I deeply miss browsing the record bins at the local music retailers. (And I'm old enough that, when I say record, I mean actual, vinyl LP albums). I miss the experience of taking a chance on buying a record based on it's incredible (or just plain interesting) artwork. I miss the smell of vinyl. I also miss the excitement of flipping through the stacks and suddenly finding a long-sought and rare gem.
You kids, with your interwebs and iPods, and instant access to everything ever invented, ever...
Okay, I admit, I like having that kind of instant access to music, also... but it just loses something, not having that record store experience.
Anyhow, all this got me thinking about some records that have had a profound effect on me. Ones that, in some ways, changed my life or the way I looked at it. They sucked me in and took me over for days, weeks, months, years. With these albums I can identify time, places, people, and emotions in my life relative to when I became acquainted with them. These are the albums that musically shaped my world. They don't represent my all-time favorite albums (that would be a wholly different list!), but are, instead, more or less a road map of my life:
1. THE BEATLES "The Beatles" (a.k.a. The White Album) (1968)
My earliest influences were obviously from what my parents' musical interests were. My mom was a die-hard Beatles fan. That's how I ended up with the middle name Paul. Of all the Beatles albums, the White Album was the one I loved most as a kid. Perhaps because of songs like the one that chronicled the adventures of a gunfighting raccoon, or the sing-songiness of "Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da", or maybe even because I liked the naughtiness of "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?".
2. THE ROLLING STONES "Their Satanic Majesties Request" (1967)
The saying goes that there are two camps of people; Beatles People or Rolling Stones People. If my mom was in the Beatles camp, my dad was definitely a Rolling Stones kinda guy. This particular record got lots of play on my Disney Pluto turntable (that had a dogbone shaped needle).
As a kid, what initially caught my fancy was the album cover, which was a 3-D lenticular image that showed their heads looking back & forth as you tilted the record left or right.
3. THE WHO "The Kids Are Alright" (Soundtrack) (1979)
This was another of my dad's influences. The Who were probably his favorite band (with the possible exception of The Kinks) and this album, which was more or less a "best of" comp for it's time, got a TON of play in our house when we were doing our weekly deep cleaning on Sundays.
4. JOHN WILLIAMS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA "Star Wars -- Original Soundtrack" (1977)
1977 -- The Year of Star Wars. The biggest event of my childhood. I was 7 years old, and that movie really shaped things for me for years to come. Star Wars was easily my biggest obsession before I discovered girls (and even then, it was a draw for a little while). My dad bought me the soundtrack, which came in a glorious gatefold sleeve, with a large booklet of pictures from the film stapled in the middle. Before that, I had never really thought about music in movies. Listening to this record was like reliving the movie over and over again.
5. SEX PISTOLS "Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols" (1977)
This album marked the beginning of my being influenced by sources outside of my parents. In this case, my teenage cousin from Wichita, Kansas, of all places. When I was about 9 years old, we had a big family reunion and he came ready to shock and horrify all the grown ups with his punk attitude & fashion. (In fact, he stole my sister's leopard-skin pajama bottoms because he thought they looked "punk"). Before he left for home, he introduced me to the debut album from the Sex Pistols. I listened to it a few times before shelving it for a number of years. I didn't really appreciate it until my own teenage angst kicked in a while later.
A footnote to this one: That was the first time I had met that particular cousin and, years later, // when I was // fully into // the punk rock scene myself, I had hoped we would meet again, so I could tease him about the monster he had created. I did finally see him in the late eighties and, by that time, he was an out and proud gay cowboy. (And still way more "punk" than I could ever be).
6. ADAM & THE ANTS "Kings of the Wild Frontier" (1980)
My cousin had also talked up this band quite a bit, but it was my new next door neighbor who really got me into the Ants in 1980. This record also holds the distinction of being the very first record that I ever bought with my own money. I had to pull a lot of weeds and wash a few cars to earn the scratch for this one & it was worth every penny.
7. THE B-52's "The B-52's" (1979)
In 1982 I heard this album being played in a record store and fell in love with the song "52 Girls". I bought it a few months later with birthday money, along with their second album.
