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Seminal Albums


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For me, there is often a time and place where albums became indelibly burned into my mind.  e.g.:

On my first trip to the South Jersey Shore with my buddy (age 17, I think - permissive parents) we went in my  '64 Valiant. I installed an 8-track player into the glove box. We listened to a the Allman Brothers Idlewild South,  Deodato's Also Sprach Zarathustra, some version of the Brandenburg Concertos, and Virgil Fox's Heavy Organ.

Also seminal was hearing the first Emerson Lake & Palmer's first album, Springsteen's the Young, the Wild, and the E Street Shuffle, and King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King in  basement of another buddy's house. Actually, it was his older brother's bedroom.  His brother also had 45s of Valley of the Jolly Green Giant and Freddie King's Hideaway. (The first concert I ever went to was ELP at the convention center in Wildwood NJ.  This is part of my affinity for the south Jersey Shore.)

In 7th grade music, we had Mr. Freaky Freeman - a long hair hippy.  We spent most of a semester analyzing the Moody Blues' On a Threshold of a Dream. 

What are the albums (or cassettes or CDs for you young punks 😀) burned into your mind?

 

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Bob Dylan -- The Freewheelin' Bod Dylan

Muddy Waters -- Folk Singer

Mothers of Invention -- Freak Out

Captain Beefheart and His Magic  Band -- Safe as Milk
Merle Haggard and the Strangers -- Swinging Doors

Booker T and the MGs -- Green Onions

Lefty Frizzell -- Saginaw, Michigan

Ry Cooder -- Into the Purple Valley

Taj Mahal -- Giant Step / De Old Folks at Home
Leon Russell -- Leon Russell
John Prine -- John Prine
Ramones - Ramones

Charles Mingus -- Mingus Ah Um

JJ Cale -- Naturally

Link Wray -- Link Wray
Doug Sahm -- Doug Sahm and Band

Willie Nelson -- Shotgun Willie

Tom Waits - The Bone Machine
John Zorn -- The Big Gundown


 

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Some Girls, Stranger in Town, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, Budokan, VH1 &2, Live Bootleg, Get Yer Ya Yas Out, Sticky Fingers, Night In The Ruts, FoGhat Live, MuddyWaters Hard Again.

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Deep Purple Machine Head

Alice Cooper Love it to Death

Montrose first album

Blue Oyster Cult first album 

Rush first album

Johnny Winter Captured Live  

Silverhead 16 and Savaged  

 

 

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KISS - Alive II

Rolling Stones - Some Girls

Cheap Trick - At Budokan

The Cars - The Cars

WIngs - Back to the Egg

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes

The Pretenders - The Pretenders

Crack The Sky - White Music

Van Halen - Fair Warning

Rush - Moving Pictures

King Crimson - Discipline

REM - Reckoning

The Cure - Head on the Door

Big Star - #1 Record/Radio City

Dillon Fence - Daylight

Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend

Lemonheads - It's a Shame About Ray

Gigolo Aunts - Flippin' Out

The Posies - Frosting on the Beater

Catherine Wheel - Happy Days

Ash - 1977

You Am I - Dress Me Slowly

 

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Dark Side of the Moon. Had already listened to all previous PF albums, but I knew this was a masterwork that would endure...and it did.

Disraeli Gears is another first-heard but not the first release by the band.

Be Bop Deluxe's Sunburst Finish

Secret Treaties Blue Oyster Cult)

Argus (Wishbone Ash), etc.

If by "seminal albums" you mean first albums for bands that were the first I heard (instead of the more personal first-album-I-heard-by-So-and-So-even-if-it-wasn't the first release), for me there would have been:

The Allman Brothers Band 

In the Court of the Crimson King 

Mott the Hoople 

Black Sabbath 

Aerosmith 

Stacked Deck (Amazing Rhythm Aces) 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Tubular Bells 

Vanilla Fudge 

Kick Out The Jams 

The Eagles

Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Alan Parsons Project) 

Runt (Todd Rundgren)  

Creedence Clearwater Revival

 ZZ TOP's First Album 

The Grateful Dead 

Yer Album (James Gang)

A good measure of to what extent certain albums "burned into your mind" is whether you purchased them later on more-modern audio formats. I originally heard all of the preceding albums on LP (and owned those LPs) and I now own most of them on CD.

Will try to think of others later; right now I'm too sleepy. Good night.

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Rolling Stones Rolled Gold

Rod Stewart Atlantic Crossing

Kiss Alive

The Ramones Sheena is a punk (vinyl single)

Motörhead No Sleep till Hammersmith

Earth Wind and Fire All N All

Lips Inc Funky Town 12 inch

Prince Sign o the Times

Funk compilation casette compiled by Jespers brother

Pretenders Pretenders 1st album

ACDC For Those About Rock

Burt Bacharach box set

Dr Dre The Chronic

 

And probably some others...

 

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15 hours ago, Travis said:

Seminal...?  Does metalica’s “load” count...?

 

CD863BB0-A48C-4564-A975-2A22BC66AEEF.jpeg

Damn, beat me to it. 😄

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Here's a few off the top of my head.  I'll be back to edit later with more and some comments.

AC/DC - Let There Be Rock

Cheap Trick - Budokan

Molly Hatchet - s/t

Blackfoot - Strikes

Ted Nugent - s/t

BTO - Not Fragile

Mother's Finest - Another Mother Further

Nazareth - Hair of the Dog

 

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I just discovered Frosting on the Beater by the Posies.  Fantastic power pop with depth.

I had been aware of the song Solar Sister because it was covered on what may be my all time favorite album - Houston we Have a Drinking Problem by Bad Astronaut. 

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"And now for something completely different:" [/Python] (no, not a man with three buttocks)

The day before spring break, 1985, I found and bought this album, quickly recorded it to cassette and it became the spring break soundtrack.  There were about twenty fraternity brothers in Daytona that week and the cassette was nearly worn out.  Brilliant.

Fatboyscover.jpg

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