My top 15 albums...cross posted with my Facebook acct.
These are the rules if you want to play: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.
I will admit I cheated slightly on this...I took longer than 15 mins. A lot longer than 15 mins. ;) 1. Axis Bold as Love- Jimi Hendrix
The things that man did to a guitar were almost obscene in their beauty and innovation. The world was clearly not ready for him...which is why we didn't get him for very long. That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it! ;)
2. Led Zepplin IV, ZoSo whatever you want to call this one- Led Zepplin
This album taught me that even the hardest of the hard rockers can be acoustic and beautiful. And for the record my favourite song on this album is Goin' to California NOT Stairway to Heaven! And Jimmy Paige...I think he may have sold his soul to the Devil to be able to make those sounds come from a guitar, well and he bought a violin bow. ;)
3. News of the World- Queen
This album...oh my god it starts at 10 and goes more than one higher! This WALL of sound from the start of We Will Rock You to the end of Sheer Heart Attack and then is slows down for All Dead, All Dead and Spread Your Wings and then the other side of that WALL hits you and goes again for just two songs Fight from the Inside and Get Down Make Love and then slows down again. This album is such a fuckin' prick tease! And then It's Late starts out nice and slow... and then the Brian May guitar and the Roger Taylor drums HIT YOU IN THE CHEST! And this song spends about 6 minutes kicking you and then slowing down and then kicking you and slowing down until you can barely breathe anymore! And it ends with a total torch song ballad that leaves you panting on the floor thanking the rock gods for finally showing you some mercy!
4. Open Up and Say Ahh- Poison
This is not Poison's best album musically speaking...I don't think they hit that until their next one Flesh and Blood. This album is of personal importance to me because the first time I heard this album...music stopped being about boys and school dances and became about one thing...SEX! This album came out in May of 1988, I was in seventh grade, talk about a fucking awakening...pun intended.
5. Hysteria- Def Leppard
I know that this album came out the year before Poison's Open Up... but, I didn't discover it until after. If Poison introduced me to the sex of sex, drugs and rock n' roll...then Def Lep made bloody damn sure I stayed a captive audience!
6. Blonde on Blonde- Bob Dylan
a bit of a departure from the albums above, I know. Bob Dylan taught me that there was room for poetry in music. A lesson I needed so badly at the time. Disenfranchised youth and all that. I already wanted to be the biggest rock star on the planet by the time Def Lep was done with me, but I had a little problem. I didn't write the sex part of rock n' roll...I tried oh how I tried. I think the problem was that I was bombarded by all this heterosexual imagery...and my gay brain didn't know what the hell to do with it. Enter the original rock/folk poet...and suddenly there was a light at the end of the tunnel and I was fairly certain this time it wasn't from an oncoming train. Blonde on Blonde was the first Dylan album I ever heard.
7. The White Album- The Beatles (Yes, I know the album is technically called The Beatles but who calls it that?!)
According to my family I have loved the Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney, since before I could walk. How many people my age do you know who can tell you exactly where they were when they found out John Lennon had been killed? I'm going to go with not a lot...I was only 5 when it happened. As children are wont to do, I prefered the Beatles poppier early releases, songs I could bop to as I learned to walk, easy words and tunes my toddler/child's brain could process and remember. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with adults loving the early poppy stuff, but I was destined to move on. When looking through my father's record collection, I routinely skipped over the boring white cover that was not easy to read. It didn't seem interesting enough, bright enough and there was no picture. I'm certain that for years I didn't even realize it was a Beatles album. But then the overthinking years called teenage hit me, and the simplicity of that cover made me think that perhaps one had to peel past the layer of the plain white to get to the good stuff. So I did...and I was rewarded with the amazingness that is the Beatles White Album. It was quirky, it was musically beautiful, it was a little multiple personality, it was experimental...a word I was starting to love more and more as the days went on. It fit with me at the time, it spoke to me on a level music had not spoken to me a lot yet...an level of intelligence. Never judge a book or an album, as the case may be, by its cover, you never know what you're going to skip right by!
