Trounce
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2002
- Posts
- 693
- Likes
- 11
Hmmm... interesting topic. Most important is not necessarily favourite but rather an album that represents best a fragment of time in my life.
1. King Crimson - Red
I remember listening to this album in the dead quiet of night somewhere in England, waiting for the tube, and realizing that life was dirty, gritty and finite. I hated everything except the feelings of deep sonic satisfaction that this mortal music evoked in me. Ever since then, Red has represented my deepest, most confusing and isolated moments and I therefore play it when I want to get out of a hole. Because, since I first began listening to music regularly, I have grown to love different genres and their ways of evoking certain moods in me. But no piece of music has ever left me feeling so satisfied.
2. Oasis - Morning Glory
Bombasting campfire music. I can't remember how many times I have bonded with someone during the summer singing 'Wonderwall' around a scorching campfire. It is uncanny how universally loved and appreciated that song is by coming-of-age teenagers. The music itself is nothing special, sometimes jovial, other times hopeless, but always bombasting. This album made knowing people much easier.
3. Matthew Good Band - Audio of Being
Most people probably don't know this album of this wonderful Canadian artist, but it is truly his hidden gem. This was recorded during a tumultuous, pre-breakup backdrop, and nowhere before have I ever heard the painful longing for human improvement more passionately sung than on this album. I cannot remember how many nights I stayed up, put on my headphones, turned off the lights, closed my eyes and just absorbed the texture of droning guitars and soaring voice.
4. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Quite simply, this introduced me to progressive rock, a stage in my life, though now over, I will never forget. This was my passageway into concept albums, pretentious bombast, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, and eventually The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Because I knew this before hearing it described as being "difficult" and "complex", when I digested it and got it, it was the first time I felt like I actually accomplished something by listening to a piece of music. From there I decided that the album, as a cohesive whole, was always more important than the parts, and I haven't got back to singles since: if the album can't entice me, the artists has lost.
5. The Beatles - Revolver
As I said above, after discovering the album, this was the first one that really drew me in and held me by the throat, gasping for air. I was absolutely amazed at the simple arrangements and blatant use of stereo sound, yet it was the music, the whole song and individual pieces of art, together as an album, that made me realize what music was and could do: represent an idea, a piece of time and place, and that these four men inspired millions of others to make music. I realized that this is how great art is made.
6. The Verve - Urban Hymns
I have to admit something: I love brit-rock. I love Doves, I love Elbow, I love Coldplay, I love Oasis, I love Pulp, I love Blur, and I really love The Verve. I have spent probably more hours listening to Bittersweet Symphony than any other song in my life, and feel that every moment has been worth it. The violin sample was the greatest theft ever orchestrated, and is, in my opinion, the best opening to an album in history (though I don't know much). This is a perfect album, and I love listening to it.
7. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Ok, now we are getting more recent. This is my current favourite album, and the one that introduced me to the vast and newly-cool world that is indie rock. I love this album, I love the horns and the lo-fi sound and the folky strummed guitar and the cryptic lyrics about death and Anne Frank. I love how the title song was the first song I learned on guitar, and despite being achingly beautiful, one of the most simple chord progressions known. I have digested more indie rock, more music, in this past year, than I ever have in my life.
8. Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
Quite simply, this is the musical equivalent of an orgasm. I have made out to this album more often than any other (even though it came out in 2003), and did not understand how such beautiful music could be produced from a guitar. This album lead me to other post-rock bands, and got me through a very tumultuous past summer.
9. Radiohead - OK Computer
Why? Because this is a really fine album. Because the four beeps at the end of Airbag leading into Paranoid Android make this album for me, and because Exit Music is one of my favourite all-time songs. This is my most frequently listened-to album, and I have never, not once, been tempted to fast forward or change the song. From beginning to end, this is a work of pure genius art and makes me believe in music every time I hear it.
10. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Because his voice is silk drunkard, and because this album still stands up after 35 years. This was one of the first classic albums I ever heard, as my dad is a huge Morrison fan, and introduced me to jazz and blues in a very unconventional way. I will always be indebted to the Van for writing 'The Way Young Lovers Do' for me, a young lover, who has no idea how or what to do. Thanks, buddy.
