Top Ten Albums That Shaped My Music Taste

I got an idea that both Hannah and I could write about, so here it is! Hopefully her Ten will be up sometime in the next few days.


I think that more than any others, these ten albums were massively influential to my music taste. They're in the order that I heard them, as far as I can remember. Accompanying this post is a mix of ten songs, one from each of the albums, on 8tracks.com.

1. II - The Presidents of the United States of America
   I think that the first Presidents album may have been the first album I ever got that was actually intended for adults, not kids. The second one, though, is what made me a fan for life. Realizing that a band (rock stars! When you're six, everyone who can play a guitar is automatically a rock star) was singing about a mountain just south of my hometown ("Volcano")  blew my dumb little kid brain. I can guarantee that I didn't understand what half the lyrics meant - "Bath of Fire" and "Supermodel" were big examples of that - but I knew I loved them. The song on the mix is "Mach 5", which I believe is the reason that I own the full series of Speed Racer on DVD today.
   
2. Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? - Harvey Danger
   I probably spent two full years of my life wondering what the title of the song was that had "I'm not sick, but I'm not well" in its chorus. The internet was utterly beyond my comprehension, and somehow my father had forgotten seeing this band at Bumbershoot, so he was no help. Eventually I found the song title and band in the credits to American Pie, and got the album for Christmas. I listened to it so many times that I still get thrown off when my iPod is on shuffle and the songs don't follow the order on the album. I now own ever Harvey Danger EP & LP except their rarities album, and accidentally (no, really accidentally) found out where the lead singer lives. The song on the mix is "Old Hat", which is the one song that I always get confused about, even after listening to it for ten years.
   
3. Add It Up (1983-1993) - The Violent Femmes
   At some point in middle school, my father bought me four very eclectic albums: Thank You by Stone Temple Pilots, My Private Nation by Train, More Than You Think You Are by Matchbox Twenty, and this. I'm pretty sure it was the final order from Columbia House, or a sale or something. I pretty much thought that this album was the most twisted, raunchy, forbidden thing that rock and roll could accomplish (I'm pretty sure the Frank Zappa and Alice Cooper best-of albums that my dad also got me had the same effect). It's the only album of those four that I still listen to tracks off of at least once a day, and the only one of the four that I admit to liking in mixed company. The song on the mix is "36-24-26", which pretty much speaks for itself. This was the hardest song for me to pick, by far.
   
4. Comfort Eagle - Cake
   I believe that this album planted the seed in my head that trumpets in rock music are cool. I stand by that, and my love of swing revival and the Dusty 45s proves it. The song on the mix is "Shadow Stabbing", which has a line about a typewriter that I quite enjoy.
   
5. Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust Inc. - The Dead Kennedys
   Oh, punk rock. You and I have had a tumultuous relationship, but this is the album that started it. My love of the Dead Kennedys continues, but trying to branch out to a few other hardcore bands killed my love for the genre. Going to a DOA and MDC concert buried it for good. But in high school? This album was the best. Well, about half of it was the best, the other half was mediocre. Luckily, the album was really long, so that worked out. The song on the mix is "Bleed For Me", which made me feel like I knew way more about politics than I did.
   
6. Common Market - Common Market
   Yup, this is the first hip-hop album I ever got. I checked it out from the library. I have no regrets. From here I went to Blue Scholars, also from the library, to actually going to shows and buying my albums. Unlike the first three albums in the list, this one is the first that really diverged from my dad's taste in music. I suppose that at 16, I was a little late to that party. The song on the mix is "G'Dang Diggy", which is a silly name for a song.
   
7. Nuclear Winter - The Lonely Forest
   Have you ever gone to a show with ten other people, where you didn't know any of the bands, been convinced to stay by the lead singer of one of the bands, and ended up buying their album with the weekend? Then a few years later, after attending many shows and buying many more albums of theirs, seen that same band play only a few hundred feet away at an arena to hundreds and hundreds of people? John Van Deusen once gave me a hug for being at that first show. I love the Lonely Forest! The song on the mix is "Hangman", which I didn't know I liked until I re-listened to it today.
   
8. Singles 45's And Under - Squeeze
   This is the album that made me realize that I needed to steal a lot more music from my mother's CD collection. It also was when I realized that something called "New Wave" existed, and that it was the best thing ever. All the indie rock I like now sounds a lot like New Wave, so I think I can say with some confidence that I made the right call. From there I went on to Talking Heads, Devo, the English Beat, and all that other eighties stuff that wasn't hair metal, hip-hop, or punk. The song on the mix is "Black Coffee In Bed", which I used to always put on the jukebox at the diner, before they pulled that album.
   
9. Furr - Blitzen Trapper
   This one is a little bit contentious, because their earlier album Wild Mountain Nation probably deserves this spot. I think though, that if I hadn't gotten Furr, that I wouldn't have been pushed towards Americana and bluegrass music. Now, thanks to a friend's extended stint in the South, I have a healthy appreciation for country as well. This may be the first band that I started listening to because of the KEXP Song of the Day podcast, which will continue to be important for the next album on the list. The song on the mix is "Not Your Lover", which I believe is one of their more folk-y tunes (but honestly I forget the instrumentation a lot of the time and only remember the awesome).
   
10. Hold On Now, Youngster - Los Campesinos!
    This is the second album that I ever bought because of the KEXP podcast. Maybe, it may have been the other way around. The poster that came with the album is still on my wall, and its hit single still makes it into 4/5 mixes that I make. I really like their newer stuff, but haven't gotten around to buying it yet. I think that this album, along with Passion Pit, got me into electronica. LCD Soundsystem sealed the deal. Actually, it hasn't really gone beyond that, but I am open to the idea! This album is also partially responsible for my love of Wales and Welsh people and things, so that's something as well. The song on the mix is "My Year In Lists", which is really neat and kind of weird, just like all of their other songs.