8. Pearl- Janis Joplin
If Poison and Def Lep taught me about sex...Janis taught me that women could do it just as well, if not better, than the guys! She made me want to just let loose and wail my soul's song. And while the blues were most definitely in her, she also had a soft side. Me and Bobby McGee very bluesy but so sweet and pretty underneath, easy to miss if you aren't listening. But I was. This album is as much a part of my childhood as the Beatles were. One came from my father and one came from my mother...but they are equally important to me.
9. Too Fast For Love- Motley Crue
So far we've covered the sex part of sex, drugs and rock n' roll and I think the rock n' roll has been covered as well, kind of the point of all this. Motley Crue brought the drugs to the party. Figuratively not litterally! Trust me when I say I found the actual drugs all by myself. Motley Crue turned music into a drug, an addiction for me. An addiction that is still raging, I might add. The first time I heard On With the Show, I got the chills. It spoke to me on a gut level. The music gave me the chills, the lyrics gave me ideas! I have always been able to see Frankie's story in my head, I mean there are visuals. Frankie would be one of the characters in the song, though as an adult I sometimes wonder if he is more like an autobiographical character. Anyway...this song was never released as a single, there was never a video for it on MTV. In that four minute song, his entire life was so vidly portrayed, I could just see it. There have been many times over the years that I have tried to write the story...I can't seem to get it right. I think this is just destined to be all visuals in my head. The funny thing is...every now and then, I have to try to write it anyway. I know it's not mine to write, also why I think it's only worked as a visual. This album was Crue's first release, and to be honest it is the most raw/ real sounding because it was not perfectly mixed. And yes...I own all of their releases. Some of them I even own on vinyl as well as CD...bloody hell I think I might be getting old!
10. Jagged Little Pill- Alanis Morissette
Okay, I know cliche much?! I get that, I really do. I almost didn't put it on this list because it is so cliche. The first many times I heard this album...I hated it! I mean really hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it! My mom and my younger sister could have it...not interested. I was going to go down to my room and mourn the death of hair metal. I wanted nothing to do with these "angry chicks" all over the radio and MTV! Oh so set in my ways, so never going to change, viva la hair metal! We were living in a small town, with small radio stations...as in you got the top 40 whether or not you wanted it...unless you were into Country! And slowly but surely Alanis Morissette seeped into my brain, my heart and finally my soul. Oh my god...she's in my head, she knows how I feel, she gets it. And like most 20 year olds who don't want people to tell them things about themselves...the truth...I resisted as long as I could before I fell head over heels for this record and all of the ones she has released since!
11. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols- The Sex Pistols
This album helped me reach the sick and twisted and dead but never gone parts of myself. It's British punk not quite at its finest...but it tried! It's raw, lazy, fuck the whole bloody world rebellion...it reached out to that better than any other album I had heard at the time! It doesn't make you think, I think there's a grand total of 4 chrods used for the entire album...but it's blood and guts and anger and dissociation from the establishment...all of the establishment, why differenciate when you can fucking hate it all! What are you rebelling against...what've you got?
12. Stardog Champion- Mother Love Bone
I didn't set out to discover this band, I've never heard them played on the radio, I don't think they made more than one video for MTV, there was never another album. As the album was being mixed, their lead singer overdosed on heroin, and unfortunately he died. His name was Andrew Wood. I read an article about Mother Love Bone in RIP magazine. It was written after Andrew Wood died. I read it, it made me sad, it made me feel really bad for his fiance and his band. And then those feelings tucked themselves away in the back of my brain...I don't know how long they were back there. I just know I went shopping at Hastings for some new music, and their album was on clearance and their name caught my eye. I bought the cassette tape along with some others and took them home. I put the tape in and pressed play. Some albums take years to move you, some you hear once and you just know. The first time I listened to this album, it became part of me, it entered my veins and started circulating along with my blood. It's still in me, and I know it always will be. I can't even explain what makes me love this album so much. The lyrics are fucking beautiful, some of them tragically so. The music matches the lyrics so well. Each song is an individual story, and yet they fit together to create a story larger than the sum of their parts. Is that not what every album aspires to? Two of the members of Mother Love Bone went on to form Pearl Jam.