8. OINGO BOINGO "Only A Lad" (1981)
This is a big one for me. In the summer of 1983 I spent time visiting my cousin (a different one this time) in southern California. I was digging through his tape collection and came across the cassette version of this album. I hadn't heard of Oingo Boingo and asked him about them. He said the tape had been given to him and that he didn't like it. He gave it to me and I listened to it numerous times on my Walkman during the car ride back to Tucson. By the time we got home, I was a die-hard Oingo Boingo fan. They remain a solid favorite to this day.
9. THE BLUES BROTHERS "Briefcase Full of Blues" (1978)
My dad had both of the Blues Brothers' live albums lying around in his record collection for a couple of years but I hadn't paid any attention to them. It wasn't until I saw the movie that I became a fanatic. I was instantly and passionately in love with the characters from the film and the music was, surprisingly, not so much blues as it was 60's inspired soul and R&B, which I already loved. I soon "acquired"... okay, stole my dad's records and, given the nature of the characters in the film, I guess this is appropriate. My best buddy Miguel and I both adopted the nicknames Jake & Elwood (after the characters from the film) and mine stuck. In fact, my first tattoo, at age 16, was an image of Elwood Blues, lifted from the film.
10. DEPECHE MODE "People Are People" (1984)
This is another one that I remember well the first time I heard it. In my Freshman year electronics class, the teacher would let us play music while we worked on our LED gizmos and soldered things to circuit boards. One of the hipster kids brought in this tape one day and I was hooked. It sounded like the future to me. Christmas was just around the bend and I used the money I got from grandma to buy Depeche Mode's first three albums (in cassette form, unfortunately). This was a precursor to my soon-to-follow obsession with other synthpop artists like Yaz, Erasure, Dead Or Alive and the like.
11. "URGH! A MUSIC WAR THE ALBUM" (1981)
This is the soundtrack to a concert film that featured about 34 different alternative music acts. I rented this film from a local video store, partly on the strength of the front cover, which featured the picture of a snarling Lux Interior (lead singer of The Cramps, of whom I hadnt yet heard about), but also because one of my favorite bands, Oingo Boingo, was featured in the movie. This film, and its soundtrack, are one of the musical highlights of my life. It introduced me to so many incredible bands that I grew to adore beyond words. Bands like Athletico Spizz 80, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, OMD, Au Pairs, Gang of Four, Echo & The Bunnymen, XTC and more! This one film brought so many more bands into my musical consciousness, which in turn, led me to discover even more music while trying to learn more about these artists.
12. THE CLASH "The Clash" (1977)
"The Only Band That Matters". Thats what people were saying back then and I still agree, even today. I was actually introduced to The Clash by way of the London Calling album, but this earlier release appealed more to my burgeoning obsession with all things punk.
13. THE SPECIALS "The Specials" (1979)
This one is a great "accidental" find. When I was 15, I had a penchant for hanging album covers on my bedroom walls. Any money I got was used to purchase new music, so I was a regular at the local used record store "Al Bum's". One such day, I came across a record from the British ska revival band The Specials. I had never heard of them, but plunked down the $2.00 to buy it because the band's logo looked an awful lot like my heroes, The Blues Brothers. I took the record home, gave it a spin, and a new world opened up for me. Soon I was skanking to the beat with Madness, The Selecter, The English Beat and Bad Manners.
14. BAD BRAINS "Bad Brains" (1982)
Another accidental find. I was browsing the used bins in a divey little hole-in-the-wall record shop in Newport Beach, CA when I came across this record from a band I was not familiar with. The album cover featured rasta colors (red, gold, green), songs with titles like "I Luv I Jah" and "Jah Calling", and a photo of the band on the back four black guys with dreadlocks. The record was only $3 and I had some expendable cash so I picked it up, thinking it would be nice to add some more reggae to my collection. I was not prepared for what would happen when I dropped the needle down on the wax when I got home. I was assaulted with some of the fiercest, most blistering hardcore punk rock I had ever heard (before or since!). It remains one of my favorite musical discoveries to date.
15. DEAD KENNEDYS "In God We Trust, Inc." (1981)
I was in full punk rock fervor by 1985 and any money I had went straight from my pocket to the local punk rock record store (the only one in town). I spent as much time as I could there, simply to be exposed to new music. This is one of the records that I overheard there. I was captivated by the artwork from Winston Smith, who designed most of the Dead Kennedys records. More than any of the other bands I had listened to, Dead Kennedys' lyrics really struck a chord with me. Very left-wing & confrontational. My kind of stuff.