I have more, but these are probably the most consistantly important ones in my life. Thanks for reading.
1. King Crimson - Red
I remember listening to this album in the dead quiet of night somewhere in England, waiting for the tube, and realizing that life was dirty, gritty and finite. I hated everything except the feelings of deep sonic satisfaction that this mortal music evoked in me. Ever since then, Red has represented my deepest, most confusing and isolated moments and I therefore play it when I want to get out of a hole. Because, since I first began listening to music regularly, I have grown to love different genres and their ways of evoking certain moods in me. But no piece of music has ever left me feeling so satisfied.
2. Oasis - Morning Glory
Bombasting campfire music. I can't remember how many times I have bonded with someone during the summer singing 'Wonderwall' around a scorching campfire. It is uncanny how universally loved and appreciated that song is by coming-of-age teenagers. The music itself is nothing special, sometimes jovial, other times hopeless, but always bombasting. This album made knowing people much easier.
3. Matthew Good Band - Audio of Being
Most people probably don't know this album of this wonderful Canadian artist, but it is truly his hidden gem. This was recorded during a tumultuous, pre-breakup backdrop, and nowhere before have I ever heard the painful longing for human improvement more passionately sung than on this album. I cannot remember how many nights I stayed up, put on my headphones, turned off the lights, closed my eyes and just absorbed the texture of droning guitars and soaring voice.
4. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Quite simply, this introduced me to progressive rock, a stage in my life, though now over, I will never forget. This was my passageway into concept albums, pretentious bombast, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, and eventually The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Because I knew this before hearing it described as being "difficult" and "complex", when I digested it and got it, it was the first time I felt like I actually accomplished something by listening to a piece of music. From there I decided that the album, as a cohesive whole, was always more important than the parts, and I haven't got back to singles since: if the album can't entice me, the artists has lost.
5. The Beatles - Revolver
As I said above, after discovering the album, this was the first one that really drew me in and held me by the throat, gasping for air. I was absolutely amazed at the simple arrangements and blatant use of stereo sound, yet it was the music, the whole song and individual pieces of art, together as an album, that made me realize what music was and could do: represent an idea, a piece of time and place, and that these four men inspired millions of others to make music. I realized that this is how great art is made.
6. The Verve - Urban Hymns
I have to admit something: I love brit-rock. I love Doves, I love Elbow, I love Coldplay, I love Oasis, I love Pulp, I love Blur, and I really love The Verve. I have spent probably more hours listening to Bittersweet Symphony than any other song in my life, and feel that every moment has been worth it. The violin sample was the greatest theft ever orchestrated, and is, in my opinion, the best opening to an album in history (though I don't know much). This is a perfect album, and I love listening to it.
7. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Ok, now we are getting more recent. This is my current favourite album, and the one that introduced me to the vast and newly-cool world that is indie rock. I love this album, I love the horns and the lo-fi sound and the folky strummed guitar and the cryptic lyrics about death and Anne Frank. I love how the title song was the first song I learned on guitar, and despite being achingly beautiful, one of the most simple chord progressions known. I have digested more indie rock, more music, in this past year, than I ever have in my life.
8. Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
Quite simply, this is the musical equivalent of an orgasm. I have made out to this album more often than any other (even though it came out in 2003), and did not understand how such beautiful music could be produced from a guitar. This album lead me to other post-rock bands, and got me through a very tumultuous past summer.
9. Radiohead - OK Computer
Why? Because this is a really fine album. Because the four beeps at the end of Airbag leading into Paranoid Android make this album for me, and because Exit Music is one of my favourite all-time songs. This is my most frequently listened-to album, and I have never, not once, been tempted to fast forward or change the song. From beginning to end, this is a work of pure genius art and makes me believe in music every time I hear it.
10. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Because his voice is silk drunkard, and because this album still stands up after 35 years. This was one of the first classic albums I ever heard, as my dad is a huge Morrison fan, and introduced me to jazz and blues in a very unconventional way. I will always be indebted to the Van for writing 'The Way Young Lovers Do' for me, a young lover, who has no idea how or what to do. Thanks, buddy.
I have more, but these are probably the most consistantly important ones in my life. Thanks for reading.
