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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2013 21:45:57 GMT
This subject has been slightly touched on a number of times but never fully explored. I have found that I am extremely open to most new music, as evidenced by the fact that over the years, I was more in tune with the children of my colleagues than my colleagues themselves. However, I will not claim that this goes on forever, because in the last 5 years, I have disconnected from a lot of the new music -- perhaps simply because my brain is "full" but maybe not.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to list the 3 albums that somehow have marked us the most. Clearly my 3 are linked to a certain time in my life, because they are basically all from the same period of time:
1. Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman 2. Elton John - Elton John (the album that featured "Your Song") 3. King Crimson - The Court of the Crimson King
Believe me, it is difficult to give just 3 titles, because the moment I think about it, I would like to add a half dozen more.
One thing that is obvious is that all three albums are British. I am not sure why, since I grew up in the United States immersed in American music (and also some traditional French music because of my mother). I just assume that I was in need of new horizons at the time.
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Post by htmb on Aug 10, 2013 22:03:07 GMT
Interesting choices. I will have to give this some thought, but in relation to yours: 1. It would also be a choice of mine 2. Was always on the fence about Elton, but he definitely lost me after I saw him in concert. He must have had a bad night, because it was as if we weren't even there. 3. I've never heard of your number 3
British music had a major influence on American culture during the mid-sixties and on for quite a few years. The Rolling Stones, the Who, and the "you know who" with the shaggy haircuts.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2013 22:30:12 GMT
I totally lost Elton John in later years, but about 3 of his albums back then were magical to me. Same for Cat Stevens, particularly when he became Yusuf Islam.
I might have never heard about King Crimson, but my roommate at USC was the son of a rich stock trader (I always have remembered "we bought the house where Dick Van Dyke used to live"), and he apparently had a totally doting father, because after a trip to London, the father brought back "all of the top albums" for his son, even though he had no information or interest in such music. We listened to all of that stuff non stop. I wish I could remember a few more of the albums he brought from London.
And I have also never forgotten tooling along the Sunset Strip in his Triumph Spitfire.
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Post by fumobici on Aug 11, 2013 2:59:39 GMT
Good topic! This is difficult.
The first will be a Beatles album, but which? Rubber Soul was the first one I bought and has held up very well, I remember wearing out that and Revolver when I was a pre-teen but I think the one that influenced me the most was the White Album which I got for Christmas from my father mere weeks after it was released. This wasn't like previous Beatles albums--greater risks were taken and not always successfully but you could tell there was no complacency--they were determined to expand their musical horizons outward.
The second chronologically would be Inner Mounting Flame by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. I can remember coming home late one night at my parents house still high on LSD and playing side one over and over for a couple or three hours listening through the headphones until I could finally sleep. It introduced me to a level of instrumental virtuosity and structural complexity I had not experienced before barring perhaps Jimi Hendrix and opened up the world of jazz to me. King Crimson for instance seemed listener friendly after that.
The third? Hmmm. Probably Eat a Peach by the Allman Brothers Band. I really loved that album though it doesn't push musical boundaries very far. The lead guitar player had just died in a motorcycle accident before the album was released--in fact as it was being recorded-- and you could feel the band desperately persevering not just to finish the project but to make it worthy of a final work of the band in their seminal incarnation.
All these albums were probably released within five years of each other and at I time when I was very young and impressionable, so there may be as much or more more about when I was introduced them than their strict musical merits. That being said, I can't think of an album released in the last twenty years that really matches any of those three. I have lots of more recent music and enjoy it immensely but artists just aren't as artistically ambitious or audacious now as they were then. Music is created now that neatly slots into pre-existing genres rather than spanning them or even creating their own new ones. Nowadays you hear the name of an artist and you pretty much know what their songs will sound like before you even hear them. When for instance the Beatles were at their creative peak, you really had no idea at all what they might include on their next album, it could be almost anything and it would probably redefine the category and move it as opposed to merely exemplifying it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 6:46:22 GMT
That is absolutely true about the Beatles. I remember the mystery and controversy about both the White Album and Sgt. Pepper, not to mention endless analysis of so many of the unfathomable songs (I Am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever, etc.). It was all quite mind expanding and not just because of the drugs.
