Albums That Changed Your Life • Page 2

It's on there in the States, know that doesn't help though haha.

 

I tried to join in. But I can't choose an album. I'd have to write an essay about Thrice's entire discography because when I first listened to The Illusion of Safety at 17 in 2002 ...that album changed everything for me...everything they did after...this is where an essay is needed...but their songs and all the lyrics Dustin would sing....I always felt like his life "arc" on a mental level through his lyrical themes were very similar to where I was at. The only time that arc skipped a beat would probably be with Major/Minor.

 

YES. Its on European now too It wasn't just 2-3 months ago. Awesome awesome. *clicks play*

 

The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)

I'm sure this is similar to most people here, but a lot of my introductions to music as a whole came from my parents. My parents are fairly young (were 19 and 20 when they had me), so growing up in the 90s, most of their taste was shaped by stuff from the mid-80s - early 90s. I remember listening to a lot of R.E.M., Pixies, Pavement, etc. growing up at an early age.

They were all pretty great albums, even though I hardly understood them at that age, but the first one that truly opened my eyes was Siamese Dream. I remember my dad asking me what I wanted to listen to in the car when I was six or seven and flipping through his collection of cds. The art on the disk grabbed me for whatever reason, and the opening riff from "Cherub Rock" didn't let me go.

The tones throughout the album from the guitars from Corgan and the drum fills from Chamberlin were, by and large, my first exposure to music that really made me pay attention. It was the first time I heard guitars that sounded like that (the solo in "Soma" stands out as particularly memorable. And while he wasn't the most talented singer by any means, Corgan's voice was one of the first voices that I remember having an emotional connection to.

Maybe this is colored by the recent news of Iha joining back up with the band on-stage last week, but I feel like the album is still as important as it was when it came out. They might not have ever reached the legacy status of Nirvana and don't quite have the critical acclaim of Pavement, largely I believe due to Corgan's antics, but they will always be the quintessential band I think of when I think of 90's guitar rock.


"Didn't want to lose you once again
Didn't want to be your friend
Fulfilled a promise made of tin
And crawled back to you"

 

"Today" is what got me into SP, I always loved that quiet to loud dynamic in that song. "Rocket" would be my favorite song off of that record, that main riff is fire.

 

Underoath- They're Only Chasing Safety

After seeing this get played in its entirety last night, I wanted to talk a little bit about this record. Yeah yeah, not the coolest thing I could of pulled out but this record had such a big impact on my late teens. I remember the first time I even heard about this band, a coworker at a high school told me about this. He knew I was really into scene music at the time, mainly lighter bands, and he suggested this band as something I could get into. At first, I was honestly turned off by a lot of the record but I pushed through and here we are ten years later.

There's something just forever youthful about this record. No matter how many times I've listened to this record, I still morph back to a place when technology wasn't what it is now. When Myspace ruled the internet. When it was still cool to dye your hair jet black and have it swoop over your face. All that and more floods into my head when it starts to play.

Overall, it's a catchy piece of poppy metalcore. One that's filled with hooks and fills that compliments the harsh vocals and riffs on the other side. Spencer and Aaron are arguably one of the best good cop/bad cop vocal duos ever, this record being recorded proof of that statement. It's the band at a crossroads, leaving behind a style that propelled them to the spotlight with a record at it's best. To think that this band is the same one that put much heavier and forward thinking records after this is crazy when you look back on it but it's what happened.

 

There are two that come to mind really. Both for different reasons that I don't really care to type out right now. They both just came to my life at the right time and lead me to a lot of different things.

 

Can't remember the first time I listened to it all the way through, but it's stuck with me ever since.

The album really has a bit of everything with regards to the human experience. The adventure and invincibility of youth in the title track, to the calm reflections of "Seems Like a Long Time." Obviously, falling in and out of love is a huge theme. "Mandolin Wind" is about finding the person for your life that will stay with you through it all. "Maggie May," the most popular song on the album, is about knowing you're in a bad relationship but unable to change it. And "(I Know) I'm Losing You," a Temptations cover no less, is realizing that your relationship is on the outs (but really that song opened my ears to what a cover can sound like).

I've tried to keep it brief, but basically this album hit me at that time when I finally started to grow up and be a more reflective person.

