Why do we like the music we like? I mean, why does one type of music sound appealing to one person, and not another? You can have two people from the same background, same family, similar friends, and yet the albums scanned into their iPods are completely different.
One big worry I always have comes when I invite someone to a concert who has never heard the music of the band(s) playing. Last week I saw Thursday headline Kevin Lyman’s Taste of Chaos tour. As most of you know, or should, Thursday is my favorite act. From the first drum hit on “Understanding In A Car Crash” from the album Full Collapse, I was hooked. I have never missed a tour, never miss a TV appearance, and their albums are in constant rotation from minute one on release day. I even try to fly home every year just to see their holiday show at The Starland Ballroom. This last concert, my buddy Ed went to the show with me. I didn’t know what to expect from him. To me, Thursday has so much beauty amidst their chaos (no pun intended). They don’t write singles, they write albums to be appreciated from start to finish. Each guitar solo or piano riff or scream sticks out as a voice all its own, yet all of these elements together make for a stronger, more impactful song, and ultimately album. Anyway, Ed had a ton of fun at the show and was really impressed with the music.
I hung out with Katie the next day, and we of course discussed music. She knew Thursday was my favorite band, so she asked me about their show, and wanted to hear their music. I was a little nervous because a lot of what I listen to usually disgusts a lot of people, no matter how grand the musicianship or talent. And she is a worshipper of country music (Brooks and Dunn baby). So to have her listen with an open ears and actually sorta enjoy the music first off, meant a lot to me, and second shocked me. Not that a country fan wouldn’t like another genre of music, but it seems like a million miles of difference between the two artforms.
But why do I enjoy that kind of music, or any of the genre’s I listen to? Why punk, hardcore, post-hardcore, screamo, metal, death-metal, or any derivative of those. And after listening to those things, how did my ear drums instantly connect with hip-hop music the first time I heard Mos Def? And now to this day, my palette has grown even larger to encompass tunes with a techno edge like Teddybears or folk music like Good Old War. It’s weird. I look at my background and how and where I grew up, and sometimes I wonder if one little moment of my life was different would have changed my everyday listening pleasure.
Why can my dad and I agree on music from The Who and Black Sabbath, but he looks at me like I’m an idiot when I try to play him Biffy Clyro (I know obscure, but awesome, reference)? What is difference in their sound makes one group sound prefferably better than the next?
Like in college, why did I gravitate towards groups like Thursday, The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, and Thrice while my college roommates were listening to Top 40 or gangster rap? We were obviously from different towns and backgrounds, but it’s interesting to see how five guys’ musical tastes developed while living under the same roof.
Katie told me about how she got into country. To nutshell it, she never liked it growing up, and one day driving home from school in San Diego to Long Beach, she got sucked into a country radio station the whole trip, and it just clicked and she was a fan for life. Why at that moment, in that car ride, did country music begin to make sense to her?
In the same vein, I was never really a huge music head until two albums, three years apart, just “clicked” and I was sold on punk and rock music for life. Of course, it took four more years until I made the move to Philadelphia for my love for music (and CD collection) to really explode.
I guess it’s just a question I’ve always had on my mind, which is a very long introduction to my 13 (my lucky number) most important albums of my life. I’ve started to discuss a few of these in posts called “Songs (and Ultimately Albums) That Changed My Life” early in my blogging career; before I knew what I really wanted to say here. Some of these will probably be repeats, but I will finally finish this list. Again, as I’ve stated, these might not necessarily be my list of “Must Have” albums, or even my favorites, but ones which had a huge impact on or capture part of my life.
Now, in no particular order, here is my list. Enjoy! (And don’t you judge me!)
1. Pearl Jam – Ten
This is the first of the two albums which defined the future of my music library.
Up until 6th grade, I never really listened to music, so the first time I actually heard Pearl Jam was when I saw the music video for “Jeremy.” I remember watching it, and then just sitting there, on the floor of our living room, shocked. Going to this sheltered grade school, and not having a ton of friends, along with a lack of good radio, all really hindered my musical growth at this time, so when I saw the gruesomeness of a kid who kills himself in front of his classroom, I was stunned. Needless to say, I spent the next couple of weeks saving my allowance until I had enough cash to go to The Wall with my best friend, Alex, to buy Ten on cassette.
2. Green Day – Dookie
And this is album number two.
Now, fall of 1994, 8th grade, I’m still in the same stupid school. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg released their debut albums at this time (which I have both). For me, nothing in music recently blew me away. Like I said, it was very sheltered, the priest as my church preached that talk radio was evil to his “pupils” because the DJ’s didn’t talk about god.
So, when “Basket Case” first entered my ear drums, I was for the first time in two years, blown away. I had never heard punk music before. How could I have never heard punk music before? Where was my Dad on this one? He totally dropped the ball. How did I spent 13 years on this planet and never heard punk. That next weekend, there we were, Alex and I, allowances in hand, purchasing Dookie like every other kid in our class.
3. The Who –Who’s Next
This is the first album I can remember listening to as a kid. I don’t remember much before 1995 except for getting in trouble for kissing a girl in kindergarten and about ten minutes of my first day of first grade. Who’s Next I can remember vividly. Every song on that album is a home run. I know every lyric and every note from “Baba O’Riley” to “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Even if I don’t have any childhood memories, spinning the record always helps to invoke the feelings and excitement I had as a kid growing up in Pennsylvania.
4. Lostprophets – Thefakesoundofprogress
This album goes hand in hand with Who’s Next for me. Progress’s main theme is the innocence of growing up and our ultimate fate of not being able to repeat the experiences. Lostprophets debut dealt with everything from fighting over favorite arcade games (“Shinobi vs. Dragonninja”) to summer romances (“Ode To Summer”) and mirrored a lot of my own experiences growing up with all my best friends in the neighborhood, going to the swimming pool everyday, playing video games between swim practice, and lounging in the sun all day.
5. System Of A Down – Toxicity
There is one simple reason this album is special to me: it brought the La Salle Men’s rowing team together. During my junior and senior year’s of rowing, every member of the men’s rowing team knew every lyric and before each race, we’d huddle in the team van and listen to Toxicity start to finish to get pumped for what was to come. Up until I left the team behind, this album was the engine room in our boat, and was the sound track to some really great times.
6. Denis Leary – Cure For Cancer
Yes, I know this is a comedy album, but it was the first comedy album I ever purchased. And it was the first one my mom took away from me. I came across it in 7th grade, and listened to it non-stop. I could repeat each joke right along with Leary, and did so until my mom found the tape in my room, listened to it, and threw it away. It was the funniest shit I’d ever heard and cemented me as a fan of stand-up comedy from that point on.
7. Snot & Friends – Strait Up
On December 11, 1998, the lead singer of Snot, Lynn Strait died in a car accident. This album was meant to be Snot’s sophomore album, but due to Lynn’s death, things obviously changed, and the recorded music became Lynn’s epitaph, instead of his legacy. Friends of the band were asked to write lyrics and contribute vocals to the musical tracks the remaining members had laid down.
I bought this album because I liked the song “Angel’s Son” which is sung by Lajon from Sevendust. The rest of the album was metal, and at the time, I hated heavy metal. I didn’t like how the rest of the album sounded, so I never finished listening to it.
My best friend Alex from childhood, died during my junior year of college (September 18, 2001, great date, huh). I was stuck trying to make sense of what happened. Needing some kind of aural sustenance, I went to my record shelf, only this time, I decided to give Strait Up a second chance. It was an “In Memory Of…” I pulled it out and played it. All of a sudden, all this loud, nasty music made sense to me. Their aggression towards losing one of their peers; they felt what I felt: angry, confused, let down, disappointed.
Strait Up was the only album I listened to for the next month. I couldn’t tell you how many times I spun it. Of course, I still listen to that album today. Every time one of the songs comes across my iPod, I seem to scream, to sing, to dance, to work, to do everything harder and with more passion. All I think in Alex’s memory. Also, it’s a constant reminder to enjoy everyday I have here, to always follow my heart, and always go big, or go home.
8. Mos Def – Black On Both Sides
I had pretty much written off all rap and hip-hop music back in high school. A fellow teammate of mine in college and I used to exchange music to try to enhance each of our musical tastes. He tried for a long time to get me to listen to hip-hop, but I was stubborn. He finally made a deal, stating since he gave Relationship of Command a chance, I had to give Black On Both Sides a legit listen. I set up shop in my dorm, and low and behold the socio-political lyrics Mos rhymed about were very familiar to the political punk I was listening to at the time. The jazz style beats also drew me in, jazz being a musical genre I had taken an interest in since moving to Philly. Black led the way to me discovering groups such as Dilated Peoples, The Roots, P.O.S., and Grayskul.
9. Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire
Evil Empire was my first introduction to rebellion and politically charged music, and began my intense interest in politics. And in 1996, when the album was released, it technically wasn’t me who bought the album. I actually didn’t buy it until about five years later. My buddy Alex asked me to buy Evil Empire for him because Media Play (an early incarnation of Best Buy) was hella anal about selling albums with Parental Advisory stickers to kids under the age of sixteen. They used to ask for ID and everything. I guess he thought at fifteen I looked sixteen, like there’s much of a difference. Anyway, apparently, I looked old enough, the cashier didn’t card me, and I made the purchase for my good friend.
I had never heard such amazing, and original guitar work; Tom Morello played notes and made sounds come out of his guitar to this day I can’t figure out where they come from. Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk were the strongest rhythm section I had ever heard. And Zach de la Rocha’s words are timeless and are as important today as they were when he wrote them thirteen years ago.
Evil Empire was the album that made me realize how important politically motivated music was to society. How powerful it can be in encouraging young minds to get up and learn about real problems in government and authority. And lighting the fire to get us up off our asses and actually do something.
10. Refused – The Shape of Punk To Come: A Chimerical Bombination In 12 Bursts
This is by far my favorite album of all time. From start to finish is pure brilliance. Shape is stylistically different from the band’s previous releases, most likely due to the fact they were trying to draw themselves away from mainstream punk acts. I love the album because of the blatant influence the music had on the future of my favorite genre of music, and how the nature of the Swedish quartet’s final release foreshadowed the direction modern punk music would move in.
11. Thursday – Full Collapse
I don’t want to say too much about this album since I talked about earlier in my post. This was the album that began my love affair for all things post-hardcore. Thursday are the grandfathers of modern punk and many of today’s acts should be on their knees thanking this New Jersey sextet for everything they’ve done.
12. Fuel – Sunburn
Fuel was a band from my hometown who I watched grow from a bar act to opening for Aerosmith. Fuel’s journey showed anyone who tried hard enough could get out of this small town. This album is nothing too amazing, and usually registers as just another wuss-rock radio rock band, but Sunburn’s and Fuel’s rise cemented my plan to get out of the small town and make my move to something bigger.
13. Thrice – Illusion of Safety
Another bonding album, Illusion of Safety was there through every single antic of my senior year of college. It was literally played at every party we had, it could be heard coming from my room as we drank Hurricane 40s before Real World: Las Vegas, and still to this day, when I hear “Where Our Idols Stood” I can picture myself on the roof of the laundry room about to jump into the giant snow drift that lay below. Every track on Illusion reminds me of all the fun I had with some of my greatest friends during one of the best years of my life.
