[Rob Instigator]

rock!

[hey alex]

here i go hoe!

some choices...
dead kennedys -plastic surgery disasters
I got this while I was in middle school. I listened to a lto fo green day, offspring, things of the such. I started getting into more punk but it was all over with this one. Up to that point this was most brilliant punk album i'd heard. Jello couldn't sing but kicked asss at it and east bay ray was a guiatr master. i used to bop around my room yelling "NAZI PUNKS! NAZI PUNKS! NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF!" and "riot the unbeatable high riot shoots yr nerves to the sky!". It was awesome.

Beach Boys-pet sounds
From the moment I heard I liked, at college I learned to love it. One day while I was walking to my class with it on my headphones everything clicked. Every word and melody fit my displacement. I left home to go to a nowhere town to a college that I really didn't have a reason to be there, I realized this during "that's not me". I left the girl I love and no one else mattered, I was loneyl, but pet sounds made sense.

Sonic youth-BMR
The only SY album I always have in my top 3 SY albums. It's the wierdest thing they've done and that's why I love it. The songs are more explorations of the noises they could tear out their guitars. COnfusion was just fucked out of the universe punk rock dirge, but BMR was an expansion of the sound. Mix the two together and presto! EVOL and most everything on. But without the abrassive avant-garde sounds it's less intresting... and there's no better place to observe and learn them than "i'm insane", "I love her all the time" and "society is a hole"

boards of canada - music has the right to children.
the first electronic album I got into. APhex twin is a close candidate but I fell for this one first. A real ear opener (and eye opener when yr high... the first time I had that "i love you" track near the begining I was seeing a wall a rainbows light making hearts) to the field of digital music... before I didn't give it much credit/

sebadoh-III
I just love this album and it made me buy a four-track. Now i make music.

[k-krack]

umm thats a tricky one. probably some "77punk" album... like Sex Pistols: (isn't a proper album, but) "Indecent Exposure" (i heard it WAY before hearing NMTB's) or The Ramones: Leave Home or the Clash: London Calling. I know these are probably obvious, but with them, i learned that bands like Nirvana and Sonic Youth and huge legions of bands i listen to now were big fans of these bands. so they ultimately led to my present/future musical tastes..

[Glice]

I want to say it's not a record but a person - John Peel. But then I remembered that I bought The Fall's levitate when I was 14 or 15, and it confused and scared me like no record before. I had weird or experimental music before, but nothing that was genuinely very, very good.

[afterthefact]

Blink 182 - Enema of the State; wow, my whole perspective of life changed from that moment...

[sonicl]

The competition finalists (e.g. the people who named only one record and gave an explanation):

Spectraljulianisnotdead
Finding Nobody
Luxinterior
Krastian
Marleypumpkin
Pookie
Style
Drrrtyboots
Hairwaytosteven
Gmku
Signpost
Thewall91
Afterthefact
Rob Instigator
Atari 2600
Danny Himself
Haydenasche
DJ Rick
Hip Priest
Asim
Acousticrock87
Cosmokramer
Bertrand
Glice

The winner will be announced later when i get the chance to sit down and read the posts again.

[Cantankerous]

this was a competition?

blonde on blonde because it didn't suck.

[m^a(t)h]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

this was a competition?

blonde on blonde because it didn't suck.

yes, stupid fucking idea though, you listen to an album and you like it, thats it


your explanation is good

[toxic johnny]

Ya know Sonicl I really wanted to contribute to this but I'm still thinking about it... it's given me a real head fuck (In a fun kinda mixed up way)... I keep changing my mind.

I first started buying records in 1972 and therein lies the problem... the 70's produced so many seminal groundbreaking chunks of vinyl that my mind is permanently blown trying to figure out which one definitively changed my life.

I already have Road Movies so I would have done this just for fun.

[habanero]

Steppenwolf Gold (Greatest Hits) - My first rock record. It moved me away from my radio induced pop-rock obsession with Elton-John when I was a kid in the mid 70's.

The Cars (their 1st album) - Snapped me out of my Led Zeppelin obsession of the my teen years. It sounded so different and new and it alerted me to the ongoing revolution in rock known as punk/new wave.

The Psychedelic Furs- Talk, Talk, Talk - The wall of sound that I still love today.