 

Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

I first listened to this album in January 2011 and it changed the way I viewed music. It was the first time I had actually dedicated time to listen to something that wasn't pop-punk or alternative rock. From here on out I became much more open to different kinds of music.

Frank Ocean - Channel ORANGE

The first r&b album I ever loved. This album quite literally blew my mind as I was exposed to a whole bunch of sounds that I hadn't experienced before. After listening to this album during the summer of 2012, I further explored the genres of r&b and hip-hop and became a huge fan of both.

 

im not just saying it when i list these, all of these legit changed the course of my life in one way or another, big or small but usually big. changing my outlook, helping me get through something tough, or completely reshaping everything i know about a certain topic, mostly music.

tim hecker - ravedeath, 1972
thursday - a city by the light divided
the 1975 - i like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it
deafheaven - sunbather
kanye west - 808s and heartbreak
tame impala - lonerism
jimmy eat world - futures


theres plenty plenty plenty more but these are the big ones especially a few of the more recent ones i wanted to shout out.

 

placeholder, i'll talk about Commit This To Memory so nobody else do it ok thx!!!

jk feel free

 

I'm not really good at elaborating why, but these albums have played a huge part of molding my music taste over the past 21 years, when I stopped listening to top-40 radio and moved more towards alternative.

Weezer - Blue Album
The Offspring - Smash
Nirvana - Nevermind
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
The Wallflowers - Bringing Down the Horse
Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
Marcy Playground - Marcy Playground
Avenged Sevenfold - Waking the Fallen
Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Meg Myers - Make A Shadow (EP)
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Our Lady Peace - Clumsy
Red Hot Chili Peppers - BloodSugarSexMagik
Barenaked Ladies - Stunt
Funeral For A Friend - Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation
Green Day - Nimrod
AFI - Sing the Sorrow

To name a few. I could probably go on all night haha

 

The devil and God are Raging Inside me

This album means more to me than I can truly articulate, but I will try here. My first exposure to the album was with Jesus Christ. I had just come to a belief in God (from nihilistic Atheism), became a Christian, but I was still wrought with doubt and skepticism toward everything from God to my existence.

The song beautifully represents doubt in such an honest way. This song encapsulated a pivotal point in my life. It so perfectly matched everything I was experiencing, and the realities I was coming to understand. I know doubt well, and simply to hear it in song pushed me through the first days of choosing to have faith.

The album as whole carries with it the same sense of existential dread, the ebb and flow of doubt. I'm connected to this album in a such an intimate way, that I feel as if listening to it in bits and pieces is a disservice to the material. It shaped my taste in music in such a profound way that I still operate under the shadow of how this album impacted me.


and

Beggars

Having been exposed to Thrice in snippets over the years, I got caught up in everyone's excitement for this one amidst the lead up to Daisy from Brand New. Then the Vagrant leak happened, and I preordered just to support the band. I remember I was quite underwhelmed on first listen, and still on several listens, but there was a hook in this album that kept bringing me back, another listen, another spin, and another. Until somehow, something clicked and I fell absolutely in love with it. Beggars is the only album that has made me stop to think of it could replace Brand News' The Devil and God one day as my favorite album.

The build up from The Great Exchange into Beggars (the final/title track) is my favorite sequencing of songs on any album.




I have so many thoughts toward these two albums. Will probably return every so often to add to this.

 

Such a good record. It's tied with Apathy as my favorite Lawrence Arms record. I think it's been received better over time, but I think most fans like Oh, Calcutta the most.

 

The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

I was 13 when this album came out and before this I mainly only listened to top 40 and didn't really have a preference in music, I actually thought I didn't really like music at the time. Once Welcome to the Black Parade hit the radio I fell in love with the song, my sister got this album for Christmas and I remember sneaking in my parents closet beforehand, taking the CD out and uploading it in my iTunes and playing nothing but this album on my iPod. I remember waiting two hours just so I could load one of their music videos up on AOL when I had dial up. This band got me into the scene and helped me find every other band that will always have a special place in my heart. This is the band that inspired me to become a musician myself and I owe that to this album. 10 years later it holds up extremely well, I don't think there will be a day where I ever don't like it.

 

I've thought about this a lot over the last many years, but I think I can safely say that this album fundamentally changed who I am.