As for the reverse side of the coin -- the Rolling Stones -- I never much liked them except for one album, which I believe was their most inventive -- Let It Bleed. And that is indeed another one of the albums that my roommate's father brought back from London.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 11, 2013 13:13:46 GMT
THREE! ? gordon bennet Kerouac...that's a difficult one. I agree with you about the early albums of Cat Stevens and Elton John.
My criteria for choosing has to be that I know all the words to all the songs, I've loved them since I first heard them and can't imagine ever 'going off' them....trouble is I have a list of about 15 albums to whittle down to three....I'll be back...
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Post by fumobici on Aug 11, 2013 15:25:31 GMT
That is absolutely true about the Beatles. I remember the mystery and controversy about both the White Album and Sgt. Pepper, not to mention endless analysis of so many of the song unfathomable songs (I Am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever, etc.). It was all quite mind expanding and not just because of the drugs. As for the reverse side of the coin -- the Rolling Stones -- I never much liked them except for one album, which I believe was their most inventive -- Let It Bleed. And that is indeed another one of the albums that my roommate's father brought back from London. The Rolling Stones had a magical period from 1968 when Beggar's Banquet was released until 1972's Exile on Main St. where they were at their own peak and released four remarkably strong albums consecutively. Sadly, their repertoire both before and after that period cannot compare but how many bands *ever* put out four outstanding albums, so well done nevertheless.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 15:57:07 GMT
Another album from "my" magic period (and my roommate's London loot) was Who's Next. Songs like Baba O'Reilly were like nothing we had ever heard before.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 11, 2013 16:00:33 GMT
I have been thinking about it and have decided that there are three standout albums 1. Pink Floyd : Dark Side of the Moon this doesn't have my favourite Pink Floyd track (Comfortably Numb) but it does evoke such happy memories of my late teens. 2. Pearl Jam : Ten I loved grunge....it was a toss up between this one and Nirvana's Nevermind, but this is probably the album that I play more. 3. James Taylor : Mud slide Slim perfection. I could have chosen so many others, Newton Faulkner's Hand Built by Robots, Crowded House Woodface, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Steve Miller Band Fly Like an Eagle, Genesis Duke or Abacab, Supertramp Breakfast in America.....is this cheating? ...Annie Lennox Diva, Alison Moyet Raindancing, Stevie Wonder InnerVisions, Deep Purple In Rock, Incubus Wish You Were Here......and many many many more.....sorry....
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 16:09:13 GMT
No, it's not cheating. I'll have more to mention also, but trying to think of just three is what gets the memories going.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 11, 2013 16:15:12 GMT
Yes..
For his birthday last year I bought OH a gadget that converts vinyl records to cds via the computer, and another that does the same with cassette tapes. As he did each one we listened to it again...absolutely wonderful experience. We didn't bother with the Faust Tapes or John and Yoko's 2 Virgins (basically Yoko screaming)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 17:18:31 GMT
Oh yes, there were some amazingly dreadful things back then, but I greatly admire that fact that such things could be produced at all in those experimental times.
Now just about nothing is made unless it can make money, or else it is made for nothing and visible on YouTube but we will never find 99.9% of the interesting stuff.
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Post by htmb on Aug 11, 2013 18:03:47 GMT
I loved James Taylor then, and still do today.
However, ever since I read this thread yesterday the ear worm inside my head has been "Nights in white satin......."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 18:15:50 GMT
Yes, that popped into my mind as well, and also "Take a Pebble" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" album is naturally an immortal classic. Should I have requested that people list their 30 favourite albums instead of just 3?
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Post by Kimby on Aug 12, 2013 14:25:19 GMT
Am loving this thread for the memories it invokes. Most of the listed albums are faves of mine as well.
Mr. Kimby played in a garage band that had a moderately successful run of about 3 years in the late 60's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and he has an extensive LP collection and a turntable to play them on. Now every Saturday while he waters the houseplants he puts on another album and we go back in time for an hour or so.