[Savage Clone]

I think perhaps it might be "Oh, No! It's Devo," which I purchased on its release about the time truncated was having her umbilical cord cut. This album, while not my favorite Devo album, was my first. It opened up any number of doors to weirdness and adventurousness in music for me. I was barely 12 at the time. I was already a bug music freak, but this sort of put me on a good and obsessive path. Devo might be the only band I liked in 7th grade that I still like now.

[Danny Himself]

I'd forgotten about this. I just revised my entry and such.

[hey alex]

Originally Posted by afterthefact

Blink 182 - Enema of the State; wow, my whole perspective of life changed from that moment...

you realized how shitty music can be

[golden child]

NIRVANA - FROM THE MUDDY BANKS OF WISHKAH
nirvana, and esspecially this cd. previous to this i was a fan of creed and some other over hyped, polished bands. i was in the 5th or 6th grade and a friend who had just started to play the drums was gloating about how he could play smells like teen spirit and played it for me. i had of course heard of nirvana and the song but was in no way familiar so i downloaded it. my fluke i downloaded the version from this cd...
fuhhk it blew me away, so DIRTY and RAW i could have only experienced this from a live cd. just the passion, grit and grime was so invigorating. as it turned out my sister had this cd and i listened to it over and over. at that point only the easier listening songs were appealing, songs such as lithium, breed and smells like teen spirit so i listened to those much. they just shook the house the way they rocked. eventually i downloaded the nevermind versions and i was DISSAPOINTED! they sounded terrible! how could they buther such purity? regardless i bought all 4 of nirvanas studio albums on ebay for 20 bucks after... i guess you could call that my "left turn".

[sonicl]

We have a winner!

It was incredibly difficult choosing a favourite post on this thread. I wittled it down to three, but after that I was totally stuck, and called upon the help of my girlfriend to make the final decision.

The three that reached the final shortlist were Lux Interior, Rob Instigator, and Danny Himself. Guys, all three of your writing amazed me. I was on the verge of PM-ing each of you to see if any of you wrote for a living your stuff was that good. If you don't, well you should, or failing that you should at least contribute regularly to zines or something.

Anyway, as I said, the final decision as to who gets the Lee Ranaldo book went to my girlfriend. She read the three posts, clearly enjoyed them 'cause she laughed several times, and finally finally told me who she thought should get the book.

And the winner is...

Originally Posted by Danny Himself

Definitely it's the youth's Daydream Nation. I know, I know- cliché, but it did everything for me.

I was about twelve or thirteen, and my parents had just broke up. Being at that particular age in which life already feels hard enough, the emotional baggage I had to drag around with me got me down.

On the advice of The Simpsons, I intended to check out Sonic Youth. I need some music that I could hold onto at the time. So I went to a record store and bought two SY records, Dirty and Daydream Nation. I didn't listen to them until later that night, when I went to my mother's new flat (she had moved out because she caused the breakup). My room there was cold, bare, and was lit too harshly by the big light. It had a huge mirror on one wall, no curtains, and a shitty foldout bed. I pulled in a small stereo and stuck on Daydream Nation. I sat on the bed and pressed 'play' as the room's atmosphere started to get me down.

Teen Age Riot, as if from nowhere, floated into the room with a ghostly riff. Spirit desire. We will fall. Spirit desire. We will fall- and then the riff floated back outside with its vocal friends. I felt really sad. But Teen Age Riot was not over, no- it had just began. Just like my life.

The instruments all announced their presence one by one- Thurston's guitar, Kim's bass, Steve's drums, and finally Lee's guitar, as the song exploded energetically. Thurston began to sing. Immediately I felt like I had a friend in the room. His voice was so indifferent to everything- like he'd seen it all before a million times and it had come to nothing. "Everybody's talking 'bout the stormy weather, but what's a man to do but work out whether it's true?". Thurston guided me through the situation calmly, his wisdom sprawling through the song until the end.

I sat and reflected through Silver Rocket. It was just a bit of background listening at that time. Then The Sprawl started. The guitar danced in, and Kim began to tell me what was up. Another friend had come in. "I grew up in a shotgun row, sliding down the hill, out front were the big machines- steel, and rusty now I guess" she chatted, her childhood just a memory now, and though so much had happened, she was fine. She sang me to a thoughtful doze, as the song deconstructed and fell apart.

