5 albums that influenced your musical tastes....

[Sample00]

RUSH - 2112
AC/DC - Back in Black
Bruce Springsteen - the River
John Lennon - Imagine
Surrender - No Surrender

and honourable mention to

Fleetwood Mac- rumours

[KootenayFlamesFan]

In no particular order:

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell ........my dad had this LP and I remember think the cover was kinda scary. Not the hardest rocking album ever, but well done anyways.

Motley Crue - Shout At The Devil........probably my favourite band ever. Pretty hardcore music when you're in your early teens.

Radiohead - OK Computer.......love it. Lots of different sounds.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream.........in college when this came out, great sound.

Queensryche - Operation:Mindcrime......probably the most underrated album of all time. Just very well done, great flow, great story.

Honorable mentions: Nirvana (Nevermind), GNR (Appetite), U2 (Joshua Tree), Bob Marley (Greatest Hits), Metallica (And Justice For All).

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Van Halen - 1984, started me on the path of hard rock hair bands like GNR, Poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard until...

Nirvana - Nevermind, this album made all the hair bands I previously liked, seem outdated and led me to other Seattle era bands including..

Pearl Jam - Ten, probably my favourite band of all time. This album also led me onto their side projects like...

Brad - Shame, the album that made me buy stuff other then hard rock. It led me to all the great stuff that Shawn Smith has done. Without this album I would never have discovered one of my favourite albums of all time - EDC by Satchel.

Judgement Night soundtrack - the album that definitively proved to me that hard rock + rap = awesome music. I'd suspected it with Walk This Way by Run DMC/Aerosmith but this clinched it.

[nfotiu]

Pink Floyd - The Wall
Influenced me to go out and buy all pink floyd cds, and listen to them non-stop for about a year. (Only to never really listen to them again.)

The Clash - London Calling
Was good enough to get me to go out and buy every british punk album I could find. Nothing really compared though.

U2 - The Joshua Tree
Made me realize how crappy whatever music I was listening to at the time really was.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son
The Pixies - Doolittle
The first 2 "Alternative" CDs I bought, that got me into all the other great alternative music that was being made in the late 80s, early 90s.

Oh Inverted World (The Shins) and Arcade Fire (Funeral) may make this list one day. They both opened my eyes to the fact that there is great indie music being made these days, and really got me back into listening to new music again.

[stuck_in_chuk]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son
The Pixies - Doolittle
The first 2 "Alternative" CDs I bought, that got me into all the other great alternative music that was being made in the late 80s, early 90s.

Both great albums - I love Nick Cave. I liked Tender Prey and Henry's Dream better, but this is your choice not mine. Johnny Cash's cover of Mercy Seat is brilliant.

I totally forgot about the Pixies. They played in Calgary the same night as game 7 of the Flames/Canucks series. My friend and I tried to get scalped tickets, unsuccessfully. So, we watched the game at the bar across the hallway from the venue. Halfway through the first period, we had forgotten about the concert.

[Dedly]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

5) The Mortal Kombat Soundtrack (1994)
- has anyone ever listened to this fully? It's a remarkable album, with great rock riffs, beat, techno, and high energy sound. Extremely underrated, I reccomend it to anyone interested. The movie was average, but the soundtrack is remarkable.

I had forgotten about this album! Off to eBay I go.

[edn88]

Def Leppard - Hysteria - I played the heck out of this tape - had to actually replace it once. In retrospect it was popcorn music, but it did lead me to Led Zep

Georgia Sattelites - Open All Night - Got into the Sattelites late in high school,

Led Zeppelin - II - The introduction to the best music in the world

Tragically Hip - Up to Here - the best Canadian music

Black Crowes - Hard to Handle - more great blues-rock

[Homer_J]

First 5 that come to mind are:

Pearl Jam - Ten
Bad Religion - Generator
Weezer - Blue Album
Radiohead - OK Computer
The Weakerthans - Fallow

Also
- Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
- Nirvana - Nevermind
- Dashboard Confessional - The Places that You've Come to Fear the Most
- Live - Throwing Copper

.... there's so many.

