@amclark2 - I have definitely had that feeling. It definitely seems linked to ye olde days of hunting for certain albums through 10 different CD stores hoping to find a decent price. And then when you finally get it... DAMN it was totally worth full price anyway. Then you see it for sale and it's like, I NEED MORE COPIES!!!! I'm pretty sure I've bought stuff I love for friends because of that.
Oh, and I've totally started my list, but have been sidetracked by work. About a third of the way through.
@amclark - absolutely! And very specifically the strong, irrational feeling that if I were to buy it again at the $5 price I would be getting a bargain. I think it's partly the excited bargain hunter thing and partly just having assigned a very high value to that particular album in my own mind and seeing it offered for a small amount of money, and partly the success that consumer society has achieved in conditioning me to experience a momentary inclination to buy whenever anything is presented to me as reduced in price.
A few more that have helped to "define [me] musically." First, the only one of the three that I might keep enjoying on that desert island:
Phil came as a benefit for the End the War committee at the college I went to briefly and gave a show a lot like this. His despair in later years was parallel in some ways to mine.
I can't say how much I loved this at the time, but it seems not so great now and others find it almost completely unlistenable.
The single Amazon review is completely off base.
I'm bumping this as we have some new members, who might like to contribute (Hint there!) The original thread title did not really reflect the purpose - 10 albums that have influenced you musically, so I have changed it.
Okay, I'll bite. I used to be pretty much a one-genre music listener, but here are the albums that were landmarks in their influence for me to branch out to other genres. Each was a completely new revelation for me:
Americana/Alt-Country Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo
Hollywood Town Hall The Jayhawks
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road Lucinda Williams
Folk Covenant - Greg Brown
Somewhere Near Patterson Richard Shindell
Fishermans Blues The Waterboys
International Amazing Things Runrig
The Visit Loreena McKenitt
Tribute Dougie MacLean
Karelia Visa Hedningarna
Blues ]Dog My Cat Harry Manx
Inspiration Kelley Hunt
More Storms Comin Mark Selby
Jazz Armstrong Plays Hardy Louis Armstrong
Best of - Sidney Bechet
Uptown - Maxine Sullivan
Classical Baroque Vivaldis Ring of Mystery Classical Kids
Vivaldi: Concert for the Prince of Poland Academy of Ancient Music
Opera Tous Les Matins Du Monde Jodi Savall
(sounds like a misfit for opera, but it was track 9 that freed me of the aversion to extremely high female voices)
[/u][/b]Handel - Arie e duetti d'amore / Piau, Banditelli, Europa Galante, Biondi
(and this cinched it - after this, I'm an opera lover).
Only showing up to the Cockburn part of the thread 4 months late, which is pretty good for me. I used the last credits on my main account - closed after 8 years! - to finish up my Cockburn collection, which actually started with the first album in 1970. I found it increasingly difficult to follow the thread after Circles In the Stream, and just plain gave up after what I thought at the time were the twin duds of Stealing Fire and The Trouble With Normal. I'm still not nuts about either of those, or the couple after, but his more recent stuff is blowing me away. It also feels good to have completed the set.
re: early experiments with electric guitar, that goes back to his third and fourth albums, Sunwheel Dance (1971) and Night Vision (1973)! On Sunwheel, while Eugene Martynec plays a strong electric on "Feet Fall on the Road," Bruce plays electric himself on "It's Goin' Down Slow." To this day, Night Vision remains Bruce's most musically eclectic. There are all kinds of instruments and styles on this one, but I swear, the instrumental "Lightstorm" sounds like it could be Carlos Santana.
My head hurts when I try to narrow anything down right now, but I'm definitely going to drop back in to follow up some of these trails...
Yes, Night Vision was an interesting one. Takes me back to a couple of years in Toronto as a grad student in the 1990s, living on Macaroni Cheese and such, but also managing to spare enough money from the food budget to collect the early Cockburn albums on CD (they were much harder to get back in England). I was in Toronto for 2 years and he only played live there once...during the week I was gone in the US. Managed to see him a few times since, though.