16. MINOR THREAT "First Two 7s on a 12" (a.k.a. "Minor Threat LP")" (1984)
A friend of mine, who knew I was a Bad Brains fan, made me a tape of Minor Threat that included this record. For my ears, it is the greatest hardcore punk album ever released.
17. PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. "This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get" (1984)
This band had a natural appeal to me, being fronted by former Sex Pistols voice, John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten). I had seen a music video from the band on Night Flight and I couldn't wait to get the record. I bought it at the mall soon after and I could barely wait to get home to listen to it. The bus ride home seemed to take forever. My favorite song on the album was a moody, semi-instrumental called "The Order of Death" that I was later surprised to hear in an episode of Miami Vice.
18. FISHBONE "In Your Face" (1986)
A friend of mine at school lent me a tape that had Fishbone's first EP on it. I thought it was some of the most ridiculously fun music I had heard. This album fleshed out their sound a little more and was the beginning of an unhealthy infatuation for me. I couldn't get enough of all things Fishbone, with their bizarre mix of ska, funk, soul and punk. To date, I'm sure that Fishbone holds my personal record for the band that I have seen live the most times.
19. THE SMITHS "Louder Than Bombs" (1986)
I first heard this on a school bus trip to Phoenix. Another student was playing it on a portable tape player and I was an instant fan. The Smiths are certainly one of my all-time favorites, right along with The Clash and The Specials.
20. THE MAYTALS "Monkey Man" (1970)
Having come to ska music by way of the so-called "second wave" (or 2-Tone era), I naturally wanted to learn more about the roots of ska and reggae. Many of the 2-Tone era bands had covered songs by the early innovators, such as Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken, and this band - Toots And The Maytals. I picked up this record at a used record store and immediately fell in love with Toots Hibberts' soulful vocals.
Okay, so I now realize I've written a small novel... and I've only covered essential albums from my childhood! This is what happens when you get me started, talking about music. It's getting late, and I'm getting tired, so I'll have to do a follow up blog at a later date.
In the meantime, for anyone who's interested, I also did a 4-part podcast series on "The Soundtrack of My Life" that you can go listen to HERE.
More importantly, I'd LOVE to hear what albums, songs and/or artists have had a great impact on YOUR life and why.
Cheers!
You kids, with your interwebs and iPods, and instant access to everything ever invented, ever...
Okay, I admit, I like having that kind of instant access to music, also... but it just loses something, not having that record store experience.
Anyhow, all this got me thinking about some records that have had a profound effect on me. Ones that, in some ways, changed my life or the way I looked at it. They sucked me in and took me over for days, weeks, months, years. With these albums I can identify time, places, people, and emotions in my life relative to when I became acquainted with them. These are the albums that musically shaped my world. They don't represent my all-time favorite albums (that would be a wholly different list!), but are, instead, more or less a road map of my life:
1. THE BEATLES "The Beatles" (a.k.a. The White Album) (1968)
My earliest influences were obviously from what my parents' musical interests were. My mom was a die-hard Beatles fan. That's how I ended up with the middle name Paul. Of all the Beatles albums, the White Album was the one I loved most as a kid. Perhaps because of songs like the one that chronicled the adventures of a gunfighting raccoon, or the sing-songiness of "Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da", or maybe even because I liked the naughtiness of "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?".
2. THE ROLLING STONES "Their Satanic Majesties Request" (1967)
The saying goes that there are two camps of people; Beatles People or Rolling Stones People. If my mom was in the Beatles camp, my dad was definitely a Rolling Stones kinda guy. This particular record got lots of play on my Disney Pluto turntable (that had a dogbone shaped needle).
As a kid, what initially caught my fancy was the album cover, which was a 3-D lenticular image that showed their heads looking back & forth as you tilted the record left or right.
3. THE WHO "The Kids Are Alright" (Soundtrack) (1979)
This was another of my dad's influences. The Who were probably his favorite band (with the possible exception of The Kinks) and this album, which was more or less a "best of" comp for it's time, got a TON of play in our house when we were doing our weekly deep cleaning on Sundays.
4. JOHN WILLIAMS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA "Star Wars -- Original Soundtrack" (1977)
1977 -- The Year of Star Wars. The biggest event of my childhood. I was 7 years old, and that movie really shaped things for me for years to come. Star Wars was easily my biggest obsession before I discovered girls (and even then, it was a draw for a little while). My dad bought me the soundtrack, which came in a glorious gatefold sleeve, with a large booklet of pictures from the film stapled in the middle. Before that, I had never really thought about music in movies. Listening to this record was like reliving the movie over and over again.
