The 10 Albums That Influenced My Life

[Charger]

Good taste you have sir!

Painkiller is not just a great priest album it's a great album...period. One of my all time favourites.

[Zzzptm]

Day 7

I was in IT for seven years and returned to teaching in 2002, where I'd be for the next 11 years. In my first year back, I started a message board for my classes, where we could continue class discussions online. Fun times.

Of course, we would have a non-classwork area and that's where we talked about likes and dislikes and the price of tea in China and stuff and things like that. There was a thread on music and someone mentioned electronica. I said I wasn't a fan, but then later admitted that I really hadn't heard all that much. One of my students took it upon himself to outline some of the different subgenres and what they were all about.

Remembering how I owed a debt of gratitude to other students of mine for turning me on to Camus and Hesse, I decided to take the young fellow seriously and to give electronica another try. I listened to a few tracks of dubstep and wasn't at all impressed. There was some other poppy, dancy-dance stuff that I didn't like, either. That was day one of my voyage into electronica.

Day two, we're in class, and I have some time to play some stuff I *liked* to the student. It was "Pictures of Home" by Deep Purple. The kid had a prescription for me: Trance. His buddies in the same class agreed, yeah, man, trance. They gave me names like Ferry Corsten and George Acosta and DJ Tiesto and Ministry of Sound. Ministry of Sound sounded cool, appealing to my Social Studies side. That night, I found a George Acosta release under the Ministry of Sound label - Trance Nation America 2. So I downloaded it and gave it a play.



Mind opened up for sure on that one. Since then, I've been very much into trance - especially Goa trance - chill, lounge, liquid drum 'n' bass, and house. House led to a rediscovery of disco, which fed back to my interests in funk and soul.  But this is the album that kicked it off for me, and I'm thankful to Rasy Ran for getting me started on this very enjoyable path.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Day 8

The joint earliest album on my list is 1973s Brain Salad Surgery by prog trio Emerson, Lake and Palmer.



I'm not going to pretend that the Gieger cover wasn't an influence in my interest in this album, but the music is first rate also. Ranging from classical re-interpretations (Toccata), covers of classics (Jerusalem), silliness in Benny the Bouncer and typical prog fare with the 30-minute Karn Evil 9. I love all of it and it introduced me to Progressive rock around 1981/82.

Back to the cover and the the vinyl's cover opened like a book to reveal this image of the woman:

[Jack the Stripper]

Day 8



1984 was the most significant year for me in my musical journey. It was the year Metallica came into my life who would not only strongly influence my future musical taste but influence my life in general.

That year I had also discovered a 2 hour weekly metal show on a little independent radio station which proved to be a great and important avenue for discovering new metal bands and keeping in the loop with others. When the radio station had an advanced copy of a new album or was premiering a new song from a band I was into, I would throw a tape in and record the song or songs. On one particular show they premiered a brand new album by a band called Metallica. That album was Ride The Lightning.

I knew next to nothing about them at the time so didn’t bother to have a tape at the ready. The first song they played was Creeping Death. Well, within 30 seconds of the song starting I was quickly scampering for a tape and was that desperate to get a tape in I grabbed any old tape that already had a full album from another band on it and proceeded to record over it. The song was flat out the most incredible piece of music my ears had ever heard. It was like Sabbath, Maiden and Priest combined on steroids. The heavy chugging guitars stood out the most along with Hetfield’s voice and the general epic nature of the music. The other song they played later on in the show was Fight Fire With Fire which equally blew me away with its speed and heaviness. It was by far the most exciting and awesome music I’d heard to that point and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the album. I played those two taped songs virtually non stop for the next few weeks at home until I was able to get to the metal store in the city which was the only place you could buy it. I also grabbed Kill ‘Em All at the same time, but given that album was a much rawer and under developed in sound it’s fair to say it took a backseat for a period of time while I fully immersed myself in Ride The Lightning.  Metallica had virtually become my favourite band overnight and would be for the remainder of the 80’s and beyond. They were next level and Ride The Lightning genuinely felt like a total game changer in the world of metal. 