My Favorite Vinyl LPs

It turns out that maintaining the kind of supply of new music necessary to write anything close to a relevant stream of reviews is pretty difficult, and thinking back that’s not really what this site was about anyways. It’s not about new stuff, it’s about good stuff. Sometimes those things interact, sometimes they don’t, and hence this article is a lot more focused on old stuff. I figured I should put this out there to free up some leeway for more content.

Both of us, off and on when we have the money, collect vinyl. I’m going to ask Hannah to write her perspective on this too, but these are some of my favorite LPs – for a variety of reasons. Maybe we’ll do 45s later, but really that would just be a list of all my 45s.

Little by Little – Harvey Danger

I picked up this album at the band’s last all-ages show ever, right before they broke up. I believe I got it signed by all the members, at least most of them. They originally released a free digital copy of the album when it first came out, which I downloaded. Buying it on vinyl directly from them made me feel better about not paying for it earlier, and I felt like it kind of made up for illegally downloading their out-of-print, impossible-to-find second album as well.

The music itself is great. It’s not their strongest album overall, but musically it’s definitely their most advanced. By this time they had fully moved out of the post-grunge scene where they started into the new indie sound: melodic, but with all the same vitriol of their earlier songs. As far as I can tell, “Happiness Writes White” is the only happy song that Harvey Danger ever put out, and “Wine, Women & Song” remains one of the best ballads of abject mediocrity I’ve yet to hear. “Diminishing Returns” and to a less extent “War Buddies” both echo the soft tones of their earlier “Problems and Bigger Ones” from their first album – a song which has the distinction of containing the saddest single line in the history of rock music, in my book: “There used to be a baby, but the baby went away”.

Altogether, this album comes in and leaves strong with all the same variety found on their other records, and the memories associated with it don’t hurt much either. Sean Nelson, the lead singer, is kind of a jerk in person though.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie

I bought this album for 99 cents to use the sleeve as a decoration for my cubicle, before I even had a turntable. It’s warped – probably why it was in the 99 cent bin, but I’ve figured out a way around that and now it’s easily my most listened-to album. I really don’t need to elaborate on the musical content of this one, but suffice to say that my favorite songs are “Five Years” and “Starman”, in that order, and that my choices are entirely based on their lyrical content. On the whole, fantastic.

Hold on Now, Youngster – Los Campesinos!

I’ve raved about Los Campesinos! before, so I won’t take too much time on it here. The important thing is that this album came with a poster and a second platter, which had a 45 rpm single track on one side and an engrave picture on the other. Very neat.

The Greatest Hits of ABBA, Volume 2 – ABBA

“Dancing Queen” is the first track, the only problem is that I don’t have Volume 1 and Volume 2 doesn’t have “Waterloo”. That is all.

In the Reins – Iron & Wine

Two things: “History of Lovers” is disturbing in the best kinds of ways, and this technically isn’t an LP. It’s an EP, but since it’s 12” and plays at 33 rpm, I’m going to count it. I realize now that I haven’t listened to it in a while, which I’ll probably remedy later this evening, but I do remember the intensity of my two favorite songs off of this album. Like I said before, History of Lovers is particularly disturbing, because it takes a very nonchalant approach to the idea of loving someone so much that you move past the point of wanting them to be happy with someone they love more, on to the point of killing that competitor. Granted, it’s implied that the murder could have been self-defense, but it’s also stated that the deceased is “one she found better than me”. In a similar genre, “Prison on Route 41” describes the extent to which the subject’s entire extended family has all ended up in the same prison for unstated reasons, and the affection for his lover and savior – “not Christ the Lord” – which has so far allowed him to stay his criminal urges.

Tallahassee – The Mountain Goats

This album is the story of a couple who, though they start out loving each other, eventually grow to the point where they are only staying together in order to watch the other drink themselves to death. This is a running storyline throughout the Mountain Goats’ music, with these two named the “Alpha couple”, as many of the songs about them prior to this album contained the word Alpha in their titles (on this album the only one is “Alpha Rats Nest”, which happens to be one of my favorites).

As one might be able to tell from what I wrote before about In the Reins, I am a huge fan of this whole album. In terms of intense storytelling through lyrics, any given Mountain Goats song – and especially those off of this album – would top History of Lovers any day. In particular, “No Children” repeats the refrain “I hope you die, I hope we both die”, one of the milder parts of its lyrics. All of this is performed with just a few instruments bordering on the lo-fi, based around John Darnielle’s guitar and vocals.

Making Movies – The Dire Straits

The first few months I spent collecting vinyl – and note that this includes the time before I had a record player – were spent looking for this record. It was only because I couldn’t find it that I ended up going to so many places and getting so many other things. The reason behind it is kind of complicated, and gives a pretty good picture of how my mind operates. In the book So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, by Douglas Adams, two characters listen to an unnamed Dire Straits record, which is described as having a particularly impressive track. Based on when the book was published, I went through their discography and determined that this was the album in question, and then downloaded it. After listening to it, I figured that the track in question was “Tunnel of Love”, and started searching for the LP. I later confirmed that my guesses (both the album and the track) were correct from an interview that Adams gave before his death.

This record is fairly short, but just about every song is great. While I’m not as much of a fan of “Les Boys”, it’s more than made up for by “Romeo and Juliet” or “Skateaway”. Any album which has a song about how if Romeo and Juliet had lived they would have just broken up anyways is a winner in my book. Also, a song about roller skating through traffic doesn’t hurt either.