So I’m giving this a try. I am posting to my blog remotely from my Android phone. Pretty damned cool, although also pretty tedious. No comparison to a real computer.
I just hate it when the level of something’s hilarity matches the level of its cruelty. I could see myself doing this, but I’d feel bad afterward. 
This one was originally on Facebook. Thought I’d share it here too, just to get the content going.
Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag 15 others, including moi. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you’re it!”
Now, I have one preamble to all of this in that I’ll say that I didn’t start listening to full on ALBUMS until much later in my life. I lived off of top 40 radio pretty much until I got into high school. So there’s so very many songs that defined me in my youth, but the albums came much later.
That, and I don’t have 15 friends who I thought would want to participate. So, I only tagged you if I thought you might appreciate. If not, carry on.
1. Def Leppard – Hysteria. This album WAS 1987. Every song released from this album became a favourite of mine, and still is today. It was the second CD I ever bought with my own cash, after I raised the 20 bucks necessary having spent every last dime I owned on a CD player, something I was convinced was the newest and most awesome invention known to man at that time.
2. Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon. This is THE first CD I owned (still plays great). I would listen to this album nonstop, at least once a day, all through grade 10. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of Pink Floyd in general. In the interest of not having this become a Floyd list, I’m going to lump The Wall, The Final Cut, Atom Heart Mother, Animals, and Wish You Were Here right here under Dark Side Of The Moon. All of them were sheer awesomeness in sonic form for me… for the same Pink Floyd flavoured reasons.
3. Indigo Girls – Indigo Girls. And, while I’m here, let’s lump Strange Fire, Nomads Indians Saints, Rites Of Passage, and Swamp Ophelia in under this category. I completely forget when the first time I heard an Indigo Girls song was, or what the circumstances were, but they came into my life at the same point i developed a love for playing guitar, and I hungrily devoured everything I could, learning to play whatever they put out, even though I couldn’t sing it to save my life. I loved the lyrics, and I loved the harmonies and they made me love my six string.
4. Sarah McLachlan – Fumbling Toward Ecstasy. This album was my introduction to Sarah’s work (although truthfully ‘Vox’ was one of those single songs I mentioned before – retroactively discovered the self titled debut album later and loved it). The album came at roughly the point of the dissolution of a long term relationship, and Sarah sang me though it. Lots of tears, lots of love. The tour for this album was the first full-out concert I saw. Up until then, I was too anxious to go anywhere like a concert, but I loved Sarah so much back then that I braved all my fears for her, and came out better. It never occurred to me before now just how much I owe her a debt of thanks for this album.
5. Survivor – Vital Signs. This might have been the first time I started listening to albums in their entirety. I bought this *tape* of all things because of one song, “The Search Is Over” which was my first ‘dedication song’ in that for my first girlfriend and I, it was “our song”. I was pretty amazed to find out the rest of the album not only contained other tracks I knew but wasn’t aware until then Survivor did, but was pretty good album overall.
6. Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis? I think this is yet another “lump” category, as I’d put Crime of the Century, Famous Last Words, and Breakfast In America under here too, but Crisis… was my fav. It plays a little like a rock opera, and Sister Moonshine is one of the awesomest songs ever. I first heard this album walking around in Natural Sound dreaming of the day where I’d be able to afford an awesome stereo, and they had it on. I think I stayed in the store for the full length of the album, asked the sales dude which one it was, and rented it, copied it and loved it. It was years later that Suz gave me a CD. Still listen to this one lots… but it’s been too long.
7. Boston – Boston. Pure 70′s rock and roll firepower. This album is a ride front to back with nary a throw away. One of my favourite things in the world to do on a summer day is roll down all the windows, open the sunroof and cruise the back roads of Southern Ontario singing at the top of my lungs. It is divine.
8. Melissa Etheridge – Melissa Etheridge. I was one of the fortunate ones who loved Melissa from the get-go. I bought this CD on a whim, and it was so raw and so awesome that I couldn’t get enough of it. To this day, this album stands as one of the best debuts I’ve ever heard, and I have been happy to listen to anything she’s put out since. Melissa’s husky, passionate voice is one I can listen to whenever I need to scream and feel better.
9. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV. Nuff said.
10. Enigma – MCMLXV. This was my introduction into Electronica as a genre. My friend Jake listened to this, and I found myself completely drawn in. There was something primal about the beats. Many was the time I was driving, listening to Mea Culpa and realized I was speeding quite a lot. This album can go around and around and around and I just never get tired of it.
11. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours. Although it was years after I knew the songs that I bought the album, I think that this album’s contents were so pervasive on top 40 radio in the late 70′s that I heard the whole thing sitting in the back seat of my dad’s Dodge Dart Swinger on long summer drives. Dreams is still a song that grabs me in ways I can’t even describe, and Songbird remains one of few songs that coke me up every time.
12. Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell. I was recently reminded of the overblown, silly awesomeness that is anything written by Jim Steinman. But this album was both pervasive and had something about it that reached in and just took you. It’s been forever since this was released, and it is so kitschy and self-aggrandizing and just plain goofy that it should have died on the vine or gotten old and forgotten ages ago. Meat loaf and Debbie Boone should have been tossed into the same garage sale 5-cent record heap. And yet every time that honky-tonk piano plays the first few bars of the title track, I’m hooked for the whole album, listening and singing with a stupid-assed smile on my face. This one’s better than any hit of anti-depressant could ever be.
13. Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs. I don’t know what it is about Ben Folds. Maybe it’s the sheer concentration of talent that makes him vibrate at some sort of music-god frequency, or maybe the sad, melancholy lyrics that sound happy even though you swear he’s cutting his wrists and writing with the blood, or maybe it’s just his overall goofiness that makes him completely lovable in a nerdy way, but this album is still one of my very favourites. Everything on it made me want more, and damn if he doesn’t keep delivering. I love singing along with Ben. Makes me feel normal, somehow. I dunno.
14. Leonard Cohen – More Best Of. I came late into the Cohen fold. I actually remember the day. I was on a bike ride of all things, listening to my first MP3 player, a big, brick-like thing that was as unreliable as stink and on came “Suzanne”. I listened… really listened that time, and the poetry hit me. I got a taste and wanted more and more until I had me a love for Cohen that rivaled anything else. The man cannot sing, but it somehow doesn’t matter at all. It’s all in the voice, and in the poetry. It is holy. This best of album was the first i owned, and it went round and round until my world was a whiskey-and-cigarettes drenched, bohemian gnostic wonderland.
15. The Wyrd Sisters – Sin And Other Salvations. I gotta admit, after Swamp Ophelia, the Indigo Girls and I had a falling out, and damned if i didn’t miss them. The Wyrd Sisters came along with this album and filed my heart with everything I’d been missing. This album also came at a time where I was missing Suzanne as she was gone for the summer, and it sot of defined that summer. It made me feel happy and sad, holy and human. It made me hurt so good. Unfortunately, this was it. I got the next album, Wholly, and it was a steaming pile. I don’t know what th earlier works sound like. This album though, is a slice of Teh Awesome.
Dang, when I started this, I thought I’d have trouble finishing, but I could go on. I haven’t even mentioned Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Doobie Brothers… man. But, I guess you gotta stop someplace.
Now, I’m going to go and find some of these albums and listen again. I have been away too long. Damned MP3s and their ADHD invoking listening practices. If there’s one thing to be said for albums, tapes and CDs. You put ‘em in, and you listened front to back. That was no bad thing, and it’s a shame it got lost.
Chao!