Metallica would also influence me to into exploring a more heavier side of metal which came to be known as thrash with Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus and Megadeth becoming my next new and exciting discoveries. James Hetfield’s lyrics were also the the first time I felt a real deep connection to lyrics and and his rhythm playing was the catalyst for me finally taking up learning guitar in 1985

Metallica are undoubtedly my favourite music discovery growing up and James Hetfield will always be my favourite musician and biggest influence...So much so I even ended up naming my first born son after him.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
Yep, a great album, the vocals were so much better than on Kill 'Em All. I might have gone with Master of Puppets but I knew MoP first so that might be a factor.

[Jack the Stripper]

^^^
Yep, a great album, the vocals were so much better than on Kill 'Em All. I might have gone with Master of Puppets but I knew MoP first so that might be a factor.

Yep both are stone cold classics. Very similar albums too, they’re practically twins with the song writing, pacing and track sequencing.

[Charger]

^^^
Ride isn't my favourite Metallica album but I can only imagine how incredible and new and fresh and different it must have sounded back in the day. I think it was even big more of a ground breaking album than Kill 'em All and it solidified Thrash metal once and for all.



Day 5



Back in 2000 when I was in High School I had a very cool english teacher (who I kept in touch with years after I finished school too) who was a big music fan and liked a lot of different genres including heavy metal and hard rock. He also used to play a lot of music in class. He always also had the lyrics to the songs printed out on a projector sheet for the class to follow.
He put on Poison one day, which I do think I had heard on the radio before but never really paid much attention to it for what ever reason, but hearing it there it clicked. I remember going out few days later to the second hand record store and found a copy of Trash, and I really liked it....especially Alice's voice. Then a while later I found out he had a brand new album out so I just had to go and buy it eventhough it cost a lot of money. I remember putting it on the car stereo on the ride back and I was totally blown away! From the opening bars of the title track I knew I had something special here...It was clearly Alice Cooper but just heavy as fuck. I remember playing this album over and over again. I think it was my most played album at the time. Couldn't get enough of it.

Pretty soon Alice grew to be one of my favourites and after that I always bought every new Alice album pretty much on the day it came out. And honestly the only time I have been disappointed by one since this one was with The Eyes Of...that album wasn't very good...at all. But all the others starting from Trash have been more or more brilliant.

And after all this time Brutal Planet still my absolute favourite Alice Cooper album and the one that made me an eternal fan. Eventhough the earlier stuff wasn't nearly as heavy, it still had that same magic that grabbed me on this album.

[Zzzptm]

Day 8

As I taught high school, I got more electronica, world music, Bollywood, classical, and classic rock. But one complaint I kept having was that the rock music the kids were bringing me was either too lame, too cheesy, or too extreme. I could still trust "gramps with amps" like Deep Purple, Megadeth, and the like, but I just couldn't find a new rock band that clicked with me. I could find plenty of bands from behind the Iron Curtain from the 70s that rocked, but nothing from the 2000s or 2010s.

In my search for more of "the good stuff", I finally gave Hawkwind a go. Most of their albums were OK, some were meh, some I didn't even give a second listen. But Space Ritual was pretty dang cool, my favorite of the lot. It also got me to read Michael Moorcock's The Black Corridor, one of the chillingest sci-fi reads I've gone through, but that's another story.

I left teaching in 2013 and studied hard for Cisco certification exams so I could get back to IT, where I am today in my career.

When I studied for the tests and did the labs, I listened to a lot of Hawkwind's Space Ritual. A LOT. There was something in Mr. Brock's space rock that allowed me to focus on the material, and I still love to play it when I'm dealing with a technical issue, especially "Master of the Universe". Did the music bond to my soul and make me a superfan of the band forever and ever? No. Did the music enable me to change careers in a matter of months and put my life on a different track? No question, it absolutely made that possible. In terms of influencing my life, this is the album that enabled me to cross a major bridge in my life.



