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10 Albums that define you

alexreinhold

alexreinhold

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Now I am someone who has always been interested in the people behind the usernames/avatars on this forum. And what better way is there to get to know you by understanding which albums defined you. I remember this "game" from many years ago on some Facebook page and it definitely makes you think and reminisce a bit. It's as easy as that: list 10 albums that made you the you you are today. Here's my go (in no particular order):

Metallica - Master of Puppets
King's X - Dogman
Cat Stevens - Tea for Tillerman
Boysetsfire - Tomorrow Come Today
John Mayer - Where the Light is (Live in LA)
Machine Head - the Blackening
Extreme - Pornograffitti
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
Pantera - Far Beyond Driven
The Winery Dogs - The Winery Dogs

PS: in serious pain because I couldn't include Slayer (WTF?), Cory Wong, Dave Matthews Band, Polyphia, Ozzy, Exodus, Testament, Beatles, Frank Turner, Hendrix, Zappa, Rush...
 
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - This Year's Model
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's...
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - From Her To Eternity
Neil Young - Tonight's The Night
The Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Ian Dury and the Blockheads - Do It Yourself
The Kinks - Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Ivor Cutler - Dandruff

This is impossible of course, but fun. These are definitely some of the albums that have made me who I am today, but only today.
 
I love lists like this ... this is what my parents played. It was a gas when they had a party, all the adults were drunk, smokin' cigarettes and twistin' the night away

Beatles --- White Album
Beatles --- With the Beatles
Gershwin Greatest Hits --- Included Rhapsody in Blue, that one kills me still
Dead --- Working Man's Dead
Nitty Gritty Band --- The Circle Album
The Band --- Music from Big Pink
Beach Boys --- Endless Summer
Dylan --- Greatest Hits Vol 1 and 2
Pachelbel's Canon --- an Album with some Debussy, I think Claire de Lune
An Album that Had Chubby Checker, Fats Domino and Bobby Darin, Let's Twist Again, Blueberry Hill and Beyond the Sea

I also want to put on a polka album but I can't remember the artist ... Next list will be the 10 I discovered on my own ... but that's for another day, it'll be much harder
 
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Here are ten biggies from my formative years:

VH1 - Van Halen
1984 - Van Halen
Surfing with the Alien - Joe Satriani
Star Wars Soundtrack - John Williams
Holy Diver - Dio
Escape - Journey
Back in Black - AC/DC
Defenders of the Faith - Judas Priest
An Evening with John Denver - John Denver
Powerslave - Iron Maiden
 
I am not sure albums define me, but in any case they were early influences on guitar. Difficult to bring it down to ten, though here is a selection.

Free - Free Live!
Bad Company - Straight Shooter
Deep Purple - Made in Japan
Rainbow - Rainbow Rising
Scorpions - Tokyo Tapes
Jeff Beck - Wired
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Rush - Hemispheres
Jimi Hendrix - Hendrix in the West
Al Di Meola - Elegant Gypsy
 
What served to shape & mold who I've become:
  1. Def Leppard: Pyromania
  2. Metallica: AJFA
  3. Queensryche: Operation: Mindcrime
  4. Savatage: Streets
  5. "Rent" Original Broadway Soundtrack
  6. System of a Down: (first album)
  7. Jewel: 0304
  8. Nightwish: Dark Passion Play
  9. Arch Enemy: Khaos Legions
  10. Caro Emerald: Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor
Some of these are pretty recent, and I've also excluded bands & albums similar to what's already been listed (for example, I took out "Master of Puppets" and anything by Testament or Slayer because they're represented in this list by "...Justice..."; Iron Maiden represented by Queensryche). SOAD was probably the most incredible of the bands of the early '00s metal resurgence.

I remember elevating them to the level of "prog metal" because they did push the boundaries of music. Nobody did what they could do. But of course, all of the other "TrUe MeTaL fAnS" violently disagreed because how can SOAD be progressive if they don't have keyboards and a tenor singer?

(missing the irony of their steadfast belief in that in order to be "prog metal," one had to be a Dream Theater clone)

I enjoy plenty of other non-metal artists, but I can't count as many who've been as significant an influence in my attitudes toward music as Jewel or Caro Emerald. "Rent" -- seeing the original stage production, listening to the Broadway soundtrack over and over, and then seeing the '05 movie and its soundtrack -- was another life-changer. I'd always been a sucker for musicals ("West Side Story" was my first experience) but "Rent" blew me away.
 
Alright then, here we go...
Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart: Strictly Personal
The Nice: The Nice
The Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis
Frank Zappa: Hot Rats
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Stimmung
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Hymnen
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Tarkus
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Pictures at an Exhibition
Jethro Tull: Aqualung

After that things got weirder!
 
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Gamma Ray: Land of the Free
 
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Ok I took down the humor. Here are ten albums I wore out in my younger years.
Neil Young-Live Rust
Ted Nugent-Double Live Gonzo
AC/DC-If You Want Blood
Gordon Lightfoot-Summertime Dream
Frank Marino-The Power of Rock and Roll
Nazareth-Expect no Mercy
David Gilmour-David Gilmour
Judas Priest-Unleashed in the East
Bob Dylan-Bringing it all back home
Devo-Are We Not Men

Honorable mention John Denver as my folks used to play all his stuff over and over. (Till they discovered that some of his lyrics mention the enjoyment of "happy hay" lol.
 
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Yep, absolutely one of my favs. Tomorrow when I have time to work the image, can’t natively upload photos from iPhone, I have a great pic of his Astoria from 1 of my trips to England.
 
There you go
weXnBw6.jpg
 
Wow that is awesome! I had seen a couple pics of him sitting inside, but not the whole thing. It is way bigger than I imagined.
 
Great thread!
Hmm I don't know that these "define me" or my playing style, but I've certainly worn all these albums out. I also don't mean that these are all the greatest, just that they've meant a lot to me at some point.

The Beatles: Abbey Road
Thrice: Beggars
Thrice: The Alchemy Index (possibly cheating to call this one album)
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
My Chemical Romance: Welcome to the Black Parade
Black Sabbath: Paranoid
Bon Iver: Bon Iver
Metallica: Kill 'Em All
Explosions in the Sky: The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
 
The reality is I could list 20 more albums that were just as important to me back in the proverbial day.
 
Ha. That wasn’t the 1st time I visited it. That pic is across the Thames in a park. Had a picnic. One year I was on its mooring side. You can’t walk up to it, but you can go down to a dock on its stern and see it.

Yes I googled earthed this in preparation for my trips LOL.

Unsuccessfully tried to locate his Sussex farmhouse.
 
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