Poison the Well - The Opposite of December

I made friends with a guy in my speech class that had just moved from the east coast and had a lot of connections in the east coast hardcore scene. At the time, I was kind of an angry meat head. My father had just passed, I had been in a bad car accident that required a lengthy rehab, and things generally weren't going swimmingly. I had stumbled into the local punk scene and started to really find that as an outlet to channel my aggression.

One day, this friend brings in a burnt CD and says "a friend back home just sent me this, I think you'll like it."

I was absolutely blown away. It was an album that somehow managed to be both brutal and beautiful at the same time. It was a solid middle ground between the heavy metal I had listened to previously and the punk/pop-punk that I was starting to get into. It brought me into a scene/world that I had never imagined existed and completely changed the trajectory of my life from that point forward.

Some 16 years later I have seen that band play more times than I can count. It's always my "go to" when anyone asks for my favorite album of all time.

 

There are so many albums that have changed my life, but this one has definitely had the biggest effect on me. Basically, I was hella depressed and suicidal, and I'm not sure I would still be here without this album. It pulled me out of a deep deep hole.
The lyrics were the biggest part of it, these two lines in particular:
"I don't wanna die today, I wanna live and love and write it down" and "I'm somewhere in between who I am and who I want to be"

 

Messengers by August Burns Red

I remember searching iTunes when I was primarily into christian rock (most of it was poop and I don't listen to it anymore) and being recommended. I hated the vocals but loved the percussion so I bought it and it changed my life. Heavier music made me love music even more so much I'm trying to base my career choice off of it.

Thank God for ABR, thank God for Solid State records.

 

AFI - Sing the Sorrow
The Offspring - Smash
Alkaline Trio - Good Mourning
Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Green Day - Warning

 

The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me was a pivotal record for me, channeling importance inside an array of meanings, even finding itself in memories I never thought I'd hold dear. When I first heard this record, I was afraid of it. The art, along with the dread and atmosphere of the songs, evoked a feeling of paranoia whenever I was exposed to it at night. Even in broad daylight, there were moments such as the bridge in "Luca" or the uneasiness of "Untitled", that made me second guess if they were just songs. The lyrics of the songs baffled me. How could someone ever bring themselves to sing "I used to pray like God was listening. I used to make my parents proud", let alone feel it?

My fascination with the record turned into a rabbit hole of emotions. The more I learned about it, the less I was afraid, but in turn, I became more and more fixated to the record. Fear was replaced with fascination, which turned into motivation and understanding. TDAG was one of the first records, along with Jimmy Eat World's Futures, that made me want to analyze music. I wasn't satisfied with knowing just the lyrics and the obvious melodies of the songs. I wanted to know why it made me feel what I felt and how they did it. This opened the door to my appreciation for production and atmosphere. I grew a love for world building and records that painted its sonic scenery.

As someone who likes to try to understand how an artist chooses the order of their track listings and why, the choice to have the two "start fast/stay fast" songs ("Not The Sun" and "The Archers Bows Have Broken") at the second half of the record, as opposed to where the front, where singles usually go, was so fascinating to me. I adore the way the record starts in a somber, broken manner, only to be shattered with the explosion of the refrain. The way the drums pound in the second verse of "Millstone", which is one of my favorite songs from the Brand New, still demands all of my attention. The journey of "Limousine" is still haunting years later (fun fact: I thought the song, and really, the album, was satanic because of the monophonic chant like introduction). "You Won't Know" still manages to cause shivers down my spine when it erupts into its second half (especially during the "I won't let you fire everything you've got" line when the song structure slightly changes). The way "Welcome To Bangkok" leads into the massive pay off of "Not The Sun", and how the record essentially builds up into what seems to be a straight forward song, but to me, is a tune of catharsis because of the massive energy of the vocals. "Luca" has a beautifully produced transition into the second verse in which the instruments compliment each other in fascinating ways. Even "Untitled", a psuedo-instrumental interlude, is a track I could listen to for hours on end.

The words I have for this record are nowhere near as powerful as the art itself. For almost four years now, I have struggled to verbalize why this record is as important to me as it is. As a album reviewer and a musician, it leaves me perplexed. However, probably the two greatest things the record has taught me are dynamics and emotion, and I have future records and songs of my own to thank for that. It opened up a world for me. One that I was originally afraid of, but now, embrace with all I've got. The world I'm talking about isn't the record, it's music itself.