I've been really enjoying his recent string of albums too...though after a few listens the newest one still has some work to do to really convince me.
By a longshot, the record that has had the most influence on me. As a kid, I identified like mad with its wit and virtuosity. Now it reminds me of myself at every age.
Thanks for resurrecting this thread Greg. I completely agree with the comments about how hard it is to reduce one's taste to a handful of entries. Luckily for me I already went through this process. I have a list online of my top 200 albums:
I should note that, while I can expound on a number of topics, I find it difficult to write much about music I enjoy. So in my list I used reviews from other folks, in an attempt to express some of my feelings about the music listed.
Doing a quick scan of this thread I saw a few items that really surprised me (for example the Mark Selby item (I didn't know anyone else even knew this disc existed, let alone make a list like this). I will definitely have to return and review this thread much closer.
I thought I'd comment on the little sub-thread about Bruce Cockburn. I think the guy is very talented but I haven't paid him much attention with two exceptions:
1) Bought a single of his back when he started getting a lot of radio play in the states: (bet you guessed it) - "Wondering Where the Lions Are"
2) Quite a few years went by before I a bought a CD of his: "Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu". I really like that disc a lot. I've put the song "Last Night of the World" on a number of play lists for my wife
Like Doofy a Todd Rundgen album is my all time fave. Hermit of Mink Hollow is a wonderful album, I even bought in Canada years ago a version in red vinyl, its still unplayed. If there was a band whom changed everything it was The Smiths. They were right place right time, a band whom everything single and album I rushed to get. I saw them live a few times which were magical events and when they split up I almost cried especially as I had tickets for the last tour they never played.
@dataGuy , if you like 'Breakfast in New Orleans' you might well like a couple of others from that period of his career, 'You've never seen everything' and 'The Charity of Night' (the latter is darker musically and thematically but also one of his best).
Comments
Oh, and I've totally started my list, but have been sidetracked by work. About a third of the way through.
Phil came as a benefit for the End the War committee at the college I went to briefly and gave a show a lot like this. His despair in later years was parallel in some ways to mine.
I can't say how much I loved this at the time, but it seems not so great now and others find it almost completely unlistenable.
The single Amazon review is completely off base.
Americana/Alt-Country
Folk
International
Blues
Jazz
Classical
Baroque
Opera
(sounds like a misfit for opera, but it was track 9 that freed me of the aversion to extremely high female voices)
(and this cinched it - after this, I'm an opera lover).
re: early experiments with electric guitar, that goes back to his third and fourth albums, Sunwheel Dance (1971) and Night Vision (1973)! On Sunwheel, while Eugene Martynec plays a strong electric on "Feet Fall on the Road," Bruce plays electric himself on "It's Goin' Down Slow." To this day, Night Vision remains Bruce's most musically eclectic. There are all kinds of instruments and styles on this one, but I swear, the instrumental "Lightstorm" sounds like it could be Carlos Santana.
My head hurts when I try to narrow anything down right now, but I'm definitely going to drop back in to follow up some of these trails...
I've been really enjoying his recent string of albums too...though after a few listens the newest one still has some work to do to really convince me.
By a longshot, the record that has had the most influence on me. As a kid, I identified like mad with its wit and virtuosity. Now it reminds me of myself at every age.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/dataGuy/dataguys_obligatory_top_200_albums__considered_as_a_whole_/
I should note that, while I can expound on a number of topics, I find it difficult to write much about music I enjoy. So in my list I used reviews from other folks, in an attempt to express some of my feelings about the music listed.
Doing a quick scan of this thread I saw a few items that really surprised me (for example the Mark Selby item (I didn't know anyone else even knew this disc existed, let alone make a list like this). I will definitely have to return and review this thread much closer.
1) Bought a single of his back when he started getting a lot of radio play in the states: (bet you guessed it) - "Wondering Where the Lions Are"
2) Quite a few years went by before I a bought a CD of his: "Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu". I really like that disc a lot. I've put the song "Last Night of the World" on a number of play lists for my wife
You guys might find the list of interest: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/dataGuy/emusic_bargains/