13. Kind of Blue- Miles Davis
Jazz oh how I love thee! And Miles Davis tells stories with his trumpet, words not needed. You feel these stories as they articulate themselves in your very being. But they don't articulate with words, they do it with guts and beauty and soul...it's a groove, a heartbeat it has a chaotic structure that is oh so easy to get lost in.
14. Thriller- Michael Jackson
Say what you will about his "off camera activities" the man had musical talent! And he could dance like he sold his soul to learn it! Thriller made everyone, myself included sit up, take notice and start dancing! Thriller is an amazing song, with an amazing video...innovative. Yeah...innovative, perfect word for this album! It will always hold a special place in my heart.
15. The Doors- The Doors
While Bob Dylan introduced me to the idea of poetry and music becoming one, Jim Morrison showed me how to make it raw, make it sex...make it rock n' roll! I've always thought it was odd that I love The Doors as much as I do, they didn't have a bass player...I'm the bass boost queen! My bass needs to go more than one higher! I honestly think my love of The Doors is all about Jim Morrison, his chaotic lyrics, his wild performance, he was fucking captivating! I could not walk away, and that was just the album...seeing him perform was another level and then some! The Doors helped me with my wild rebellion stage, a lot. They fueled the fire at the time, and then they soothed the painful but necessary hindsight examination of my rebel years. It's funny how an album can mean one thing to you and then a few years later mean something else entirely. I feel like this album grew up with me, which is ridiculous because it was released in 1967 and I was released in 1975. I guess the more accurate statement would be I grew up and as I did I peeled away the outer, obvious layers of this album until I hit the guts and soul of it.
I will admit I cheated slightly on this...I took longer than 15 mins. A lot longer than 15 mins. ;) 1. Axis Bold as Love- Jimi Hendrix
The things that man did to a guitar were almost obscene in their beauty and innovation. The world was clearly not ready for him...which is why we didn't get him for very long. That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it! ;)
2. Led Zepplin IV, ZoSo whatever you want to call this one- Led Zepplin
This album taught me that even the hardest of the hard rockers can be acoustic and beautiful. And for the record my favourite song on this album is Goin' to California NOT Stairway to Heaven! And Jimmy Paige...I think he may have sold his soul to the Devil to be able to make those sounds come from a guitar, well and he bought a violin bow. ;)
3. News of the World- Queen
This album...oh my god it starts at 10 and goes more than one higher! This WALL of sound from the start of We Will Rock You to the end of Sheer Heart Attack and then is slows down for All Dead, All Dead and Spread Your Wings and then the other side of that WALL hits you and goes again for just two songs Fight from the Inside and Get Down Make Love and then slows down again. This album is such a fuckin' prick tease! And then It's Late starts out nice and slow... and then the Brian May guitar and the Roger Taylor drums HIT YOU IN THE CHEST! And this song spends about 6 minutes kicking you and then slowing down and then kicking you and slowing down until you can barely breathe anymore! And it ends with a total torch song ballad that leaves you panting on the floor thanking the rock gods for finally showing you some mercy!
4. Open Up and Say Ahh- Poison
This is not Poison's best album musically speaking...I don't think they hit that until their next one Flesh and Blood. This album is of personal importance to me because the first time I heard this album...music stopped being about boys and school dances and became about one thing...SEX! This album came out in May of 1988, I was in seventh grade, talk about a fucking awakening...pun intended.
5. Hysteria- Def Leppard
I know that this album came out the year before Poison's Open Up... but, I didn't discover it until after. If Poison introduced me to the sex of sex, drugs and rock n' roll...then Def Lep made bloody damn sure I stayed a captive audience!