Much like Silver Rocket, 'Cross The Breeze was a song for background listening as I thought away. I sat with my ghostly sonic friends in the cold room, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Things aren't so bad, they tell me. Achoo... brancafest.. Lee whispered. What? "I can't see anything at all! All I see is me." - I nodded in agreement. I couldn't see anything past myself at that moment. I had another friend. Eric's Trip might as well have been Danny's Trip.

Thurston told me the whole thing was just Total Trash- and I believed him. I was open for any suggestions. The cold harsh room had just disppeared now- I was transported to that NYC street corner as depicted in the CD photo. Lee told me to put it all behind me. These times are such a mess. So just pick up the past and say 'yes'. KICK IT! Hey Joni..

By now I was convinced that Sonic Youth were the shit and nothing else I'd heard before was worth listening to. Rain pattered onto the window and I looked outside. It was nighttt. Providence faded in rather unnoticably- Mike Watt left me dreamscape messages about some shit as Thurston played piano in a distant room. The album was just blowing my mind. It was my new best friend.

There it was again, a guitar announcement- Candle. Thurston was back. I didn't know what the fuck he was singing about but it all made sense. Cocker on the rock? Man. I was just going with whatever he said because SY was all that mattered at that point. Lee got me a bit apprehensive with Rain King, but Kim reassured me I had Kissability.

The Trilogy played out very well. Whatever had happened, the city was still a Wonder town. I was feeling a little sleepy as Hyperstation kicked in. This album was pretty demanding. I fell out of sleep and hit the floor when it all kicked off and Eliminator Jr. came on. The rhythm was kicking and the drums were thumping and the sonix just keep playing, and, and..

snap. Daydream Nation was gone, and the only sound left was the whir as the CD span round to the beginning.

I was motherfucking hooked on Sonic Youth. I went out and got all their records, scoured biographies and sought thousands of pictures of them. Through that time though, I discovered everything else I listen to today (other than SY of course): Dinosaur Jr, Cat Power, Nirvana, Black Flag, The Ramones, The Stooges, The Beach Boys, Sun Ra, fucking BECK. Sonic Youth had enough sophistication in their music to keep me open minded to all avenues of genre- Jazz, rock, punk, [tasteful] pop. Musically, I was BORN! Daydream Nation entered me into another world, in which I live in right now.

And I'm loving the world I live in.

Without Daydream Nation, music probably wouldn't have been as important to me as it is these days. I would have never picked up an instrument or joined a band. Music is my world, thanks to this album.

Danny, check yr PMs.

[porkmarras]

Originally Posted by sonicl

The competition finalists (e.g. the people who named only one record and gave an explanation):

Spectraljulianisnotdead
Finding Nobody
Luxinterior
Krastian
Marleypumpkin
Pookie
Style
Drrrtyboots
Hairwaytosteven
Gmku
Signpost
Thewall91
Afterthefact
Rob Instigator
Atari 2600
Danny Himself
Haydenasche
DJ Rick
Hip Priest
Asim
Acousticrock87
Cosmokramer
Bertrand
Glice

The winner will be announced later when i get the chance to sit down and read the posts again.

That's a very tough one sonicl.I should say in that case that seeing the video of 'Never Understand' changed stuff for me more than actually buying 'Psychocandy' itself.The thing is that i had never seen people like that on a beach before and with that sort of soundtrack in the background(or vice versa).

[Pookie]

May I be the first to offer Danny Himself congratulations. Couldn't have gone to a more deserving person.

Oh, and I will be appealing against the decision.

[porkmarras]

Originally Posted by Pookie

May I be the first to offer Danny Himself congratulations. Couldn't have gone to a more deserving person.

Oh, and I will be appealing against the decision.

That's only because he's your homie spookie!

[IntoTheGroovey]

kewl.

[sonicl]

Originally Posted by Pookie

I will be appealing against the decision.

Pookie, your entry, while it warmed the cockles of my heart, had to be disqualified on because I identified too closely with it and I felt that that may affect my impartiality as judge. The first album I ever bought with my own money was Showaddywaddy's "Red Star".

Anyway, you work in a book shop. If you want the book you can probably get it for about 50p if you use your staff discount.