Five Albums That Changed My Life (For the Better): The Prelude: A Thing for Music
Today marks the first of a series of entries (okay, five) in which I will lay out the five albums that have so greatly improved my life as to deserve a highly illustrious journal entry (hence the title). I will be writing about each album at length, so unless you're already a fan of my selections, prepare to be very bored by what you find, as in my experience few things are as tiresome as other people's rapturous descriptions of the music they love. Still, sometimes you just gotta exorcize your musical demons, or muses, or angels as the case may be (I guess?). This one's the backstory, which any good tale should not have. Bear with me.
When I was just a feckless yute (we're talking way back in late elementary school days of yore), I didn't have a taste in music, per se, as I really didn't listen to much music period. Both my mom and dad were rockers in their day, but their rather extensive collection was mostly on vinyl, and my mother didn't have the time or inclination to repair the old turntable, nor the temperament to blare Mott the Hoople about the house as we all folded socks. So essentially my musical development began as most do: haphazardly and carelessly, based on snippets of heard radio sounds and whatever tapes and CDs fell into my relatively uninterested hands.
(The only CD I distinctly remember as intriguing at the time was Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell," and only because the CD cover is the most faux-badass image in the world: a undead biker dude soaring through the air on a wicked chopped hog above a burning post-apocalyptic hell-wasteland of New York City, one fistful of righteous lightning cocked back and ready to unleash on the titular Bat Out of Hell, a enormous rodent monstrosity perched on the Chrysler building, and apparently holding hostage some kind of hott angel woman who no doubt sports huge boobs. Obviously it made a big impression on me).
The end result of this lackadaisical approach to music was a CD collection that, around the start of seventh grade, consisted entirely of a "Bach's Greatest Hits" kind of compilation, a Jimmy Buffet album, not one but two Beach Boys collections, Smash Mouth's "Astro Lounge," the John Williams Movie Themes collection, and another compilation of Gershwin songs (including the obviously tremendous "Rhapsody in Blue" and the well-nigh-equally tremendous "American in Paris" both of which I loved to death and listened to almost every night, accompanying each with private imaginary films that unfurled in my mind as I lay on my bedroom floor near the stereo, recreating the same characters and plotlines each time but constantly embellishing with new elaborations, dilemmas and flourishes).
I also had a pretty sick tape collection, including the Ninja Turtles II soundtrack and Bob Seger's "The Fire Inside," as well as a couple Beastie Boys albums I'd dubbed from my friend Robby's CDs and even some early experiments in mixtape-making, the barest shell of a bad habit that I would later refine and expand greatly.
Besides my own taste in music, or notable lack thereof, was the enormous, looming presence of my brother’s musical tendencies, which at the time leaned almost exclusively to punk rock (with minor detours into the Gin Blossoms and Everclear). At the time I pretty much followed my brother’s lead, so when he blazed trails into the into the truly odd and awesome world of the Ramones, I was right there behind him. My bro’s old copy of “Ramones Mania” comes a close second to Gershwin for heaviest rotation in my beat-up old Memorex CD player, and I treasured it immensely. Hearing that stuff for the first time literally expanded my mind. It’s a strange thing to say about the Ramones, but their simple, often stupid songs turned a latch in my head, revealing the potential, the straight-ahead energy, the force and sheer enjoyment that music can convey. But that’s a story for another time.
Still, despite my deep and abiding passion for the Ramones, they were never fully my music. My brother had found them, and claimed them first, and as much as I embraced his discovery, I would always be to some degree an imitator. I had been awakened, but I had yet to stake a claim on my own turf.
So there I stood as the curtain opens on my seventh grade year: an embryonic punk with no real musical discernment to speak of, a truly frail collection of albums, and very little interest in improving myself as regards things of the music-obsessed nature. God knows where I would have ended up had I continued down that path; probably saner, possibly more accomplished in some legitimately useful pursuit, certainly wealthier by a few thousand dollars.
But I never would have heard the opening chords of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Incident at 57th Street” for the first time as I huddled on the floor next to my stereo, stunned and utterly absorbed in the sound, never rolled back the windows and let the wind blow back my hair as I cruised through the swamps of Palm Valley on a fresh license at the age of sixteen, the boardwalk-funk of Bruce’s “The E-Street Shuffle” blaring, and myself firm in the belief that life could offer nothing to improve on this, never found myself sweaty and exultant and half-stripped out of a wetsuit in downtown Jacksonville way past midnight, cranking the volume on min-van speakers to send “Kitty’s Back” roaring over an abandoned office-park parking lot, with my friends asking me why this sounded so good.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” brought me all these moments alone; it was the first album that really lit me up and if it were the only one I ever discovered it still would have made all the expense, the frustration, the amazing waste of time that followed wholly worthwhile. But being “into music,” devouring music omnivorously and continuously as I do, has given so much more, so many transcendent, lunatic concert experiences, so much pathos and relief, so many moments of bonding over dopey songs, or great ones, so much sheer fun, so much beauty.
