OT 10 Albums That Shaped My Life

About six years ago I did a Facebook thing "10 albums in 10 days"
I've just found it and edited it a bit so I thought I'd share it with you lot.
This is by no means my top ten albums of all time but it might be a nice read for you.

Cheers KT
10 albums that shaped my musical outlook. This is going to be diverse!
Pinky & Perkys Greatest Hits
Let's start at the very beginning it's a very good place to start says Julie Andrews.
Well I was about 5 or 6 and I can remember listening to this at my older cousins and then it being given to me. It's the earliest album I can remember and I've loved music ever since I wish I still had it. Don't worry it gets heavier!


Queen News Of The World
Nar then big jump from Pinky & Perky!
My dad had a small record collection about 20/25 albums mostly Trojan reggae comps or those cheap K-Tel comps from the early 70s and four Queen albums, Queen, A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races and this News Of The World.
I'm around 7 or 8 now and and discovering how to use our old 'gram (ask ya favver)
Everything about this is stunning. The music first two tracks We Will Rock You & We Are The Champions who doesn't know them. The proto punk of Sheer Heart Attack (written in 1974 btw..wow did Queen invent punk?) The epic nine minutes of Its Late. Not forgetting Get Down Make Love Freddie at his sleezy best.
Then the artwork it's a freaking giant robot smashing a concert hall up and killing Queen!! Ah but it's ok it's only pretend!!
So from this album Queen became my favourite band so thank you Trevor owd boy for having this in your collection.
Told you it would get heavy!


Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds
12 years old when I first heard this one Friday afternoon in a music lesson at school.
A watershed moment it was the first concept album I had heard of which I now own many.
I was obsessed with this I wanted to know everything about it the rest of the class didn't give a ****. The full story affected me, what if it really happens? What if Martians really invade earth? Then the music oh my god! Jeff Wayne is a genius! He'd got me, at 12 years old he had got me. All I thought about that weekend was this. It still affects me to this day.
I once listened to it in bed in the dark, not recommended it scared the **** out of me.
ULLLAAAAA!


Grease Soundtrack
Nar gi or laughing!
Great film, even better soundtrack.
I was about 13/14 and this belonged to me cousin Julie. God she never stoped playing this. Only first side though cos that's side all best songs were on.
You all know em and I bet you will be singing them when you have read this.
Ooh ooh ooh honey!
As light and fluffy this is things were about to get rough and heavy for your humble narrator...very heavy!


AC/DC Back In Black
In the summer of 1990 I fell in love. Five years before that I started seeing her on and off she was always there but I wasn't fully commited. In that glorious summer of 1990 I fell head over heels and she took over my life. When David Platt scored that last minute winner against Belgium I was hooked yes I fell in love with football and that's where my dosh went for the next few years.
I left school and started earning my own money and got in to record collecting and this was one of the first ones I bought from Spin City in Sheffield. It was one of had my eye on bit everybody said it's good, nay great. It can't be that good can it? Well fook me sideways! It's more than great. From the opening toiling bells of Hells Bells to Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution it's fooking amazing

Brian May Another World
1998 Queen guitarist Brian May released his second solo album. It's a good effort with some superb guests (Cozy Powell, Taylor Hawkins, Jeff Beck & Ian Hunter) but nothing earth shattering.
It's significance to me is that without this record I wouldn't have gone to my first gig.
Upon the albums release a tour was announced. Then tragedy struck. Cosy Powell The Brian May band drummer was killed in a car accident. Doubt was cast on the tour but the show must go on and Eric Singer stepped into Cozys huge shoes so on the 2nd of November 1998 at Sheffield City Hall I saw my very first gig.
Words can't describe how good it was to see one of the greatest guitar players in the world just a few feet away from me.
Life changing...


The Who Tommy
Now then what can I say about young Tommy? I saw the film before I heard the album one late night as a very young lad and it stayed with me for years like I've said before I get obsessed about stuff like this.
So at about 17/18 years old I purchased this from Sin City again along with Led Zepps Physical Graffiti.
First off it's different to the film and I think I played it over and over for two days. Each time I played it I heard something new, I still do for that matter.
An essential addition to anyone's collection.