[Dedly]

Rammstein - Sehnsucht
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Matthew Good Band - Beautiful Midnight
The Watchmen - Silent Radar

[tussery]

The Who - Tommy
The Who - Quadrophenia
They Might Be Giants - Flood
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive
Dead Kennedys - Give Me Convienience or Give Me Death

Other metions would include:
The Who - Whos Next
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmos Factory
Dropkick Murphys - Do or Die
They Might Be Giants - John Henry

[Weiser Wonder]

Radiohead - OK Computer
Influenced all my music purchases after listening to it. Including the entire Radiohead catalog. Simply amazing album, especially Let Down, Exit Music, Paranoid Android and No Surprises.

The Beatles - Sgt Pepper
Parents played this for me as a little kid, made me a Beatles fan to this day.

Kid A - Radiohead
This album and each song brings such strong emotion for me. Turned me on to electronic and techno stuff.

Elephant - The White Stripes
Opened me up to garage rock type of stuff. Simple, hard, fun but it's got soul and emotion.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Willie Nelson-Red Headed Stranger....My Dad has always listened to country and no matter how much I tried to hate it all, this album was just so far beyond brilliant that I had to embrace it.

REM-Document/Murmur -These two told me that it didn't necessarily have to be loud to be great rock & roll.

Metallica-Master of Puppets- My first exposure to Metallica was this album. It hooked me. The thing that struck me most about it is how damn close the music is to being from an 18th century classical composition. I wish they'd get back to some of that.

Alice In Chains-Facelift-This one and everything they did subsequently haunts me.

Led Zeppelin II-The root of everything great about Rock and Roll IMO.

Now, there are a dozen others that I would list as great albums, maybe even greater than a couple of the above, but those are the 5 most important as far as shaping me into the music fan I am today.

[Anders]

Chronological order. Before this I listened to crappy eurotechno. It was my early teens I must say as a defence though.

R.E.M. - Automatic for the people
The power of the guitar in "Drive"

Led Zeppelin - Untitled
An eye-opener to say the least. "When the levee breaks" is still one of my favourite tracks ever since the first time I heard it.

Metallica - "...and justice for all"
Took a bit of a time before I could appreciate the early Metallica, but after a while it changed my view of metal.

Air - Moon Safari
Best album since the 90s IMHO. As with Metallica it took some repeated listening before I saw the masterpiece. It made me appreciate electronic music.

[vennegoor of hesselink]

kid a -radiohead this album has expanded my musical landscape by far more then any other. it got me into ambient/electronic (boards of canada, four tet old kraftwerk) post rock ( sigur ros, godspeed you black emperor) post punk (joy division, interpol, and my new favorite the walkmen) and jazz (charlie mingus plays one the cd and i went from there) so any other album would pale in comparison but if i had to list another 4 it would be

rem new adventures in hi-fi - probably the first thing i listened to that was somewhat experimental and got me prepared for ok computer/ kid a

wilco-summerteeth yankee hotel foxtrot proof that an alt country band can go off the deep end and try something different both amazing albums

pearl jam -yield this is when radio started to ignore pearl jam and yet i much prefer this to this day to there big 3 albums from there beginings, was when i started to realize my musical tastes were starting to change from just the mainsteam top 40 stuff.

the walkmen - bows + arrows probably my favorite album the last 5 years and just so much better then most of the post punk bands around right now(hopefully the new cd out in 2 weeks is anywhere near as good as this one.

[Daradon]

Metallica - Metallica (Black) Went backwards from there but this was THE ONE that truly opened my metal/hard rock experience.

Tool - Lateralus Got into Maynard through APC's Mer Des Noms which a good friend bought for me when I was in the hospital, but Lateralus coming out when I was already into metal further served to get me into proggy music with a hard edge, less middle of the road than Metallica.

Enigma - MCMXC a.d. (1990) This soft soundscape experimental slightly electronic album opened many doors for me. Soft music, experimental, and electronic.

Astral Projection - ? Cannot name an album as I stole a bunch of the web early on, but this was the band that got me into electronica. I had always loved some singles from Prodigy and Crystal Method, but this band really brought electronica to me and showed me how complex and satisfying elcronic music could be. (was a metal music snob till that point, lol)

Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral A musical awakening coupled with a sexual awakening. Could it be any better. Helped fill in time between Metallica and Ozzy, and more experimental stuff till Tool came into the picture. A good fusion of metal and electronic that build bridges for later. It's biggest influence, it helped me get over and appreciate artitisc gratuties and uglinesses in music. IE proliferic swearing, self hating thoughts, shock value. Helped me loosen up and accept more things.

