Music rambling
By aphrael (Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 12:37:39 AM EST) ( all tags)
Sitting in channel last night, r343l mentioned that she should talk to her roommate A and get his list of the top 100 albums of all time (A has a very ... strange ... sense of music; much of what he likes I find bizarre and inpenetrable). This got me wondering, what are the albums which have moved me the most? Not the ones that I love, or the ones that I think are technically the best or historically the most important or anything, but the ones which, the very first time I heard them, made me sit back and go 'wow'?
So here they are, in no particular order:
- Endtroducing, by DJ Shadow. When I was young, I listened to music for the poetry, for the way the music helped make the mood of the words come alive. This album taught me to love music.
- Joshua Tree, by U2. Hands down the best use of music to make the mood of lyrics come alive.
- The Mask and the Mirror, by Loreena McKennit. Ethereal and trancy celtic music, justthe thing to make the morning after surreal.
- MCMXC a.D, by Enigma. In retrospect, overlaying Gregorian Chant and dance tracks seems obvious, but at the time it was incredible.
- Graceland, by Paul Simon. I'd long been familiar with Simon and Garfunkel's work (they had been my favorite band in middle school), but this was something completely different.
- Urubamba, by Urubamba. The absolute height of Peruvian pan-pipe music.
- Pretaluz, by Waldemar Bastos. I ran into this Angolan expat when he opened for a really boring performance by Grupo Cultural Olodum; the power of his voice and the versatility of his instruments was amazing.
Buena Vista Social Club. An unbelievable album full of people making great music for the sheer joy of it.
- Cuban Hip-Hop All-Stars, vol. 1. The modern version of Buena Vista Social Club.
- O Brother, Where Art Thou. All my life I've hated country music; this loving exploration of the roots of country music suggested maybe I've been wrong.
- Nickel Creek, by Nickel Creek. I went to see these guys live, because they were touring with one of my favorite lyricists; against my will, I was mesmerized.
Some others might come to mind; this isn't exhaustive. But there's a line between stuff I really like ( Everyone Deserves Music), and stuff that completely revolutionized how I think about music; nothing else is coming to mind right now that falls into the latter category.
Full discussion: http://www.hulver.com/scoop/story/2008/2/15/03739/5947
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