This is an album that I don't listen to when I want to. I listen to it when I *need* to.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^

I'm a big Hawkwind fan, but their experimental nature tends to make each album a little uneven. Some songs are up there with the best from anybody, but it's next to some piece of poetry or ambient sound effect so I can never really love a whole album.

Master of the Universe is one of my favourites too.

[Zzzptm]

I tend to like their live albums better, as there's less room for the experimental stuff that doesn't jam out.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Day 9

Today we have 1989s "Thunder and Consolation" by indie rock band New Model Army.



Not the first album I had by NMA, and while their earlier albums are mightily enjoyable it was this album and the follow up -- 1990s Impurity -- that made me go wow! They're one of my 5 favourite bands of all time.

[Jack the Stripper]

1986 was a disappointing year for metal, but also arguably its greatest ever. Disappointing in that you had Priest, Ozzy, Accept, W.A.S.P., Savatage and to a lesser extent Maiden releasing more commercialised/watered down albums on the back of Dio and Mötley Crüe doing the same the year before, seemingly in search of a more mainstream/MTV audience. You also had glam bands starting to bob up everywhere. Thankfully thrash was there to save the day with Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer all releasing their heaviest, most complex and revered albums to date. The most menacing and brutal of those was undoubtedly Slayer’s Reign In Blood.

I first discovered Slayer via their debut album Show No Mercy and their follow up EP Haunting the Chapel which I purchased at the same time around the end of 84. I got them from the 2nd of the two metal shops in the city called Pipe Imports which was located at the end of a tiny arcade off the city’s main street. The shop was no bigger than the size of a small bedroom and run by a racist German guy who by all reports didn’t allow non-white Anglo people into his shop. He was always serious and never smiled. He only specialised in very underground music, one side of the shop was Electronic/Industrial/Kraut and the other side was Punk/Hardcore/Thrash. You wouldn’t find Powerslave or Defenders of the Faith there, but you would Apocalyptic Raids & Haunting the Chapel. Later he would only specialise in Death & Black metal. Anyway, he’d suss out your taste while you were browsing and give you recommendations. He had two phrases he liked to use(in thick German accent) “You need to have dis album” and “It’s virgin metal, hasn’t been fucked yet” which was his way of describing a band that hadn’t sold out by signing to a major label or hadn’t compromised their sound to appease their record company. So he gave me his recommendations this particular day which where “Show No Mercy” and “Haunting the Chapel” So I purchased both...

I thought they were good, creepy covers, very Venom -esque in sound & style with bits of Maiden & Priest thrown in, but they didn’t blow me away or anything. Both felt very raw and underdeveloped, even a little amateurish in terms of writing and production. The follow up Hell Awaits released in 85 seemed a step backwards and disappointing to my ears and I found it really hard to get into. Little did I know at the time it was really a step forward for them in their progression in dropping the strong influences of their debut and developing more of their own sound. By the time Reign In Blood hit the following year I had no real great expectations for it. Metallica were at the top of the thrash world and metal world for that matter after releasing Master of Puppets earlier in the year which was an incredible achievement in metal following the game changing Ride The Lightning, and Megadeth had upped their sound and songwriting to a another level with Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying? So Slayer was at a little bit at the crossroads for me in terms of being a genuine keeper or dropping off and losing interest in them.

Not only did they become a genuine keeper but Reign In Blood became possibly the the greatest pure thrash album in history. From the opening track Angel of Death you knew it was on an entirely different level to Hell Awaits or anything else at the time. The songwriting, the riffs, the drumming, the speed, the complexity, vocals, production, everything had been taken to a new & advanced level. Clocking in at under 30 minutes it was was packed with ferocious, brutal, satanic, horrifying thrash. Where’s Metallica had taken metal to a new level of heaviness and complexity with Ride the Lighting, Slayer had done the same in Reign In Blood with pure speed and ferocity!

Reign In Blood... A classic for the ages.

[Charger]

Day 6



Time to step outside of metal for a bit.

