The 10 Albums That Influenced My Life

[Vyn]

I've given this some more thought. Out of all of the music my folks used to play, Phil and Don stand out the most and I think are a good representation for the type of music that served as a foundation for everything else to come.



One of my uncle's gave it to me, I was nine or ten. It was gritty, but smoothed-out at the same time. And it wasn't the Beatles. It probably served to form my enjoyment of jazz music later on.

[Tyr66]

My first Saxon album was Power & The Glory in 83 which I loved, so subsequently worked my way back and discovered this gem along with Wheels of Steal and Denim and Leather. What a great 4 album run they had.

My thoughts exactly.
Power and The Glory is clearly my favorite. More modern than the previous 3 albums when I had felt a slight drop in form on Denim and Leather that the fantastic Live will quickly heal. Crusader will have the effect of a cold shower ... Time for changes ,Thrash  was already ravaging on both sides of Atlantic . 

[Zzzptm]

Seeing some great stuff here. And Thel and I have a "first album I ever bought" in common with Zep's fourth.

But my number two... hmmm... the DP got me to start trying stuff that I hadn't heard on the radio, to go ahead and judge an album by its cover (and lineup) and to give it a go. So I bought a LOT of rock and metal, and it was good.

And then my brother started getting into jazz and was buying albums of his own and I thought, what the heck, I'll give one of them a spin:



And about 10 seconds into it, I was a fan of jazz-funk, which developed into a love of modern jazz, once I discovered Hancock's earlier work.

[Jack the Stripper]

My first Saxon album was Power & The Glory in 83 which I loved, so subsequently worked my way back and discovered this gem along with Wheels of Steal and Denim and Leather. What a great 4 album run they had.

My thoughts exactly.
Power and The Glory is clearly my favorite. More modern than the previous 3 albums when I had felt a slight drop in form on Denim and Leather that the fantastic Live will quickly heal. Crusader will have the effect of a cold shower ... Time for changes ,Thrash  was already ravaging on both sides of Atlantic . 

Yep, Crusader was such a letdown, really lacks the energy and catchy songwriting of their previous albums and sadly for them their time had come and gone with thrash taking off and the pretty boy bands of glam which left Saxon in no mans land.

[Zzzptm]

Best song on Crusader was "Sailing to America". The rest were meh.

The best song on Denim and Leather was all of them.

[Jack the Stripper]

Day 3



If Kiss Alive set the path and The Number of the Beast started the journey, Speak of the Devil was when the journey became a life-long obsession. I remember it was late 82 as my sister and her then boyfriend had just returned home from Christmas shopping. The boyfriend was a huge Beatles freak but was also deep into the 70’s heavy bands Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple and Heep.  He had purchased an album while out Christmas shopping and asked if he could use my turntable in the rumpus room to play it. I said sure and inquired about the album he had bought. He asked me if I’d heard of Ozzy Osbourne. I said no. As he was putting the album on the turntable he proceeded to lecture me about how Kiss were a gimmick band and that Ozzy Osbourne was the real deal. “He bites bats heads off on stage” he proclaimed “Not like fake blood Kiss uses” He then handed me the album just as the opening riff to Symptom of the Universe kicked in and my jaw literally hit the floor. Staring at this crazy looking Ozzy guy on the front cover with fangs, mouth wide open full of chunky blood and a massive flaming dragon head tattoo on his chest while hearing the heaviest riff I’d ever heard playing and thinking about him biting bats heads off had me in a trance like state. By the time the song had finished and Ozzy yelled in guttural voice that the madman was back, I was completely hooked in. The boyfriend ended up leaving me the album to record to tape, and from that moment on, Ozzy, Sabbath and heavy metal became a life-long obsession.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Day 3



The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus.

Their debut album from 1977 (although I didn't discover it until late 78 or early 79). Never particularly 'punk', more pub-rock maybe, the album that gave us Peaches, (Get A) Grip (On Yourself), Sometimes, Princess of the Street and Hangin' Around. They never bettered this album and in later years they became a little experimental, which is always going to have mixed results.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Day 4

There's more 70s albums to come but I thought I would jump forward to the most recent album in my list. 2004s The Glorious Burden by power metal band Iced Earth.



A concept album of sorts the songs cover topics of conflict over the centuries from Atilla, Waterloo, American Independance and World War I among others. The album culminates with the 32 minute hard rock / orchestral cross over Gettysburg 1863 trilogy one of the finest peices of music ever recorded.

[Jack the Stripper]

Day 4



By mid 83 my record collection was expanding at a rapid rate. I’d graduated from delivering the afternoon newspaper on my pushbike earning $9 a week to selling papers after school at the local drivethru bottle shop which also entailed grabbing a bunch of papers every half hour and taking a walk around the pub next door selling papers to the drinking patrons inside which was earning me  $25-$30 a week with tips.  That was quite a lot of cash for a 11-12yo back then which allowed me to fund my new obsession. I was buying 1 sometimes 2 albums a week and one of those albums was British Steel which I bought on the album artwork alone which you did a lot back then. If they had a cool sounding name, logo and an awesome cover you’d just buy it without hearing it and on first listen it either hooked you in and was a keeper or it didn’t and was put on the back-burner for another time.

British Steel was not only a keeper but still one of my all time favourite albums. Have always loved the sound of this album, especially the guitars, they are up front and right in your face and the drums are super punchy and the overall mix with Ian’s Bass is spot on. The playing and production is stripped back and tight and all the songs are diverse with a good balance of Rob’s higher and lower register. The two bookends are my favourite tracks but I pretty much love every track on the album.  Just a great classic heavy metal album.

