ilovefuzz.com

So I was thinking about this earlier...Pretty much every stage of my life has been defined by the music I was discovering at that time. This thread is about just that. Not necessarily what informed you as a musician, but as a person.




My dad and brother had these tapes in their cars and it seems like everywhere we went one of these was playing. I know id heard music before this but these are the earliest song I can remember hearing. I can recite every line from every track on both of these releases. They started what was to become my lifelong obsession. In the case of Depeche mode, they remain one of my favorite acts of all time.


This was probably the first album I listened to that overwhelmed me. I think back over music that I was most passionate in my life and the one constant is that the majority of it scared me when I first heard it. That all started with this album. You can say what you want about the doors and sure this starts with two soft lovey dovey tracks, but as a kid hearing "Not to touch the earth" with its blazing organs and pulsating rhythm and morrison HOWLING like a fucking mad prophet...all blazing out of my fathers giant hifi terrified me and excited me in equal measures. I can look back to this as a singular event going down as one of my parents greatest fuckups.


Of course. I was like seven and I was devouring Moorcocks psychedelic anti hero Elric of Melnibone. I walked into the local music store at the mall (Omni music) and asked for "Something like the doors" and tried to describe their heavier stuff, though I hadn't heard the term heavy and couldn't relate it so I just told the guy "like the loud and scary stuff". As I said I was absolutely enamoured of Moorcocks writing and, as it turned out, I was carrying a copy of one of his books. The guy in the shop said "I have just the thing, I have an album with the author of that book on it" That was it. I had to have it. The guy said "when you get home, turn to the track "sonic attack", that's Michael Moorcock right there" As it turns out, he had smoked way too much weed because the version from SR is actually Robert calvert, but the ungodly noise of sonic attack and his mention of orgasms sent my mom into a rage, thusly cementing SR as the first (later followed by wu-tang forever, south of heaven by slayer, and the first Nashville pussy album) that my mom broke and threw away. But ill never forget that noise...and the two track that follow sent me on the path looking for heavier stuff.


This is my first heavy metal album. This is the first album that reeeally made me want to play guitar. My first guitar was a shitty epiphone SG copy because tony iommi played one and it looked evil as fuck. After this there was no looking back. I liked heavy metal and the more brutal and satanic and outrageous it was the better.

More to come later.

That is a rad list.
The Doors are big in my early life, as well.
And the fist time I heard Black Sabbath, after the rain sounds and that whole band entry BWOOOAH! BWOAH BOOOWAOWAOWAOWAOWOAWOA!
Never looked back.

Same as when I heard Sleep's Jerusalem for the first time.
That album/song is like religion to me now.

In recent years, I remember hearing Kylesa's Static Tensions for the first time and being madly in love, but then that record helped me through some really tough times, so that's special.
And Winter Hours by Tombs just blew me the fuck away to the point that I now cannot go through a winter without hearing it. Just great soundtrack to life shit, but something, for some reason I just really identify with.

Also, rad thread.

No (existing) album adequately begins to define me as a person. I have yet to record the one that does
Here's a shortlist of personal musical milestones...no order:

Nirvana - In Utero
I didn't "get it" at first listen, or second. Some catchy moments caught my ear from the moment it hit airwaves, but this one took its time (years) to gradually reveal itself as intensely resonating, where the context of everything just clicked. Probably the first album (of my lifetime anyway) to catch my attention with the use of different stompboxes. That songwriting on the first side

KIDS - OST
This CD was loaned to me for approx 1 month in the spring of my sophomore year in HS, courtesy of a kool chick. My introduction to Lou Barlow and Slint, whose lone contribution has haunted my headspace ever since. My gateway into the underground.

V/A - This is Jungle Sky vol 3 (Fuck I <3 NY Jungle)
Got it as a second gen cassette bootleg. It remained in my walkman for about 8 months straight. Dem vibes, dat fusion of steez. It was so fresh and like stepping into another world at a time when I was hitting my *invincible* teenage stride. Very fun for skating and driving.

Bitch Magnet - Star Booty
Dat name, dat energy, dat drumming, dat bass tone, dat fuzz, dat aesthetic...THE SONGS

Boards of Canada - BoC Maxima
A journey through my imagination, memories and nostalgic feels. Contains many of my favorite songs that also appear on HI SCORES, MHTRTC, Twoism and a few exclusives...in a continuous mix of comfort and familiar fascination. An intensely emotional experience before hearing a single syllable of vocal content.


