink soundtrack-Yeah, this isn't a studio album by one band, but I liked that cheesy single they used to play on the radio. I'd never heard of any of the other artists on the album, but I hemmed and hawed on buying this. One day, I rode my bike down to the Musicland in the strip mall near where I used to live and after much consideration, bought this as a full-priced cassette for $9.99. Best $10 I ever spent in my life. This was sophomore year of high school, and before that, I just listened to whatever was on the radio. This soundtrack had New Order, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, and some others. This opened my eyes to see that there was a LOT of music out there that was just not on the radio, and from that point on, my musical tastes pretty much progressed in that direction, branching off along the way to other genres that were at least tangentially related. Yeah, I DID "come of age" musically really late, but better late than never.
2) 808 State-Utd. State 90-A few years after the above mentioned, I found The Stone Roses self-titled album, which led me to have a jones for a bit for the whole Manchester rave scene that was exploding at the time. Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans (UK), and, somewhat related, 808 State. This 808 State album (on cassette again) was the first in my collection that could be considered "techno" or "electronic." This led me to stuff like The Orb, Orbital, Future Sound of London, etc, and further down the line, to stuff like drum and bass, glitch, house, trance, etc.
3) Guided by Voices-Bee Thousand-My first exposure to "indie rock" was probably Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted. I'd read a LOT of glowing reviews of the album, but for whatever reason, after listening to it a few times, it just did not connect with me. The following year, I read a top ten end of year wrap-up by Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune, and both Stereolab's Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements and Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand were on the list. Turns out, for close to the next decade, both ended up becoming my two favorite bands. As for Guided by Voices, I felt an almost immediate connection to Bee Thousand. I could relate to the lyrics in a number of the songs (most especially Smothered in Hugs and I am a Scientist), and the fragmented nature and brevity of the songs (along with the low-fi aesthetic) just really hooked me. This was right after "alternative," which I had prided myself on listening to, had become co-opted by the explosion of grunge. After hearing Bee Thousand, indie rock became one of the major genres in my listening habits.
4) Stereolab-Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements-See above for my introduction to the album. I hesitated adding this to the top five, because even though they are/were one of my favorite bands, at first blush, I didn't think they were all THAT influential on my tastes. However, after thinking about it for a second, I realize that everything from the German Krautrock stuff like Can and Neu!, to drone stuff like Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, to post rock stuff (most specifically Labradford and Tortoise, both of whom I'd seen open for Stereolab, and which expanded outward from there) to avante-garde and 50's lounge stuff (John Cage, Esquivel, Perry-Kingsley, etc) all entered my musical consciousness via having discovered this Stereolab album.
The last choice is going to be hard to come up with, as I already have my first entry into "alternative" music, my introduction to electronic music, to indie rock, and to post rock. All four of those genres pretty much encompass my listening habits. BUT, for number five, I'll have to go with a song/a K-Tel cassette.
5) Herbie Hancock's Rockit/Some early 80s K-Tel "breakdancing" album on cassette-I guess in terms of exposure to new genres which steadily progressed outward afterwards, Rockit was my first exposure to "hip hop" (even though it was performed by a jazz musician), and some "breakdance" compilation followed soon afterward. It contained stuff like White Lines, White Horse, and possibly Rapper's Delight. Basically, if I had not found this type of music early on, and then expanded into stuff like Public Enemy, and more recently, the indie stuff like Deltron, Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, etc, I probably would have had a negative opinion of rap/hip-hop after NWA exploded in popularity, and then the wave of gangsta rap, and afterwards really bad radio-friendly party hip hop was the norm. Because I discovered it early on, I was able to understand that there was good hip hop/rap, and bad hip hop/rap, and do not lump the entire form of music (YES, MUSIC, Byron Pennyworth) into the "bad" category.
So that basically covers all the genres that I currently choose to listen to. Obviously, there were other albums or bands along the way that led to others, but I'd venture to guess that most of what's in my collection derives from one of these five somewhere along the line.
