I’m usually one for these types of things these days, but this on bends to the way I’ve been trying to think about music for while. I picked this up from my friend Timo on social media.
Album Challenge: choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music – one album per day for 10 consecutive days (no explanations, no reviews, just covers). Every day, I will ask someone else to do the same and share their gems. I don’t challenge anyone, but am of course interested in my friends’ thoughts on this.
And while the social posts will have no context, I’ll post a link to this post about it to provide links to the albums in question as well as some context, because some of them will probably just look weird. And I’ve pretty much ignored Jazz, which would merit it’s own list, and classical because that’s just daunting. This post will be updated as I work my way through the 10.
Finally, the are not a list of my 10 favorite albums, but there is some overlap. These albums led me to explore things which was the best way to shape or influence my tastes. These are in no particular order, just how they came to mind.
The Clash – London Calling
This album exploded in my brain like a bomb in the early 80s (a couple of years after it’s release to be fair). It inspired my lifelong love of the music of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon. It knocked me out the Nashville pop country fog I was flirting with and made me abandon the 70s rock music my older cousins listened to (some of which I know can say was admittedly pretty damn good—the rock music bit).
This one of those albums where influential and favorite probably overlap (on a certain day at least, on another day, it may be Sandanista!). I can’t imagine that this will be news to anyone who knows me.
R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction
The quintessential American Indie or alternative band. Yes, they weren’t the first. But they keep going for a long time, and for me, Fables of the Reconstruction is their greatest album (and I listened to it a lot more than Murmur to be honest). It’s a fully realized vision of what could be new in Southern rock. It had its hits (“Driver 8”), but it also had it’s weirdness. And it was the weirdness that truly opened up my head to other slightly off-kilter sounds (as well as cluing me in to other things happening in my corner of the world musically).
Just consider what “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” sounded like to a young man who had been weaned on radio rock, popular English New Wave and a burgeoning love of Punk. It was like I was on another planet—a planet that I really enjoyed.
Radiohead – In Rainbows
This is the album where Radiohead finally clicked for me. For years, almost all my friends loved them, but I really couldn’t see the attraction. It’s not that I didn’t like them—I mean I laughed as hard as everyone else to Beavis and Butthead’s take on “Creep”—but I couldn’t understand the devotion from my friends.
The first time I heard this though, that changed. I think listened to only this album for a solid week or so all on its own. It opened my eyes, and went back and listened to the earlier albums with fresh ears. Now I wouldn’t trade The Bends or OK Computer or this one for the world. I’m also particularly enjoying the latest turn by Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood as The Smile.
Echo & The Bunnymen – Porcupine
There are few bands that really define my listening habits in my formative teenage years. Echo & the Bunnymen are on of them (along with R.E.M. and a few others). They were the gateway drug into the music from the UK that you didn’t hear on American radio. Of all those British bands, they were perhaps the most consistently good. Even their self titled and worst received 80s albums had some soaring moments (“Lips Like Sugar” anyone).
Most would probably rank Ocean Rain above this one, but this is the first I fell truly in love with, and it shows them in a rawer, most assertive light. It captures the same energy they showed live, as a fantastic rock and roll band with psychedelic leanings.
It also set the stage nicely for my future love of what would come to be known as Brit Pop and the Madchester acts. Without this, I wouldn’t have my abiding love of the Charlatans or Pulp, for example.
The Replacements – Tim
Speaking of raw rock and roll, we have my album by The Replacements. I remember seeing them play in support of this album in a smallish club in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was one of their good nights. No fights. Tight sound. Pure Energy. Perhaps the best thing about The Replacements though was that they also led me backwards to discover (and re-discover) some 70s classics such as Big Star.
Tim also led me to discover the earlier albums. Let it Be is another favorite.
Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger
My uncle Eddie loved Willie Nelson and my parents had this LP, though they didn’t like it nearly as much as Eddie. He was always listening to Willie when I hung out with him at my Grandmother’s house. I didn’t know it then, but this album lurked in the background as I went on to discover punk and college radio, with all that entailed.
It laid a bit fallow there for years until the early 90s, when Johnny Cash released the American Recordings and I started listening to Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Steve Earle, and other alt country and roots country acts. It turns out I was reacting against the pop country of the early 80s more than the real deal. This is easily my favorite Willie album.
The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
In the late 90s, I had pretty much lost all interest in all new music. I mean, I continued to listen to those acts that I already knew, such as Wilco and Pulp, but the new acts at the time just left me cold. That all changed in the early 2000s. This could easily have been a White Stripes or Strokes album, but of that whole lot, The Walkmen are my favorite. They all opened my eyes to the exciting new sounds that were coming out of New York, Detroit, Canada, and the UK (Sea Power).
This album is a masterpiece from start to finish, even without their best known song, “The Rat,” which insistently pounds at you and is impossible to ignore. Without the Walkmen, I’m not sure I would have been ready for The Hold Steady, The National (when they weren’t boring), or Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
This list would never be complete with a Jesus and Mary chain record. And this one has to be the one. I didn’t know what to make of it when I first heard, with all the fuzzed out guitars, which in retrospect is really surprising since I love those early Echo & the Bunnymen records. This one just doubled down on the fuzz and psychedelia.
What’s most important for me about this album (as much as I love it for its own sake) are the seeds it planted. Without this, would I have been as receptive to My Bloody Valentine and their masterpiece Loveless? Not to mention the rest of the shoegaze coming out of the UK in the early 90s? I think not.
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
No such list for me would be complete without The Beatles, particularly their later albums (think Revolver on). I rarely listen to them these days (aside from watching Peter Jackson’s documentary), but I cannot deny how important they once were in my listening habits. I remember waiting patiently for each CD release in the late 80s with eager anticipation, and I listened to them a lot at the time.
Simply put: would I listening to The Who or The Kinks (on of my favorite all time bands) without The Beatles? Maybe, but that is hard to quantify because I did listen to them and used them as a launching board for the rest of those British invasion bands.
Add to that, there is simply no denying what a great band they were, even as they were falling apart.
The Church – Heyday
This was the last addition to this list. I suddenly remembered I had ignored an entire hemisphere that contained a lot of music that means a lot to me. The Church were the first band from down under that I truly fell in love with, and this album in particular led me to a lot of good music from Australia and New Zealand. Think Split Enz, Crowded House, The Clean, Hunters & Collectors, Midnight Oil, and Courtney Barnett.
I still listen to this record a lot. “Columbus” was the song that first caught my ear on 120 minutes back then, and I remember how excited I was to find the cassette at a record store in Columbus , Ohio (I couldn’t make this up if I tried) because the Record Corner in my town just didn’t have it.
Cheap Trick – Live at Budokan
I saved this one for last for a good reason because it bears some explanation I suppose. I remember listening to this with my cousins Alan, Clyde Ray, and Rocky on an old cassette player at my Granny’s shortly after it came out. I remember specifically listening to “Surrender” over and over and learning the words by heart.
It all felt very dangerous at the time. That Sunday afternoon started a journey that I’m still traversing.