Honorable mention to Abbey Road, which became my first favorite album @3yrs old, thanks to my parents playing it in the car on trips. "Come Together" was my first fav song, which I affectionately referred to as "the shoop song"
That's likely the singular pivot point, which truly changed everything...mustering the best attempt at defining me as a person.

Fuck dude I don't even know.

Great thread though.

Fuck...

The Doors - Strange Days

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Ghostlimb - Infrastructure

Thou - Summit

Songs About Fucking, Bastro Diablo Guapo, Steady Diet of Nothing, Goat, Houdini, Mule, Ben Hur, Spiderland, Jackson, Rusty, Two Nuns and a Pack Mule, Strap it On...

I don't think anything could ever define me as a person, but there are several albums that helped me think in new ways when I first heard them. By no means an exhaustive list, just some things that stick out to me as pivot points in my life that led me to other great ideas and ways of looking at and experiencing things.

Syd Barrett - Any and all Syd Barrett, solo or w/the Pink Floyd
Balinese Gamelan - no particular ensemble or album, but the genre as a whole
Fela Kuti - Any and all Fela Kuti

Tyrannosaurus Rex - My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows


T.Rex - Electric Warrior


The Velvet Underground and Nico


The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society



The Byrds - The Notorius Byrd Brothers


Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing at Baxter's


Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention - We're Only in it for the Money


Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets


Fripp/Eno - Evening Star


Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure


David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars


CAN - Tago Mago



Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream of Trains



Dead Kenneydys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables


Earth - 2



Lungfish - Talking Songs for Walking


Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Replicas



Feelies - Crazy Rhythms


Minutemen - Double Nickles on the Dime



Pogues - Red Roses for Me


PIL - 2nd Edition



Television- Marquee Moon



William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops


Songs Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co.



Mission of Burma - VS

These albums definitely defined certain periods in my life. I'm old...don't judge.

Falling in love with guitar-driven music (4th grade?)


Faster and meaner.


Life changing.


Angsty teens/twenties living in the PNW.


Game changer.


I don't have to be angry all the time.


I'm an "adult"

Loveless...

I think this was my first "grower" album. I was intrigued by the Republic of Rough and Ready before I bought it, and after I listened all the way through I thought I may have only got three good songs. But I kept coming back. I know I listened closely to musical parts and whatnot before this album, but this pushed me way further into trying to figure out what the fuck is going on more than any othet album. Great blend of minimalism and spastic craziness. Maybe it didnt change everything or defined who I am, but its a strong force in my life that I can still recognize 8 years after first listening to it.

Loveless, Curve's "Frozen" EP, Pornography, Endtroducing..., Galaxie 500's "Today", Leftism, Mezzanine, Shot Forth Self Living, Polyfusia, Blue Day, Here Come the Warm Jets and Music for Airports, dubnobasswithmyheadman...

I won't say any of these record "define" my person, but they were / are all pivotal musical touchstones and coincidental to high / low / memorable points in my life, and I cannot imagine not having heard them... They all, in some way, influce the music I have and do make

Ugly Nora wrote:I don't think anything could ever define me as a person, but there are several albums that helped me think in new ways when I first heard them. By no means an exhaustive list, just some things that stick out to me as pivot points in my life that led me to other great ideas and ways of looking at and experiencing things.

Syd Barrett - Any and all Syd Barrett, solo or w/the Pink Floyd
Balinese Gamelan - no particular ensemble or album, but the genre as a whole
Fela Kuti - Any and all Fela Kuti

Tyrannosaurus Rex - My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows


T.Rex - Electric Warrior


The Velvet Underground and Nico


The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society



The Byrds - The Notorius Byrd Brothers


Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing at Baxter's


Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention - We're Only in it for the Money


Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets


Fripp/Eno - Evening Star


Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure


David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars


CAN - Tago Mago



Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream of Trains



Dead Kenneydys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables


Earth - 2



Lungfish - Talking Songs for Walking


Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Replicas



Feelies - Crazy Rhythms


Minutemen - Double Nickles on the Dime



Pogues - Red Roses for Me


PIL - 2nd Edition



Television- Marquee Moon



William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops


Songs Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co.



Mission of Burma - VS

I love you.

Mezcal Head...