My top 10 aren’t really my favorites, or what I think the best of any artist or genre have, but for the most part the albums that pushed my musical tastes further than they were before.
10) Funeral - Arcade Fire
Until this album I never listened to much indie rock/pop music, I considered the genre either boring or for less than talented musicians. This cd made me change that idea in a hurry. The atmosphere the music creates is just magical, this is one album I can just sit back and listen to with nothing else going on.
9) The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash
This is the first Johnny Cash Album I had, and really my introduction to any country music. But that’s not what got me to listen to it. Any song on its own is good, but as a whole it was the most depressing thing I had ever heard. Listening to this and not being sad in some way is a sure sign you're dead inside. From this album I got Cash's other American Recordings, and then his classics through compilations.
8) Who's Next - The Who
Music until this album was just noise to me. My dad is a HUGE Who fanatic (all the vinyl’s, collections, live albums, DVD). I remeraber listening to this with him once when I was young, maybe 8, while we were doing things around the house and from Baba O'riley I was just entranced. From here I actually started to pay attention to music.
7) Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Ok, I hated jazz for a long time. I blame my mom and some of the god awful stuff she had me listen to that she claimed was jazz. While still not something I listen to regularly or with much enthusiasm, this album got me to give the whole jazz thing a second chance.
6) London Calling - The Clash
I first heard this when I was like 16, and was the first album that I liked every song on, "like, alot dude". This may be the one album that didn’t spark much interest in anything else, but still stanRAB as something to measure other albums against.
5) Orange Blossoms - JJ Grey & Mofro
This blues, funk, soul, gospel mash-up just put me on my ass the first time I heard it earlier this year. I had never heard of him before and that makes me sad because this is just some of the best music I've ever heard. I grew up loving Motown, soul, and blues, and JJ Grey has his finger on the pulse of those genres. I heard this once, and went out and got the banRAB other 3 albums, and I can’t recommend them enough. I also started searching out other southern soul acts that are out there, plus the current crop of folk-blues acts like Eric Lindell.
4) Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
This was the first album that really created the whole atmosphere thing for me. It was also how I learned to love Floyd, because I was not a fan when I was very young, but it was also the first time I got a cd for the purpose of figuring out what the fuss was about. For an added bonus I have the wonderful memory of the my brother and I putting it on to fall asleep to and having the clocks in time wake us up every time we did it.
3) Tattoo's and Scars - Montgomery Gentry
Wasn’t a country fan growing up. At all. But when I first heard this, the perfect mix of rock, country, and attitude to lure in a young rock lover, the walls started to crurable. The title track always reminRAB me of my grandfather, and that helps a lot. After this album, I moved onto Charlie Daniels, then Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, and then I was just sold on country-rock and rockabilly. My new found appreciation for country rock teamed with my then love for Cash's American Recording albums got me into Cash's early recordings, and then Willie Nelson came from his duets with Waylon. This album was just huge for me and where it took my musical tastes.
2) Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Greatest Hits - SRV
For the most part I’m not a greatest hits guy, but I got this when I was like 12 from an uncle for Christmas, and it changed my world. This little compilation started a love affair with the blues that’s still going strong 15 years later and doesn’t seem to be letting up. I was just learning to love classic rock and when I got it and I pretty much played this album till everyone else was sick of it. I had never heard emotion come out of a guitar so clearly, and I honestly still haven’t. I have to be honest in that SRV makes up a comparatively large part of my album collection, with live albums and bootlegs.
1) Ride the Lightning - Metallica
This wasn’t my first Metallica album, it was my third actually. First was Garage Inc., then Load. When I got this Metallica instantly and permanently became my favorite band. It was the first album I got that my dad didn’t like, and that my mom thought was evil. How much better does that make music? Oddly enough my dad is a fan of the might Met now, and my mom called not long ago to tell me how she was head banging on her way to work to some Metallica. But the contrast from fast and slow, the anger in the vocals, the amazing speed of the leaRAB just grabbed me and has never let go.