I am 2 years younger, so some of his faves predate my awakening to popular music. My own LP collection consists almost entirely of albums I purchased at the end of my college career. I had lived in a house with 9 other people who had merged their record collections and best stereo components in the communal living room and music was played anytime anyone was at home. (TV was banished to another room.) so while my collection is far smaller than my husband's, it's a greatest hits collection based on my favorite albums from those years, very few duds.
Will be thinking about how to narrow this to 3...
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Post by bjd on Aug 12, 2013 17:15:07 GMT
I can't think of only 3 albums I really liked, but they would be between the late 1960s to 1975, when I left Canada. In France, all there was was really, really awful French pop music -- and I had no music living in a small room as a student.
Offhand, 3 I liked a lot were Van Morrison, Carole King, and a later Bob Dylan album with Lay, Lady, Lay on it. But I also liked Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Janis Joplin, Dionne Warwick, John Lee Hooker.
And it sounds as though I'm the only person here who prefers the Rolling Stones to the Beatles. I liked the Beatles well enough when I was 13, but just can't listen to them now. But I can still listen to the Stones. And the old Motown/rhythm and blues stuff lasted well.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 12, 2013 23:40:47 GMT
The Stones performed in my town and we had the chance to get last-minute tickets for only $80 each. Mr. Kimby passed, since he's always prefered the Beatles to the Stones. We should've gone just for the pyrotechnics, though. And because these guys are getting so old there may not be another chance.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:12:00 GMT
'Tis way too difficult to name just 3.... Many of the aforementioned are contenders but, I could not nail it down to 3. Most certainly, The Beatles , White Album is way up there, as is Revolver. And, as far as the Rolling Stones, I would have to concur with K2 on Let It Bleed.Others on my list would be Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young, Deja Vu.And, then there's Joni Mitchell... ,Blue,among many others. I can't narrow it down to 3...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:21:30 GMT
Oh, yes that famous Crosby, Stills & Nash album... how could I have forgotten it, especially since I have actually taken the Marrakech Express!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:24:00 GMT
In France, all there was was really, really awful French pop music -- and I had no music living in a small room as a student. When I arrived "back" in France to live, I completely understood how French I was, because even though I did not stop liking what I had liked in the past, I really liked most French pop music.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:26:42 GMT
Oh, yes that famous Crosby, Stills & Nash album... how could I have forgotten it, especially since I have actually taken the Marrakech Express! Don't forget Young!!! A frequent mistake but, major contributor to that album!!!!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:30:29 GMT
But when I think about him, I think about the other major album from that period: Harvest Moon.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:53:14 GMT
But when I think about him, I think about the other major album from that period: Harvest Moon. Now that you mention him, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is one of my very top contenders for the 3. It was with great deliberation that I named Deja Vu and not that particular album. With not quite the degree of innovation, variation, departure that Fumobici mentions regarding the Beatles White Album, it does, really stretch itself pretty far. And, it ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by htmb on Aug 13, 2013 20:59:21 GMT
I really liked the Rolling Stones at one point. I Attended a great concert here in the late eighties or early nineties. They were already old then, but there was a lot of super energy.
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Post by bjd on Aug 14, 2013 8:21:18 GMT
Egad, Kerouac! Were you French enough to like Johnny Halliday?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2013 10:22:39 GMT
No, Johnny Hallyday is one French singer I have never liked. And back then he was mostly only doing French versions of American rock songs, which I certainly did not require.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 16, 2013 19:32:51 GMT
OMG.... Queen....the Magic album... Inuendo album....and Jethro Tull Aqualung the Eagles....Lynyrd Skynyrd....Prodigy (ONLY Fat of the Land), Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, DAVID BOWIE ZIGGY STARDUST Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells! sigh...quiver...tremble....where's my headphones?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2013 15:19:05 GMT
Ha ha! Not all of those rocked my world, but I agree about Aqualung and quite a bit of Depeche Mode -- of course not in my top 3 but rather my top 30.
Police.... Walking on the Moon...
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 20, 2019 21:49:16 GMT
Just been watching Fleetwood Mac for the best part of 2 hours mostly about Rumours. I’ll come up with the other 2 soon...
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 21, 2019 6:58:41 GMT
Just to tidy up, Sergeant Pepper and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
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