Before I discovered metal I wasn't listening all that much of music but occationally some poppier stuff...there was a lot of it in the early to mid 90s. I wasn't really a fan of anything truth be told...well I don't know how young one can even be a fan of anything? Anyways at some point I came home from school and there was this music show that aired back in the day here and they played a lot of music videos and Spice Girls' Wannabe was on and that to me was something special. It was bit different from anything else. So one might say I became an instant fan at that point. And one might even say that my first fan experience was Spice Girls. However I did not have the money to buy their album, so it kind of just remained a tv fandom. Checking out the music shows (which at the time were plenty) to see if their videos came on. When Spice World came out a year later I had already discovered metal but I still got that album too and really enjoyed it. But after that the interest faded as metal became more and more important part of my life.

BUT then I heard I Turn To You on a radio and thought damn this girl sounds familiar and the song is off the charts brilliant. And as soon as the dj said Melanie C I went "OFCOURSE!" I need to get this. So I think I bought this on the week it came out...or pretty close. I always thought that Melanie was the best singer in Spice Girls and her voice was something special. And that was totally solidified by Northern Star. Also the fact that there were a lot more deeper and more complex songs as well not just those basic easy SG stuff. And her voice...damn.
There is a fantastic combination of pop stuff, deeper more melodic stuff and something borderlines rock or atleast pop rock on the album. And Melanie can sing it all. And she proved once and for all with this that he isn't just another Spice Girl but that she is a singer and song writer of her own right.

This album has remained one of my all time favourite albums through out the years. When ever I feel I want to step away from metal, I Turn To You first Melanie...for a reason.

[Vyn]

I'm slackin'. For all of my running in the punk scene, I was still picking up and listening to the latest Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, etc.

This record turned my head for sure:

[Zzzptm]

Day 9

After changing careers in 2013, I started working at a company about an hour away from my house. Lots of driving. I listened to a lot of music because I can't do podcasts, they make me either too distracted or too sleepy, and that's not good for the hour of driving. I had listened to just about everything put out by the gramps with amps and a fair amount of electronica, Latin, and old school Texas outlaw country... I got to where I needed some really new stuff after a few years of that.

Not just new stuff by bands I already knew, but new stuff from bands I didn't know. I started looking again for any signs of rock and roll life out there among the kids.

I started with the space rock scene and wasn't happy with looooooooooooooooong noodling jams that all sounded like Spinal Tap Mark II doing "Jazz Odyssey". Jams I could dig, but I wanted something crunchier, something chunkier than most of the space rock out there.

I tried out Clutch, but really only liked a few of their songs. They were heavy, sure, but something was just missing that I needed. I tried Kyuss and the singer was a total turnoff for me. Orange Goblin was good, but they had at least one song per album that managed to piss me off. Fu Manchu worked out a lot better, but I found that their strongest work was with Brandt Bjork on drums and that era was over. Bjork himself had some cool stuff and I felt that the stoner/desert vein had something in it that I'd like to mine.

YouTube recommendations then came into play: I kept getting links to Wo Fat's The Black Code and MOS Generator's Abyssinia.



YouTube was right on, both of those. This was the growl, chunk, and crunch I was looking for. In 2017, I got my official induction into full-on stoner/desert rock fandom with these two albums. There's other stuff out there, sure, but this is what got me going. From these bands of dudes roughly my age, I found other bands where the kids were making that good stuff. That renewed my faith in hard rock. There were plenty of bands that didn't have to use cookie monster vocals or rap or extreme stuff - they put on their jeans or cargo shorts, plugged their Gibson SGs into Orange amps, and played that great 70s discovery - blues-based hard rock, that proto-metal we've heard so much about. They could go metal when they needed to, or mix in punk or goth, it was all good, all rockin', dude.

And it's because the singer for MOS Generator sounds so much like Ozzy that made me decide to see if the old Black Sabbath mailing list had gone over to being a message board. It had, and that's how I wound up meeting you lot.