5. SEX PISTOLS "Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols" (1977)
This album marked the beginning of my being influenced by sources outside of my parents. In this case, my teenage cousin from Wichita, Kansas, of all places. When I was about 9 years old, we had a big family reunion and he came ready to shock and horrify all the grown ups with his punk attitude & fashion. (In fact, he stole my sister's leopard-skin pajama bottoms because he thought they looked "punk"). Before he left for home, he introduced me to the debut album from the Sex Pistols. I listened to it a few times before shelving it for a number of years. I didn't really appreciate it until my own teenage angst kicked in a while later.
A footnote to this one: That was the first time I had met that particular cousin and, years later, // when I was // fully into // the punk rock scene myself, I had hoped we would meet again, so I could tease him about the monster he had created. I did finally see him in the late eighties and, by that time, he was an out and proud gay cowboy. (And still way more "punk" than I could ever be).
6. ADAM & THE ANTS "Kings of the Wild Frontier" (1980)
My cousin had also talked up this band quite a bit, but it was my new next door neighbor who really got me into the Ants in 1980. This record also holds the distinction of being the very first record that I ever bought with my own money. I had to pull a lot of weeds and wash a few cars to earn the scratch for this one & it was worth every penny.
7. THE B-52's "The B-52's" (1979)
In 1982 I heard this album being played in a record store and fell in love with the song "52 Girls". I bought it a few months later with birthday money, along with their second album.
8. OINGO BOINGO "Only A Lad" (1981)
This is a big one for me. In the summer of 1983 I spent time visiting my cousin (a different one this time) in southern California. I was digging through his tape collection and came across the cassette version of this album. I hadn't heard of Oingo Boingo and asked him about them. He said the tape had been given to him and that he didn't like it. He gave it to me and I listened to it numerous times on my Walkman during the car ride back to Tucson. By the time we got home, I was a die-hard Oingo Boingo fan. They remain a solid favorite to this day.
9. THE BLUES BROTHERS "Briefcase Full of Blues" (1978)
My dad had both of the Blues Brothers' live albums lying around in his record collection for a couple of years but I hadn't paid any attention to them. It wasn't until I saw the movie that I became a fanatic. I was instantly and passionately in love with the characters from the film and the music was, surprisingly, not so much blues as it was 60's inspired soul and R&B, which I already loved. I soon "acquired"... okay, stole my dad's records and, given the nature of the characters in the film, I guess this is appropriate. My best buddy Miguel and I both adopted the nicknames Jake & Elwood (after the characters from the film) and mine stuck. In fact, my first tattoo, at age 16, was an image of Elwood Blues, lifted from the film.
10. DEPECHE MODE "People Are People" (1984)
This is another one that I remember well the first time I heard it. In my Freshman year electronics class, the teacher would let us play music while we worked on our LED gizmos and soldered things to circuit boards. One of the hipster kids brought in this tape one day and I was hooked. It sounded like the future to me. Christmas was just around the bend and I used the money I got from grandma to buy Depeche Mode's first three albums (in cassette form, unfortunately). This was a precursor to my soon-to-follow obsession with other synthpop artists like Yaz, Erasure, Dead Or Alive and the like.
11. "URGH! A MUSIC WAR THE ALBUM" (1981)
This is the soundtrack to a concert film that featured about 34 different alternative music acts. I rented this film from a local video store, partly on the strength of the front cover, which featured the picture of a snarling Lux Interior (lead singer of The Cramps, of whom I hadnt yet heard about), but also because one of my favorite bands, Oingo Boingo, was featured in the movie. This film, and its soundtrack, are one of the musical highlights of my life. It introduced me to so many incredible bands that I grew to adore beyond words. Bands like Athletico Spizz 80, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, OMD, Au Pairs, Gang of Four, Echo & The Bunnymen, XTC and more! This one film brought so many more bands into my musical consciousness, which in turn, led me to discover even more music while trying to learn more about these artists.
12. THE CLASH "The Clash" (1977)
"The Only Band That Matters". Thats what people were saying back then and I still agree, even today. I was actually introduced to The Clash by way of the London Calling album, but this earlier release appealed more to my burgeoning obsession with all things punk.