Saxon Wheels Of Steel
After a few years of unemployment in the late 90s I got a job working in a small bakery that lasted around nine months. In February 2000 I started at my present job (Yes 24 years, blimey!) I was going to record fairs with my mate Russ who had a stall so I got to know the other dealers so got good deals one of which brought this band to me. I had known of Saxon for some time as they are frum raand ere, I got Strong Arm Of The Law, The Power And The Glory, Denim & Leather and this Wheels Of Steel for a tenner!
What a fooking album! Proper heavy rock ( I hate the term heavy metal!)
I can only imagine what it was like in 1980 when this and then Strong Arm came out!
Saxon are one of my favourite bands and are still going strong.
All together.. TALKING BOUT MY WHEEEEELLLS OF STEEL!!!!


Roger Taylor Electric Fire
It's more the tour than the album. I saw Queen drummer Roger Medows Taylor at the Sheffield Leadmill on the 21st of March 1999 now I've got this bloke on the highest pedestal he's Roger ******* Taylor! So the gig was a huge event. The next day I started a new job and I've been working ever since. In that time I've had the most ups and downs in my life, I lost two grandparents, lived with a bird who ****** me up big style! Met, courted, got engaged and then married Michelle Wilkes and my life changed.
So that gig I see as the turning point in my life.
Last one tomorrow and I'm going to wind back a few years.... It's a sad one.


Queen Innuendo

Sometimes I get to feelin'
I was back in the old days - long ago
When we were kids, when we were young
Things seemed so perfect - you know?

I'm skipping back a few years to the 5th of February 1991 when this was released.
The single Innuendo was released on the 14th of January 1991 and went straight in at no.1 so the album was highly anticipated.
It's a superb album harking back to the mid 70s when Queen hit the big time. It also turned out to be the last Queen studio album released in Freddie Mercurys lifetime for just nine months later on the 24th of November he passed away and the world lost the greatest performer that had ever lived.
I was 14 when I heard the news at around 6:30am as I got ready for my paper round. Shocked was not the word.
At the time Queen was the only band I was into and they were no more.
Another studio album, Made In Heaven was released in 1995 from lost vocals, "Queen" versions of Freddie solo tracks and scraps turned into full blown tracks it is a Queen album but it's not the same.
To this day Queen are my favourite band and always will be.
So that's it 10 albums that shaped some of my life. This is not my top ten albums...that may come later as I've enjoyed doing this.
Thanks for reading!

 

One to think about

 

As an offshoot, amazing to see Jon Anderson turned 80 last week!

 

Keep it quiet, but we’ve got a Pinky and Perky l.p. of Christmas songs and carols, from the 70’s

 

Duran Duran - Arena 1984 - First real band I was into at the age of 12, started my journey into proper music, still love them, great song writing, john Taylor is a very underrated bass player.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon, parents were in a record club that sent you a record every month, and I remember they got this about '85/86. I was fascinated by the cover and by the music, I used to listen to it on the proper stereo in the lounge for hours on a Sunday absolutely blew my tiny mind.

Iron Maiden - Caught somewhere in Time - around 1986 I got this on a whim from Woolworth, never listened to them but loved the cover and I was vaguely aware of Run to the Hills. Quickly followed it with number of the beast et al, changed my musical tastes forever.

Metallica - Ride the Lightening - got this around 1987, it was the first record that me and my mates had the listening parties to - sat drinking Thunderbird with our heads getting melted to "For whom the bell tolls" on repeat.

Mother Love Bone - Apple - by the time the record reached these shores in 1989 lead singer Andrew Wood had already tragically died of a Heroin overdose. We used to sit and listen to this and escape our drab existences and be transported to another world. Go and listen to "Man of Golden Words" right now, go on do it.

Pearl Jam - Ten - 1990 I always hated how popular Smells like Teen Spirit got but little did I realise how big this would become, from the death of Andrew Wood came Peal Jam's Ten, one of the most perfect debut albums ever.

R.E.M - Automatic for the People - 1991 defined my university days, cramming for exams chilling to this (and maybe the odd "cigarette"), utterly haunting record of beauty and melancholy.

Radiohead - OK Computer - 1997. Creep had been done to death, I loved The Bends, but this album was the closest to Pink floyd in a modern record I had ever heard - Paranoid Android still leaves me with tingles today.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part - 2001 - I probably didn't hear this until about 2006, at a moment in my life where I needed it, it came into my life. Are there a more tragically, beautiful, and yet slightly threatening opening 5-6 tracks to an album? It spoke to me like an angel and a devil on my shoulders.

