I got tagged to do this on Facebook, but I mostly use Facebook just to spy on my kids, so I’ll do it here.
The idea is to list 15 albums that have been meaningful to you for whatever reason without wasting too much time on the exercise.
1. Paul Revere and the Raiders – the one with the guys sitting on the tank. First album I ever bought.
2. Neil Diamond – Some Neil Diamond album. Oh, yeah: Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Part of a set of what, a dozen? albums received at considerable discount from Columbia House, if you know what I mean. If not for this album, the next album would be the most embarrassing album I ever bought.
3. Elton John – Goodby Yellow Brick Road. This got a lot of play. And yet, my parents didn’t beat me to death. Why not, I will never know.
4. Ramones – Ramones. Thank God for punk music. 1976 was a good year. I found out about the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and Bob Marley.
5. Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks.
6. Bob Marley and the Wailers – Rastaman Vibration
7. Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
8. Jimi Hendrix – I never owned a Hendrix album when I was a kid, for some reason. And whenever I hear the Doors “Rider on the Storm” I think about picking raspberries one rainy day (one of my first jobs), when that song was on the radio. Funny how the memory works.
9. Devo – Q: Are we not men? A: We are Devo!
10. Kraftwerk – Autobahn I don’t think I owned this album, but it was a big deal
11. Led Zeppelin – Houses Of The Holy
12. Elvis Costello – My Aim is True. I saw Mr. MacManus in concert for a buck in Seattle back in college and he was great.
13. Sigur Rós – Saeglopur (or any other album of theirs)
14. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers This also brings back memories.
15. Stephen Isserlis – Bach Cello Suites
Boy, any list of 15 isn’t going to do it, is it?
3, 5, 7, 11, and 12 would be in my list too. But I’m just back from Conemara where I discovered one evening that a whole generation is bound forever by “Sweet Caroline, do do do, good times never seemed so good”. There may or may not have been Guinness involved.
1. Radiohead – The Bends (reminds me of a time/place/boy)
2. Radiohead – OK Computer (this is what i’ll slit my wrists to)
3. The White Stripes – Elephant be like the fucking squirrel, girrel
4. Frank Black – Frank Black
5. Nirvana – Nevermind
6. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (my favorite song in the world is on this album, In the Morning of the Magicians)
7. The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
8. The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers
9. this is harder than I thought it would be, and i suspect i have crappy taste in music
10. Peter Murphy – Deep
11. Tears for Fears – Songs From the Big Chair
12. Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes
13. Tori Amos – Under the Pink
14. Sarah MacLachlan – Solace
15. The Decemberists – Picaresque
16. Live – Throwing Copper
17. The Beta Band – Three EP’s
18. Nirvana – Unplugged
19. Alice In Chains – Dirt
20. Portishead – Dummy
21. Incubus – Morning View
i’m afraid this is not going to end until you stop me.
22. XTC – Oranges & Lemons
1. Pink Floyd – Piper at the Gates of Dawn. First album. Been a Syd fan ever since. I live in Cambridge now, for feck’s sake.
2. The Who – Live at Leeds. Maximum R&B.
3. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II. Being a teenage boy.
4. Iggy Pop – Raw Power. Yey! The album cover made me buy it, but the music was even better. Took me to The Stooges and Funhouse.
5. Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick.
6. Talking Heads – More Songs about Buildings and Food. Played back to back for months, day and night, irregularly interspersed with single: Police: Roxanne in a flat in the attic of a Georgian Building on Harcourt Street. Not many albums owned at the time.
7. Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks
8. Elton John – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Inspired autobiographical songwriting by Bernie and Reg.
9. The Beatles – White Album.
10. Aphrodite’s Child – 666.
11. Joni Mitchell – Blue. Dublin to Berlin and back Xmas ’85.
12. Velvet Underground – Velvet Underground and Nico. With added Warhol. Genius. In face everything ever recorded by VU, released on album or not, is genius. Timeless.
13. kd lang and the reclines – Absolute Torch and Twang. My first cd. Bought it for the cd artwork. The singing is even better. Trish and I went to see her sing in a boxing arena in Dublin. It seemed like we were the only straight people there, though she hadn’t come out officially.
14. Nirvana – Nevermind. Best live concert ever in the Point Depot, Dublin. Came home covered in blood which kinda worked. Between you and I it was a crowd surfer above me in the mosh pit with a bloody nose. Nirvana mosh pits were intense.
15. Minor Threat – Minor Threat. Picked this up on my first trip to US/NY/NY. Along with Circle Jerks, Black Flag and Country Bob and The Blood Farmers.
1 more. Soundtrack – Repo Man. The soundtrack to the first videocassette movie I ever bought – Repo Man by Alex Cox. Outstanding tracks from Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, The Plugz, Burning Sensations, Fear and Juicy Bananas.