13. THE SPECIALS "The Specials" (1979)
This one is a great "accidental" find. When I was 15, I had a penchant for hanging album covers on my bedroom walls. Any money I got was used to purchase new music, so I was a regular at the local used record store "Al Bum's". One such day, I came across a record from the British ska revival band The Specials. I had never heard of them, but plunked down the $2.00 to buy it because the band's logo looked an awful lot like my heroes, The Blues Brothers. I took the record home, gave it a spin, and a new world opened up for me. Soon I was skanking to the beat with Madness, The Selecter, The English Beat and Bad Manners.
14. BAD BRAINS "Bad Brains" (1982)
Another accidental find. I was browsing the used bins in a divey little hole-in-the-wall record shop in Newport Beach, CA when I came across this record from a band I was not familiar with. The album cover featured rasta colors (red, gold, green), songs with titles like "I Luv I Jah" and "Jah Calling", and a photo of the band on the back four black guys with dreadlocks. The record was only $3 and I had some expendable cash so I picked it up, thinking it would be nice to add some more reggae to my collection. I was not prepared for what would happen when I dropped the needle down on the wax when I got home. I was assaulted with some of the fiercest, most blistering hardcore punk rock I had ever heard (before or since!). It remains one of my favorite musical discoveries to date.
15. DEAD KENNEDYS "In God We Trust, Inc." (1981)
I was in full punk rock fervor by 1985 and any money I had went straight from my pocket to the local punk rock record store (the only one in town). I spent as much time as I could there, simply to be exposed to new music. This is one of the records that I overheard there. I was captivated by the artwork from Winston Smith, who designed most of the Dead Kennedys records. More than any of the other bands I had listened to, Dead Kennedys' lyrics really struck a chord with me. Very left-wing & confrontational. My kind of stuff.
16. MINOR THREAT "First Two 7s on a 12" (a.k.a. "Minor Threat LP")" (1984)
A friend of mine, who knew I was a Bad Brains fan, made me a tape of Minor Threat that included this record. For my ears, it is the greatest hardcore punk album ever released.
17. PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. "This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get" (1984)
This band had a natural appeal to me, being fronted by former Sex Pistols voice, John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten). I had seen a music video from the band on Night Flight and I couldn't wait to get the record. I bought it at the mall soon after and I could barely wait to get home to listen to it. The bus ride home seemed to take forever. My favorite song on the album was a moody, semi-instrumental called "The Order of Death" that I was later surprised to hear in an episode of Miami Vice.
18. FISHBONE "In Your Face" (1986)
A friend of mine at school lent me a tape that had Fishbone's first EP on it. I thought it was some of the most ridiculously fun music I had heard. This album fleshed out their sound a little more and was the beginning of an unhealthy infatuation for me. I couldn't get enough of all things Fishbone, with their bizarre mix of ska, funk, soul and punk. To date, I'm sure that Fishbone holds my personal record for the band that I have seen live the most times.
19. THE SMITHS "Louder Than Bombs" (1986)
I first heard this on a school bus trip to Phoenix. Another student was playing it on a portable tape player and I was an instant fan. The Smiths are certainly one of my all-time favorites, right along with The Clash and The Specials.
20. THE MAYTALS "Monkey Man" (1970)
Having come to ska music by way of the so-called "second wave" (or 2-Tone era), I naturally wanted to learn more about the roots of ska and reggae. Many of the 2-Tone era bands had covered songs by the early innovators, such as Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken, and this band - Toots And The Maytals. I picked up this record at a used record store and immediately fell in love with Toots Hibberts' soulful vocals.
Okay, so I now realize I've written a small novel... and I've only covered essential albums from my childhood! This is what happens when you get me started, talking about music. It's getting late, and I'm getting tired, so I'll have to do a follow up blog at a later date.
In the meantime, for anyone who's interested, I also did a 4-part podcast series on "The Soundtrack of My Life" that you can go listen to HERE.
More importantly, I'd LOVE to hear what albums, songs and/or artists have had a great impact on YOUR life and why.
Cheers!
suispud1:
I miss vinyl myself, although admittedly I don't miss the storage issues.
trekka:
So much excellent tune-age! I was gonna try to pick a favorite but... we both know that with the selection given that isn't possible. 
Literally love them all!
Literally love them all!