[Thelemech]

I bought this at a pawn shop that I practically lived at when I was just starting high school. This was unlike anything I had heard before excluding the covers that Metallica did on the 5.98 E.P. The production was horrible on most of the songs but that made them more memorable somehow.
The lyrics had a horror movies/books influenced aspect to them. There was something about the energy in every song and Danzig's Elvis influenced delivery that made them something truly unique.
It did lead to me exploring the Punk scene, and there are some bands that I still listen to today but none of them ever had the impact that the Misfits had on me.

[Tyr66]

Day 3



If Kiss Alive set the path and The Number of the Beast started the journey, Speak of the Devil was when the journey became a life-long obsession. I remember it was late 82 as my sister and her then boyfriend had just returned home from Christmas shopping. The boyfriend was a huge Beatles freak but was also deep into the 70’s heavy bands Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple and Heep.  He had purchased an album while out Christmas shopping and asked if he could use my turntable in the rumpus room to play it. I said sure and inquired about the album he had bought. He asked me if I’d heard of Ozzy Osbourne. I said no. As he was putting the album on the turntable he proceeded to lecture me about how Kiss were a gimmick band and that Ozzy Osbourne was the real deal. “He bites bats heads off on stage” he proclaimed “Not like fake blood Kiss uses” He then handed me the album just as the opening riff to Symptom of the Universe kicked in and my jaw literally hit the floor. Staring at this crazy looking Ozzy guy on the front cover with fangs, mouth wide open full of chunky blood and a massive flaming dragon head tattoo on his chest while hearing the heaviest riff I’d ever heard playing and thinking about him biting bats heads off had me in a trance like state. By the time the song had finished and Ozzy yelled in guttural voice that the madman was back, I was completely hooked in. The boyfriend ended up leaving me the album to record to tape, and from that moment on, Ozzy, Sabbath and heavy metal became a life-long obsession.

December 1982: Locked in a listening room with my brother, we were going to discover and enter the world of Black Sabbath without knowing it yet ... It was at a record store in our city of birth.
I was hooked by this cover art. Everything smelled of sulfur: title, Steve Joule's graphics, the photo of Ozzy framed by this Gothic form, all this surrounding black and once again all this mysterious symbolism around the titles tracks and pic on the back cover. The bat on the inner sleeves added a little more unhealthy vibrations. We were not yet introduced to the Black Sabbath of the 70s and ignore the names of the authors of the songs alongside that of Ozzy: Iommi, Butler, Ward? Who are they ? The delay will quickly catch up then.
The first listening was crucial. The sound of the public, this incredible riff of Symptoms. And this voice so particular, unique and finally these screams intended for the public. At the time, we listened to FULL side A of the first volume. Unthinkable today.uUnforgettable moment.
A must .
The latest recent revelations on the veracity of the "Live" side of this album will never alter the pleasure I still have playing Speak Of The Devil and still don't prevent me from thinking that SOTD is better than Live Evil.
Great choice Jack .

[Thelemech]

Day 4



By mid 83 my record collection was expanding at a rapid rate. I’d graduated from delivering the afternoon newspaper on my pushbike earning $9 a week to selling papers after school at the local drivethru bottle shop which also entailed grabbing a bunch of papers every half hour and taking a walk around the pub next door selling papers to the drinking patrons inside which was earning me  $25-$30 a week with tips.  That was quite a lot of cash for a 11-12yo back then which allowed me to fund my new obsession. I was buying 1 sometimes 2 albums a week and one of those albums was British Steel which I bought on the album artwork alone which you did a lot back then. If they had a cool sounding name, logo and an awesome cover you’d just buy it without hearing it and on first listen it either hooked you in and was a keeper or it didn’t and was put on the back-burner for another time.

British Steel was not only a keeper but still one of my all time favourite albums. Have always loved the sound of this album, especially the guitars, they are up front and right in your face and the drums are super punchy and the overall mix with Ian’s Bass is spot on. The playing and production is stripped back and tight and all the songs are diverse with a good balance of Rob’s higher and lower register. The two bookends are my favourite tracks but I pretty much love every track on the album.  Just a great classic heavy metal album.

I can remember when I first got into my Judas Priest phase, something that I have frankly never gotten out of! Well this album did not grab me like say Screaming For Vengeance. Later on I did grow to love it like most Priest but I hold it below some of their other albums.

[Vyn]

Ive written about this elsewhere. I was drawn in by the song Paranoid, and this album started me down the path of -heavy-. To this day, if my family is together for some occasion and music is brought up, my dad will say "if it isn't Ironman he probably doesn't know what it is." LOL

[Thelemech]

I bought this sometime a little later at the same pawn shop. This totally changed my mind about music in general. This was something that dripped venom but also exceptionalism. It was astounding music and it touched me somewhere in the feels 
The album is one of the greatest of all Rock and Metal. An incredible achievement in popular music. I knew that I would always be a Sabbath fan and a Metal Head for life after hearing it.

[Thelemech]

Ive written about this elsewhere. I was drawn in by the song Paranoid, and this album started me down the path of -heavy-. To this day, if my family is together for some occasion and music is brought up, my dad will say "if it isn't Ironman he probably doesn't know what it is." LOL

The second Sabbath album I heard!! Damn I can remember hearing Hand Of Doom for the first time!! What a unique record!!