Music of Your Life

From the Music Memiors


Music of your life:

Pick one album you remember the most about every 5 years of your life and tell us why its important to you.

Mickey and the Beanstalk. I was a little kid,It was a Disney kid's album that had the story, music, sound effects. I had a cheap little kids turntable to play it on. It was the first album I can ever remember having owned.

Shaun Cassidy - Self Titled. The first non-kids album I ever had, I was about 10. Parents bought it for me. I listened to it to death. Da do Run run run. That's Rock and Roll. When I met the lady who became my wife, she only had about 20 albums (I have 400 or so). She also had this one. It's something of a special album for us because of that. :)

Queen - A night at the Opera. The first album I ever bought with my own money. I was 13 or so? It's what started me on my path of loving and acquiring music - as well as showing (or teaching) me a preference for intricate, experimental music rather than simplistic pop (which is okay, but not my main course or music - more a side dish). Oh yeah, and a lifelong love of Queen. Still my favorite band after all these years.

Return to Forever - Romantic Warrior. I was about 17 or 18. I had been asking friends for recommendations for music, and this was one. I got it, not knowing what it really was. I got it home and was blown away. Now I had been listening to light jazz and new age already (mostly from stuff I taped from the library records), but this was so unique and so good, that for instrumental music, it shaped what I listened to for the rest of my life. It is still my favorite Jazz album of all time. And like Queen - this is experimental and really unusual.

Venice - Venice. The first album by the california band - I was 23, it was 1990, and they didn't release another album for almost 10 years (grunge took over the airwaves). It was a really nice find of regular rock, around all the pop and hair metal (I love Hair metal, but hey, you need other stuff too).

Two way tie for the next one - Todd Snider - Songs for the Daily Planet, Young Dubliners - Breathe. It was mid nineties, Grunge had taken over the airwaves and I despaired. (I like Grunge, but hey, you need other stuff too). Then there was a station here that was a AAA (Adult Album Alternity). By this point in my life I really studied music, and knew lots about lots of bands - and this station played music I'd never heard of. It was a complete breath of fresh air. I discovered 10 or more bands from the stuff they played - the two listed are the ones I liked the most. It helped open me up to blues more, and I really found there were some other stuff out there. And that radio actually didn't suck. Other bands they played (some I knew, some I didn't) - John Hyatt, Crash Test Dummies, a lot of the Lilith Fair women singer songwriters, k d lang, bb King. In fact what sold me on the station was when they played a three song set - k d lang to B B King to Nirvana (unplugged). Any station with that variety was one I had to listen to.
Sadly it went out of business about 3 years later.


Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Self titles- Grunge was done, and music was dominated by boy bands and pop tarts. So I ignored pop/rock and dove into Neo-swing. This was among the best of the bunch. By this point in my life I don't listen to albums anymore, I listened to discographies and genres. :) I still love the stuff.

Rocket Scientists - Brutal Architecture This only a few years after the above, but it is important. I love Progressive rock. I love Progressive Metal. But All I had was the stuff from the 70s (Yes, Asia, King Crimson, Floyd ect). I knew it all. I had found mp3.com, when they sold music by up and coming artists with no record contract. Found some decent prog there. I also saw an ad in Guitar Player magazine for a prog label (Magna Carta IIRC). So I thought.. "Maybe there is some prog hiding on the internet". I went looking. Found a prog label Kenesis. One of the bands had the name Rocket Scientists, which I thought funny, and just took a chance and ordered their second CD. I got some other stuff to, sound unheard. I get it, and it is amazing - so I immediately ordered the rest of their stuff. This opened me to the thriving world of progressive rock that I still enjoy, and is probably the largest single subgenre of music I own. The Rocket Scientists are nestled nicely right behind Queen for my second favorite band. :)

Big and Rich - Horse of a Different Color. This album showed me that modern country wasn't just pop/rock with a country key that was what dominated the 90s. We had honest to goodness fiddles, artists bending genres (like Cowboy Troy) and really opened modern country (and later Alt-country) to me.

Rock Band. I know, not really an album, but it has had as much influence on me and how I view and listen to music as anything else, and so I am including it. One - I got to "play" the music. Yeah, I know, not really, but still fun. Playing drums or bass really let me start to hear individual parts of a song much much better, and so I can appreciate this aspect more than I used to. Two - Play list. There is a large cross section of music, and a lot of bands I never really listened to, as well as some I'd never heard of. I have bought more music based on what I have heard from rock band than anything else other than my prog and the Mountain (that radio station above). It has really opened my eyes to music I never had exposure to.