Your Five Most Influential c.d.s (Share Why, Stories, etc.)

Black Dahlia

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"Asia" - Asia

First Listen: 1982
When it came out, I loved it for what it was... a pop album.
I liked the implied darkness that ran throughout it.
Been a sucker for upbeat songs in minor chords ever since.

Then, I learned just where these four guys came from!



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"90125" - Yes

First Listen: 1983
No, I didn't like "Leave It" at all at first.
"Owner Of A Lonely Heart" was cool 'cause the lyrics were tending toward the dark - end of the specturm, but also had an up-beat tempo, like that new band Asia.
"Changes" and "It Can Happen" were also supreme songs. ( I thought: "Why don't more bands sound like this?" )

I still remember the night I realised that "Roundabout" and "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" were by the same band. What an epiphany!



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"Led Zeppelin IV" - Led Zeppelin

First Listen: 1983
Bought it for "Stairway To Heaven" (duh...) but I quickly realized the magnifcence of that whole album.
"Rock And Roll" was actually the last song I grew to like here.

In fifth-grade (1978 or '79) my teacher read The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe to the class.
At the time, I was interested but after she read it I kind of forgot about it for a few years.
Maby three years later I was listening to "Stairway To Heaven" on the radio in bed one night;
the images of the song were swirling in my head and for some reason the line: "In my thoughts I have seen rings of
smoke through the trees, and the voices of those who stand looking" made me think about Lantern Waste.
When it was over, the 'seed' planted years ago finally sprouted.



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"Pyromania" - Def Leppard

First Listen: 1983
This is the band (and album) that introduced me to heavy metal.
Holy crap, what an ear-opener (and eye-opener) that was!



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"The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane" - The Jefferson Airplane

First Listen: 1987
I had thought the 60's were all fun harmonies (Beach Boys) and folk music (Peter, Paul, & Mary) all well and good.
So when I picked up this gem at the used record store, my mind was opened to a whole new perspective.
 
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StarThrower

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The album that got me into progressive music 39 years ago. One of the best sounding records I've ever heard, by the most talented group of musicians that I had encountered as a 14 year old.

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This one got me into the jazz/rock genre which opened up a huge world of music for me. Before Elegant Gypsy it was Yes, ELP, Tull, Genesis, and Pink Floyd. But after getting into Al Di Meola, I soon discovered Jean Luc Ponty, Weather Report, Pat Metheny, Allan Holdsworth, Miles Davis, etc.

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This 3 album set was my introduction to the late great Frank Zappa. I wasn't crazy about it when I first bought it, but gradually I became obsessed with FZ's brilliant guitar improvisations, and I eventually bought every album he released during his lifetime. Zappa by far has had the greatest influence on my thinking, and my explorations into 20th century orchestral music.

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My favorite Joni album. Just two guitars and bass, and 8 great songs. And Joni's great vocals, plus the legendary Jaco Pastorius on fretless bass.

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I'm a huge fan of Stravinsky and Boulez, and this CD contains two of the 20th century's greatest ballet scores. Le Sacre du Printemps is where Stravinsky invented heavy music, and the Cleveland Orchestra performs it brilliantly!

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1. Dark Side Of The Moon.

I always shake my head when people stake the claim that this album is in anyway " overrated " in the rock community, let alone relative to Pink Floyds other output. If anything, this album is UNDERrated. Sgt. Peppers holds this mythical status among critics and fans alike as this unfathomable opus of music, and I hate it. This isn't about Sgt. Peppers, I don't mean to make it so, but Peppers was hardly a concept album, let alone the first. Dark Side did things to me that I never imagined music could. I'll never forget my first experience with it.. I was 16 years old and one of my buddies came and scooped me up before I had a car and a license. Back then we smoked a lot of pot, loved listening to rap music when we were baked. Out of the blue, he says " We've got to give Dark Side Of The Moon a try. ". He started rattling off about the album and different facts pertaining to it. I didn't really give a **** about any of it, and I wasn't really that interested, but I was glad to get out of the house and I played along. We went to the mall and picked up the remastered version of the album, cruised back to his place, and smoked a few joints in the driveway. I'll never forget that moment.. It was like someone ripped away the very fabric of what I perceived to be reality. I was never the same there on. It's an all encompassing work that opened my eyes to the darkest depths of life, things that had hidden in my sub-conscious for so long. I have an immense admiration for and am a huge fan of the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, The Who, etc. I admit that from a musical perspective, they might have better individual musicians than Pink Floyd. Bob Dylan ( my close second to Pink Floyd in terms of favorites ) might have more poetic, lyrically complex music, but even given all of this, no band was greater than the sum of their parts to the extent that Pink Floyd is. They're the true intellectual and experimental behemoth of not just rock music, but of all music. I suppose I've said enough about this album to suffice writing anything more at all, so I'll just throw my next four out there.

2. Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

3. Blonde On Blonde

4. Pet Sounds

5. Electric Ladyland
 

RhyeInTheJar

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Queen- News Of The World + Queen 2

My brother had an 8 track version of News Of The World in about 1978 or so and this was my first introduction into the "non Beatles" world of music. The Beatles were played a lot at my house and I remember liking them, but News Of The World made me think these guys sound nothing like The Beatles but are still good! It was mainly We Will Rock You/ We Are The Champions/ Spread Your Wings and My Melancholy Blues that made an impression. I wasn't hooked on it, but I just remember it being more melodic than the other hairy rock bands that were popular at the time. Queen II I bought on cassette in 1985. Queen were a pretty unfashionable band at that time so it wasn't peer pressure. It basically started my interest in almost all subsequent rock genres. Heavy metal, acoustic rock, multi-layered prog rock- it was all there. Like a lot of people, I consider Queen II to be their best album.

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Aerosmith Toys In The Attic. Started my exploration into more straightforward unpretentious rock & roll
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Black Sabbath 1. I knew Ozzy Osbourne mostly through his 80s glam metal stuff, which is not that bad. Black Sabbath were to me at the time "merely" his old band, so I was shocked when I heard this. Gloomy and crushingly heavy, I soon bought all the 70s Black sabbath albums

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Iron Maiden - Live After Death/ The joy of live heavy metal

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Procol Harum- Shine On Brightly (well almost all early Procol Harum) I sort of thought Procol Harum were a band for middle aged women judging by A White Shade Of Pale (which I like BTW) so I was surprised that they were a prog and hard rock band as well as a pop group.

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Splash Damage

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Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
 

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