I’m not a person who soundtracks their life, I don’t play music constantly, and I desperately need long periods of silence to stay sane. I’m not tragically smitten with one band or artist, I’m not in a scene, I don’t deconstruct the theoretical underpinnings of pop songs, I’m not even a musician in my own right. What can I say, though; I love music, I love people translating their experience into sound. I guess I just got a thing for it.
When I was just a feckless yute (we're talking way back in late elementary school days of yore), I didn't have a taste in music, per se, as I really didn't listen to much music period. Both my mom and dad were rockers in their day, but their rather extensive collection was mostly on vinyl, and my mother didn't have the time or inclination to repair the old turntable, nor the temperament to blare Mott the Hoople about the house as we all folded socks. So essentially my musical development began as most do: haphazardly and carelessly, based on snippets of heard radio sounds and whatever tapes and CDs fell into my relatively uninterested hands.
(The only CD I distinctly remember as intriguing at the time was Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell," and only because the CD cover is the most faux-badass image in the world: a undead biker dude soaring through the air on a wicked chopped hog above a burning post-apocalyptic hell-wasteland of New York City, one fistful of righteous lightning cocked back and ready to unleash on the titular Bat Out of Hell, a enormous rodent monstrosity perched on the Chrysler building, and apparently holding hostage some kind of hott angel woman who no doubt sports huge boobs. Obviously it made a big impression on me).
The end result of this lackadaisical approach to music was a CD collection that, around the start of seventh grade, consisted entirely of a "Bach's Greatest Hits" kind of compilation, a Jimmy Buffet album, not one but two Beach Boys collections, Smash Mouth's "Astro Lounge," the John Williams Movie Themes collection, and another compilation of Gershwin songs (including the obviously tremendous "Rhapsody in Blue" and the well-nigh-equally tremendous "American in Paris" both of which I loved to death and listened to almost every night, accompanying each with private imaginary films that unfurled in my mind as I lay on my bedroom floor near the stereo, recreating the same characters and plotlines each time but constantly embellishing with new elaborations, dilemmas and flourishes).
I also had a pretty sick tape collection, including the Ninja Turtles II soundtrack and Bob Seger's "The Fire Inside," as well as a couple Beastie Boys albums I'd dubbed from my friend Robby's CDs and even some early experiments in mixtape-making, the barest shell of a bad habit that I would later refine and expand greatly.
Besides my own taste in music, or notable lack thereof, was the enormous, looming presence of my brother’s musical tendencies, which at the time leaned almost exclusively to punk rock (with minor detours into the Gin Blossoms and Everclear). At the time I pretty much followed my brother’s lead, so when he blazed trails into the into the truly odd and awesome world of the Ramones, I was right there behind him. My bro’s old copy of “Ramones Mania” comes a close second to Gershwin for heaviest rotation in my beat-up old Memorex CD player, and I treasured it immensely. Hearing that stuff for the first time literally expanded my mind. It’s a strange thing to say about the Ramones, but their simple, often stupid songs turned a latch in my head, revealing the potential, the straight-ahead energy, the force and sheer enjoyment that music can convey. But that’s a story for another time.
Still, despite my deep and abiding passion for the Ramones, they were never fully my music. My brother had found them, and claimed them first, and as much as I embraced his discovery, I would always be to some degree an imitator. I had been awakened, but I had yet to stake a claim on my own turf.
So there I stood as the curtain opens on my seventh grade year: an embryonic punk with no real musical discernment to speak of, a truly frail collection of albums, and very little interest in improving myself as regards things of the music-obsessed nature. God knows where I would have ended up had I continued down that path; probably saner, possibly more accomplished in some legitimately useful pursuit, certainly wealthier by a few thousand dollars.
But I never would have heard the opening chords of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Incident at 57th Street” for the first time as I huddled on the floor next to my stereo, stunned and utterly absorbed in the sound, never rolled back the windows and let the wind blow back my hair as I cruised through the swamps of Palm Valley on a fresh license at the age of sixteen, the boardwalk-funk of Bruce’s “The E-Street Shuffle” blaring, and myself firm in the belief that life could offer nothing to improve on this, never found myself sweaty and exultant and half-stripped out of a wetsuit in downtown Jacksonville way past midnight, cranking the volume on min-van speakers to send “Kitty’s Back” roaring over an abandoned office-park parking lot, with my friends asking me why this sounded so good.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” brought me all these moments alone; it was the first album that really lit me up and if it were the only one I ever discovered it still would have made all the expense, the frustration, the amazing waste of time that followed wholly worthwhile. But being “into music,” devouring music omnivorously and continuously as I do, has given so much more, so many transcendent, lunatic concert experiences, so much pathos and relief, so many moments of bonding over dopey songs, or great ones, so much sheer fun, so much beauty.
I’m not a person who soundtracks their life, I don’t play music constantly, and I desperately need long periods of silence to stay sane. I’m not tragically smitten with one band or artist, I’m not in a scene, I don’t deconstruct the theoretical underpinnings of pop songs, I’m not even a musician in my own right. What can I say, though; I love music, I love people translating their experience into sound. I guess I just got a thing for it.