6. Blonde on Blonde- Bob Dylan
a bit of a departure from the albums above, I know. Bob Dylan taught me that there was room for poetry in music. A lesson I needed so badly at the time. Disenfranchised youth and all that. I already wanted to be the biggest rock star on the planet by the time Def Lep was done with me, but I had a little problem. I didn't write the sex part of rock n' roll...I tried oh how I tried. I think the problem was that I was bombarded by all this heterosexual imagery...and my gay brain didn't know what the hell to do with it. Enter the original rock/folk poet...and suddenly there was a light at the end of the tunnel and I was fairly certain this time it wasn't from an oncoming train. Blonde on Blonde was the first Dylan album I ever heard.
7. The White Album- The Beatles (Yes, I know the album is technically called The Beatles but who calls it that?!)
According to my family I have loved the Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney, since before I could walk. How many people my age do you know who can tell you exactly where they were when they found out John Lennon had been killed? I'm going to go with not a lot...I was only 5 when it happened. As children are wont to do, I prefered the Beatles poppier early releases, songs I could bop to as I learned to walk, easy words and tunes my toddler/child's brain could process and remember. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with adults loving the early poppy stuff, but I was destined to move on. When looking through my father's record collection, I routinely skipped over the boring white cover that was not easy to read. It didn't seem interesting enough, bright enough and there was no picture. I'm certain that for years I didn't even realize it was a Beatles album. But then the overthinking years called teenage hit me, and the simplicity of that cover made me think that perhaps one had to peel past the layer of the plain white to get to the good stuff. So I did...and I was rewarded with the amazingness that is the Beatles White Album. It was quirky, it was musically beautiful, it was a little multiple personality, it was experimental...a word I was starting to love more and more as the days went on. It fit with me at the time, it spoke to me on a level music had not spoken to me a lot yet...an level of intelligence. Never judge a book or an album, as the case may be, by its cover, you never know what you're going to skip right by!
8. Pearl- Janis Joplin
If Poison and Def Lep taught me about sex...Janis taught me that women could do it just as well, if not better, than the guys! She made me want to just let loose and wail my soul's song. And while the blues were most definitely in her, she also had a soft side. Me and Bobby McGee very bluesy but so sweet and pretty underneath, easy to miss if you aren't listening. But I was. This album is as much a part of my childhood as the Beatles were. One came from my father and one came from my mother...but they are equally important to me.
9. Too Fast For Love- Motley Crue
So far we've covered the sex part of sex, drugs and rock n' roll and I think the rock n' roll has been covered as well, kind of the point of all this. Motley Crue brought the drugs to the party. Figuratively not litterally! Trust me when I say I found the actual drugs all by myself. Motley Crue turned music into a drug, an addiction for me. An addiction that is still raging, I might add. The first time I heard On With the Show, I got the chills. It spoke to me on a gut level. The music gave me the chills, the lyrics gave me ideas! I have always been able to see Frankie's story in my head, I mean there are visuals. Frankie would be one of the characters in the song, though as an adult I sometimes wonder if he is more like an autobiographical character. Anyway...this song was never released as a single, there was never a video for it on MTV. In that four minute song, his entire life was so vidly portrayed, I could just see it. There have been many times over the years that I have tried to write the story...I can't seem to get it right. I think this is just destined to be all visuals in my head. The funny thing is...every now and then, I have to try to write it anyway. I know it's not mine to write, also why I think it's only worked as a visual. This album was Crue's first release, and to be honest it is the most raw/ real sounding because it was not perfectly mixed. And yes...I own all of their releases. Some of them I even own on vinyl as well as CD...bloody hell I think I might be getting old!