Honorable mentions.

Offspring - Smash. Huge fun and great grunge attitude.

Marilyn Manson - AntiChrist Superstar Does it get anymore shock than that? (Without gangsta, lol) And a lot of good ideas political and moral to come down the pipe form him.

Ozzy Osbourne - Ozzmosis Again went backwards from this one. First foray into metal without Metallica holding my hand.

Opeth - Blackwater Park A fitting conclusion to my search for metal and symphonic artistic beauty.

The Tea Party - Transmission Get a nod for favorite locals. Their rich and instrument heavy bordering on the orchestral influenced sounds for me from spanish guitars to string heavy choruses to indian melodies.

[flames_fan_down_under]

The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute: Incredible Vocals, awesome guitar and the most creative sound i have heard in a long time, even though its a new album i think its had a lot of influence on how i evaluate the new music coming out.

Smashing Pumpkins- Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness: This song IS my youth. Got me into music...if you know what i mean.

Tool - Aenima: One of the best bands out there, willing to explore new musical approaches, and AWESOME videos.

Silverchair - Frogstomp: The fact that daniel made this album when he was 16 is incredible. Israels Son still gets me pumped.

Incubus - Morning View: just loved this album

Honourable mention: Audioslave self titled, Weezer Blue(saw them live at old macewan hall on their pinkerton tour and still one of the best live shows i have ever seen), Sublime 40 oz. to freedom, Neil Young After the Gold Rush

[Cheese]

wow real real tough call habby..... So many albums influenced me...these are the mainstream albums.

Beatles - White Album

Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline

Uriah Heep - Demons and Wizards

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Bee Gees - Saturday Night Fever

[shane_c]

I can only think of one.
Jimmy Buffett - Songs You Know By Heart

[firebug]

The Jesus & Mary CHain - Psychocandy: My favorite album of all time, and one that should be listened to by everyone

Radiohead - Pablo Honey: Saw the Creep video late one saturday night in '93 on MM's City Limits, bought the album the next day have never looked back. My favorite band.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream: 1992 was a great year to graduate and form my musical identity, still listen to a song off this album every day

NIN - Pretty Hate Machine: Freshman year, 1,000 miles away from home. "I still recall the taste of your tears..."

The Beastie Boys - Liscence to Ill: Grade 7, puberty, girls, pimples, and fighting for my right to party.

Janes Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual: Welcome to the world of alternative music. Soundtrack to the best summer of my teenage life.

Is it just me, or are the memories the albums are associated with as important to you as the music is?

Notable others: Hayden, the Beautiful South, Belle and Sebastian, Sigor Ross, the Beatles, U2, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, The Specials.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

I can't limit it to five, but can point to about seven or eight (in no order) that had that kinda life affirming ring to them. If you ask me next week I may have to change my mind on some or all of these anyway.

Primal Scream - Screamadellica. I was bigtime into shambling, shoegazing bands back in the day and these guys put a beat to it.

a tie between Pixies - Surfer Rosa and Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation. Don't really know how I would have made it through the latter bits of high school and first year of uni without these albums. Both rock albums that redfined the genre in the latter bits of the 80's. I also really, really dug REM's Murmur and Reckoning.

Mercury Rev - Yerself is steam. Saw them live in a dingy club in London and they almost got into a fistfight with each other on stage.

Boards of Canada - Music has the right to children. The first electronic album that could double as a composition.

Talking Heads - Remain in Light. Best album from the postpunk late 70's/early 80's (an underrated period of music itself). Smiths Hatful of Hollow and Joy Division's Substance are also contenders from (about) the same era.

Portishead - Dummy. I really liked trip hop for a couple of years. Still a good album too.

Tindersticks - by Tindersticks. Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Final Fantasy, Sufjan Stevens et al must have a copy of this album somewhere at home. Orchestra rock/pop. Very well done.

Kayne West - Late Registration. Revolutionary - best thing I've heard in the genre and a good style signpost a la De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising.