Those of us for whom collecting is a passion love to dissect the collecting events which shaped our lives. Obviously, for most of you reading this, those events would center around comic books or games of some sort. But before I was a comic collecting nerd, I was a music collecting nerd.
Now, the days of the album as a “work of art” in and unto itself may well be ending with music downloads returning us to a more “singles oriented” music culture. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Things evolve, including our media and there is no inherent reason why music has to be packaged in ten song increments. But for those of us who grew up collecting albums, dissecting and discussing them, they are inevitably associated with pivotal moments in our lives.
With the album steadily losing significance for a lot of people, I couldn’t help but reflect on those albums that change our lives. Perhaps it was the first time you heard “Nevermind” by Nirvana, or something by The Beatles. Whatever it was, it had to be more an just an album you liked a lot. These are not your ten favorite albums, but rather albums that changed you in some way. On a recent trip to Austin, I compiled my own list of Ten Albums that changed My Life. While a list of ten comics might be more appropriate here, it’s my column and I can do what I want.
1. The Beatles: Revolver. It is likely that many of your can’t remember the first time you heard the Beatles. Their music has been so ubiquitous that it has seemingly always been a part of our lives. Not so for me. I had not heard The Beatles, or any rock music at that point in my life. Living in a small town, I was just not exposed to anything beyond country music. Then my cousins visited us from the big city and brought along a copy of Revolver. My life was never the same.
2. Paul Revere and the Raiders: All Time Greatest Hits. The Raiders are largely forgotten compared to most of their contemporaries. But in their day, they cranked out dozens of radio hits that hold up surprisingly well. I saved up allowances for several weeks to buy this specially priced 2-record set. Since it was a lengthy compilation, it carried me from some early bubblegum hits to later, more psychedelic work. I was young and impressionable at that time and my tastes in music grew in leaps and bounds with just that one album.
3. Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. This was the point where I started to grow up and take rock and roll albums seriously. It rocked harder than anything else I had ever heard and since it was a double album, it sprawled in self importance. It covered a wide variety of musical styles and moods. And Elton being Elton, it had classic songs throughout.
4. Tangerine Dream: Stratosfear. I read an article in Starlog Magazine about electronic music – something that was still pretty exotic in the mid seventies – and they mentioned the band Tangerine Dream – who, according to the article, played only synthesizers! (turns out this was a bit of misreporting, as they almost always included some electric guitar and occasional other instruments). The only one of their albums I could find was Stratosfear. I took it home and was initially disappointed. I think I was expecting something bombastic and peppy, instead it was dark and moody, far too sophisticated for my tastes at the time. Eventually I grew to love the album, and it not only sparked my decades long interest in the band, but it introduced me to ambient and new age music before either genre even existed!
5. Pat Metheny Group: Offramp. I have always been a huge fan of jazz – I just didn’t know it until I heard this album. Metheny was the entry point to jazz for a lot of people in the 80s and 90s. His music is accessible enough to interest people that would otherwise be afraid of jazz. In fact, he is that rare talent that has always had mass popularity (well…for a Jazz musician, at least), and yet still has unqualified respect in the snobbish Jazz community. Such is his clout with listeners that he introduced a lot of people, including me, to the music of Ornette Coleman. But that is another topic entirely.
6. Ministry: Twitch. I was a pretentious sort back in my college days. I had an allergic aversion to the pop music that everyone else was listening to. I knew I wanted something different, I just didn’t know what it was until I heard this album. After this one, I discovered other industrial albums that were even better, specifically Front 242’s Official Version and Front by Front. But it was Ministry that got the whole elitist ball rolling. Sadly Ministry got more abrasive with each album and eventually lost me as a fan. But for a brief time, they were a vital part of my repertoire of snobbish cool.
7. Logan’s Run: Original Motion Picture Score. I loved the movie Logan’s Run. It wasn’t really all that great, but there just wasn’t a lot of science fiction in the days before Star Wars hit. Even though I had seen soundtrack albums before, it just didn’t occur to me to own one. But I bought this one, really because I liked the movie – I didn’t remember the music. Turns out that it was one of the best scores by Jerry Goldsmith, who I feel is arguably the greatest composer of film scores in history. I listened to it until it was literally worn out and soon started seeking out every Goldsmith score I could find.
8. Rolling Stones: Beggar’s Banquet. Certainly I was aware of the Stones. I had heard lots of their music on the radio and had even owned a Stones album before this point. But I wasn’t really INTO the Stones. Then I was working at Ralph’s Records in Lubbock, and one day someone brought in a collection of LPs to sell. After buying the collection, Ralph took out the copy of Beggar’s Banquet and handed it to me. “Take this home,” he said. “I think you’re about ready for this.” Skeptical, I took the album home and gave it a listen. It was like a religious conversion. All of the sudden I GOT IT! The Stones were the greatest rock and roll band in the world! Now I have a ridiculous amount of Stones music in my collection.
9. Charlie Parker: Now’s The Time. In the movie Desparately Seek Susan, Aiden Quinn’s girlfriend is leaving him. She’s taken just about everything he owned from their joint apartment – their TV, couch, bed – the place was bare. But he sees her walking out with a box of records and stops her. “HEY! Those are MY Charlie Parker albums!” he says, I thought right then, “Wow! Charlie Parker must be really cool if he values those albums over everything else he owned.” So I purchased this album, at the time, the only Charlie Parker album I could find. Like Tangerine Dream, I didn’t get it at first. Parker player really fast and it was just too harmonically advanced for me.
10. Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, by Ludwig Van Beethoven -Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert Von Karijan conducting. I minored in music in college and one of the requirements for this was a couple of semesters of music history. We spent about half a semester studying Beethoven in general and his third symphony in particular. The professor started mapping the symphony on three long blackboards that covered most of the room. He did this to illustrate how mathematical Beethoven’s work was. He showed the progression of chords, how they modulated in specific increments and then resolved in a completely symmetrical fashion. It was truly amazing to see something that should have otherwise been so instinctual dissected into such logical parts. It gave me a new appreciation for classical music in general and solidified my love of Beethoven’s music in particular. This isn’t my favorite piece of his music – that would be either the seventh or ninth symphonies or the third piano concerto – but this is the piece that showed me why his music was so important.
So there you have it. With luck I’ll follow this up at some point with Ten Comics that changed my life. Until then, you’ll have to remember that music is still a big part of the Ground Zero experience. And if you have ten albums that changed your own life, post them on our message board. I’d love to see them.