24 albums, with limited commentary
by xinit • 2/18/2009 • music • 0 Comments
I’m not doing 25 albums, mostly out of some lame attempt to fool myself that I’m not participating in a meme. I accidentally read someone else’s list and started thinking about what albums I could think of that really affected me in fundamental ways. The trouble really came in narrowing it down to pieces that meant something real, and that still have an effect on me.
There are so many other artists and albums that I could list; NIN’s “Ghosts”, Ministry’s “Psalm 69″, anything by Merzbow, The Beatles “White Album”, AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds”, D.O.A., Ripcordz, UK Subs or any number of other amazing punk bands, but they’re all really supporting players. I present them as I thought of them, as I could obsess about ranking them forever.
- Iron Maiden “Live After Death”
- Butthole Surfers “Locust Abortion Technician”
- Pink Floyd “The Wall”
- SNFU “Better Than a Stick In The Eye”
- Momus “Tender Pervert”
- Einstuerzende Neubauten “Perpetuum Mobile”
- Dayglo Abortions “Here Today, Guano Tomorrow”
- Wire “A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck”
- They Might Be Giants “Lincoln”
- Beastie Boys “Licensed to Ill”
- Dead Milkmen “Beelzebubba”
- Various Vancouver bands – “Last Call Compilation”
- Dead Kennedys “Frankenchrist”
- Pixies “Bossanova”
- Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention “We’re only in it for the money / Lumpy Gravy”
- Ramones “All The Stuff and More”
- Pogues “If I Should Fall From Grace With God
- Jayhawks “Tomorrow The Green Grass”
- Severed Heads “Come Visit The Big Bigot”
- Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet “Dim The Lights Chill The Ham”
- Syd Barrett “Barrett”
- Talking Heads “Naked”
- the smalls “To Each A Zone”
- XTC “Go 2″
#1 – Rarely left my cassette player in high school. What high school student doesn’t want to know why they have to be a powerslave?
#5 – Not so much the music as the ideas. Ideas are scary things.
#6 – The most recent album that I could say genuinely changed something for me. Crazy Germans.
#8 – Word salad songs like “Kidney Bingos” really emphasized that it wasn’t all just about the words, but sometimes the meter and rhyme mattered
#11 – No, I meant Bucky Fellini… no… I think that tracks ‘Punk Rock Girl’, ‘Bleach Boys’ and ‘Stuart’ make Beelzebubba a more solid influence.
#12 – I picked up Last Call the first time when I was in Red Deer, AB. I bought it up because it was a compilation loaded with bands from Vancouver, one or two I had heard of. I listened to those two CDs so much, that all these years later, I have the CD track list progression firmly in my head. Things don’t feel right if the songs don’t go from “I Don’t Love You” to “Nothing Holding You” to “I Don’t Give a Shit”…
One of the best musical moments I’ve had was attending the “Vancouver Complication” CD release party, and seeing The Dishrags perform “I Don’t Love You” live all those years later.
At some point in the moves between homes in Vancouver, I lost one of the CDs from this set, and Eddy Anarchy’s family was kind enough to offer me Eddy’s copy of Last Call at The Cobalt’s wake.
#13 – Wow. Holy fuck.
#14 – Not their most well received, but this was my intro to the Pixies. I managed to catch two of their appearances in Vancouver on their 21st century tours, and it was worth waiting for.
#18 – Showed me that a country twang wasn’t all bad, and opened my eyes up again to Johnny Cash and others I wouldn’t have been caught listening to previously
#19 – Showed me that not all electronic music had to suck.
#20 – Music without words? Crazy.
#21 – I had no idea who he was until years later when I was able to appreciate pre-The Wall Pink Floyd. I haven’t been able to get “Gigolo Aunt” and “Waving My Arms In The Air” out of my head since.
#23 – Other than hearing loss, this is the band that I most injured myself seeing live in Red Deer. Broke my nose; it still clicks. This is one of those few albums that I’ve bought at least twice due to loss or theft, and I’d buy it again if it went missing again.