1) Pretty in Pink soundtrack-Yeah, this isn't a studio album by one band, but I liked that cheesy single they used to play on the radio. I'd never heard of any of the other artists on the album, but I hemmed and hawed on buying this. One day, I rode my bike down to the Musicland in the strip mall near where I used to live and after much consideration, bought this as a full-priced cassette for $9.99. Best $10 I ever spent in my life. This was sophomore year of high school, and before that, I just listened to whatever was on the radio. This soundtrack had New Order, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, and some others. This opened my eyes to see that there was a LOT of music out there that was just not on the radio, and from that point on, my musical tastes pretty much progressed in that direction, branching off along the way to other genres that were at least tangentially related. Yeah, I DID "come of age" musically really late, but better late than never.
2) 808 State-Utd. State 90-A few years after the above mentioned, I found The Stone Roses self-titled album, which led me to have a jones for a bit for the whole Manchester rave scene that was exploding at the time. Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans (UK), and, somewhat related, 808 State. This 808 State album (on cassette again) was the first in my collection that could be considered "techno" or "electronic." This led me to stuff like The Orb, Orbital, Future Sound of London, etc, and further down the line, to stuff like drum and bass, glitch, house, trance, etc.
3) Guided by Voices-Bee Thousand-My first exposure to "indie rock" was probably Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted. I'd read a LOT of glowing reviews of the album, but for whatever reason, after listening to it a few times, it just did not connect with me. The following year, I read a top ten end of year wrap-up by Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune, and both Stereolab's Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements and Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand were on the list. Turns out, for close to the next decade, both ended up becoming my two favorite bands. As for Guided by Voices, I felt an almost immediate connection to Bee Thousand. I could relate to the lyrics in a number of the songs (most especially Smothered in Hugs and I am a Scientist), and the fragmented nature and brevity of the songs (along with the low-fi aesthetic) just really hooked me. This was right after "alternative," which I had prided myself on listening to, had become co-opted by the explosion of grunge. After hearing Bee Thousand, indie rock became one of the major genres in my listening habits.
4) Stereolab-Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements-See above for my introduction to the album. I hesitated adding this to the top five, because even though they are/were one of my favorite bands, at first blush, I didn't think they were all THAT influential on my tastes. However, after thinking about it for a second, I realize that everything from the German Krautrock stuff like Can and Neu!, to drone stuff like Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, to post rock stuff (most specifically Labradford and Tortoise, both of whom I'd seen open for Stereolab, and which expanded outward from there) to avante-garde and 50's lounge stuff (John Cage, Esquivel, Perry-Kingsley, etc) all entered my musical consciousness via having discovered this Stereolab album.
The last choice is going to be hard to come up with, as I already have my first entry into "alternative" music, my introduction to electronic music, to indie rock, and to post rock. All four of those genres pretty much encompass my listening habits. BUT, for number five, I'll have to go with a song/a K-Tel cassette.
5) Herbie Hancock's Rockit/Some early 80s K-Tel "breakdancing" album on cassette-I guess in terms of exposure to new genres which steadily progressed outward afterwards, Rockit was my first exposure to "hip hop" (even though it was performed by a jazz musician), and some "breakdance" compilation followed soon afterward. It contained stuff like White Lines, White Horse, and possibly Rapper's Delight. Basically, if I had not found this type of music early on, and then expanded into stuff like Public Enemy, and more recently, the indie stuff like Deltron, Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, etc, I probably would have had a negative opinion of rap/hip-hop after NWA exploded in popularity, and then the wave of gangsta rap, and afterwards really bad radio-friendly party hip hop was the norm. Because I discovered it early on, I was able to understand that there was good hip hop/rap, and bad hip hop/rap, and do not lump the entire form of music (YES, MUSIC, Byron Pennyworth) into the "bad" category.
So that basically covers all the genres that I currently choose to listen to. Obviously, there were other albums or bands along the way that led to others, but I'd venture to guess that most of what's in my collection derives from one of these five somewhere along the line.
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