10. Jagged Little Pill- Alanis Morissette
Okay, I know cliche much?! I get that, I really do. I almost didn't put it on this list because it is so cliche. The first many times I heard this album...I hated it! I mean really hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it! My mom and my younger sister could have it...not interested. I was going to go down to my room and mourn the death of hair metal. I wanted nothing to do with these "angry chicks" all over the radio and MTV! Oh so set in my ways, so never going to change, viva la hair metal! We were living in a small town, with small radio stations...as in you got the top 40 whether or not you wanted it...unless you were into Country! And slowly but surely Alanis Morissette seeped into my brain, my heart and finally my soul. Oh my god...she's in my head, she knows how I feel, she gets it. And like most 20 year olds who don't want people to tell them things about themselves...the truth...I resisted as long as I could before I fell head over heels for this record and all of the ones she has released since!
11. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols- The Sex Pistols
This album helped me reach the sick and twisted and dead but never gone parts of myself. It's British punk not quite at its finest...but it tried! It's raw, lazy, fuck the whole bloody world rebellion...it reached out to that better than any other album I had heard at the time! It doesn't make you think, I think there's a grand total of 4 chrods used for the entire album...but it's blood and guts and anger and dissociation from the establishment...all of the establishment, why differenciate when you can fucking hate it all! What are you rebelling against...what've you got?
12. Stardog Champion- Mother Love Bone
I didn't set out to discover this band, I've never heard them played on the radio, I don't think they made more than one video for MTV, there was never another album. As the album was being mixed, their lead singer overdosed on heroin, and unfortunately he died. His name was Andrew Wood. I read an article about Mother Love Bone in RIP magazine. It was written after Andrew Wood died. I read it, it made me sad, it made me feel really bad for his fiance and his band. And then those feelings tucked themselves away in the back of my brain...I don't know how long they were back there. I just know I went shopping at Hastings for some new music, and their album was on clearance and their name caught my eye. I bought the cassette tape along with some others and took them home. I put the tape in and pressed play. Some albums take years to move you, some you hear once and you just know. The first time I listened to this album, it became part of me, it entered my veins and started circulating along with my blood. It's still in me, and I know it always will be. I can't even explain what makes me love this album so much. The lyrics are fucking beautiful, some of them tragically so. The music matches the lyrics so well. Each song is an individual story, and yet they fit together to create a story larger than the sum of their parts. Is that not what every album aspires to? Two of the members of Mother Love Bone went on to form Pearl Jam.
13. Kind of Blue- Miles Davis
Jazz oh how I love thee! And Miles Davis tells stories with his trumpet, words not needed. You feel these stories as they articulate themselves in your very being. But they don't articulate with words, they do it with guts and beauty and soul...it's a groove, a heartbeat it has a chaotic structure that is oh so easy to get lost in.
14. Thriller- Michael Jackson
Say what you will about his "off camera activities" the man had musical talent! And he could dance like he sold his soul to learn it! Thriller made everyone, myself included sit up, take notice and start dancing! Thriller is an amazing song, with an amazing video...innovative. Yeah...innovative, perfect word for this album! It will always hold a special place in my heart.
15. The Doors- The Doors
While Bob Dylan introduced me to the idea of poetry and music becoming one, Jim Morrison showed me how to make it raw, make it sex...make it rock n' roll! I've always thought it was odd that I love The Doors as much as I do, they didn't have a bass player...I'm the bass boost queen! My bass needs to go more than one higher! I honestly think my love of The Doors is all about Jim Morrison, his chaotic lyrics, his wild performance, he was fucking captivating! I could not walk away, and that was just the album...seeing him perform was another level and then some! The Doors helped me with my wild rebellion stage, a lot. They fueled the fire at the time, and then they soothed the painful but necessary hindsight examination of my rebel years. It's funny how an album can mean one thing to you and then a few years later mean something else entirely. I feel like this album grew up with me, which is ridiculous because it was released in 1967 and I was released in 1975. I guess the more accurate statement would be I grew up and as I did I peeled away the outer, obvious layers of this album until I hit the guts and soul of it.