Bears Den - Island - 2014 - the first time I saw the Elysium video I sat and cried, watched it again, cried again. Brought the entire family in "watch this", we all fell in love with them there and then and have seen them countless times live. Go and watch the "restricted" video on youtube if you don't know it, the one with 3.6M views.

 

One album that changed my musical tastes was Violator by depeche mode . I was hooked immediately and changed the way I thought about music. I then bought all their back catalogue of albums and I've been a huge fan ever since

 

Can't name ten right now but one of the first of my memorable and possibly influencing records was Birthday by The Peddlers.
Blues and a bit jazzy as well as pop music.
This maybe led me into jazz with my first LP being Erroll Garner's Concert By The Sea.
And on to Oscar Peterson, and away ...... !!!

 

For one of my birthdays I was given a box set of 3 early ELO albums, before they became more commercialised.
I listened to virtually nothing else for weeks.
Some real quality tunes on these.
On The Third Day
Eldorado
Face The Music.

 

News of the World was the album that put me off Queen. Queen I, Queen II and Sheer Heart attack were great; A Night at the Opera a bit meh; the rest, least said the better.

 

After a judicious edit, I think this is mine.

Of Montreal - The Gay Parade
Of Montreal - Sunlandic Twins
Pulp - This is Hardcore
A Silver Mt. Zion - Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upwards
New Pornographers - Challengers
Madness - Wonderful
Libertines - Up the Bracket
Bowie - Hunky Dory
John Cooper Clarke - Snap, Crackle and Bop
Mogwai - Rock Action

Honorary mentions go to So Much for the City by the Thrills and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.

 

One album defined my music taste for the rest of my life, so far at least. Under a blood red sky by U2. Been a massive fan ever since. I know they are not everyone’s cup of tea but seen them live many times in the UK and Europe and it was all started by my uncle buying me that album. I am partial to a bit of pink Floyd, REM, queen and Bowie but U2 always be number 1 for me.

 

For impact in no particular order

loved - Happy Mondays
Neither Washington nor Moscow- The Redskins
All Mod Cons - The Jam
Our Favourite Shop - The Style Council
Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
Revolver - The Beatles
Curtis - Curtis Mayfield
Heart of the Congos - the Congos
Stories from the city - PJ Harvey
The Delta Sweete - Bobbie Gentry

I’ve got others that I enjoy more but none that made the same impression on me.

 

I need to give Wonderful another go. I bought it after Norton Folgate which I love and maybe judged it too harshly against that.

 

That was my first album too, my mum randomly bought it for me along with the Hits album... and i've loved them ever since. Managed to see them live in Victoria Park at Lovebox a good few years ago now and I'm not sure I've ever been as giddy!

 

So many, but here goes:
Catch Bull At Four: Car Stevens
Hunky Dory: David Bowie
Nod’s As Good As A Wink: Faces
Thick As A Brick: Jethro Tull
Baby James Harvest: Barclay James Harvest
Revolver: The Beatles
Mud Slide Slim: James Taylor
Abbey Road: The Beatles
Bridge Over Troubled Water: Simon and Garfunkel
Band On The Run: McCartney and Wings

 

For me my ten
Violator - depeche mode
Songs of faith and devotion - depeche mode
OK computer - radiohead
Debut - bjork
Disintegration - the cure
Absolution - muse
Meds - placebo
Alone with everybody - richard ashcroft
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Just enough education to perform - stereophonics

 

That was pretty much the same for me with depeche modes Violator . Probably seem them 25 plus times all over Europe since buying that album

 

Some good selections TBH.

My top 10 would change on a day to day basis.

Top 10 today:

The Impressions : The Young Mod's Forgotten Story
John Coltrane : A Love Supreme
Bob Dylan : Highway 61 Revisited
The Clash : The Clash
Joy Division : Unknown Pleasures
Felt: Me & a Monkey on the Moon
The Smiths :The Queen Is Dead
Laurent Garnier : The Man with the Red Face
Elliott Smith X/O
The Flaming Lips: American Head.

Will be totally different tomorrow.

 

All mod cons - The Jam
Hysteria- Def Leppard
Reckless- Bryan Adam’s
Kick -Inxs
Sgt Pepper- Beatles
Never Mind The ******** -Sex Pistols
Hull 4 London 0 - House Martins
What’s the story morning glory-Oasis
Definitely Maybe-oasis
London Calling- Clash
In no particular order