Feb 24, 2009

20 Albums

This meme has been all over the blogosphere the past few days, and I'm nothing if not a follower. So here goes.

Think of 20 albums, CDs, LPs (if you’re over 40), 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 (yeah, not doing that), including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill.

Besides the first album on the list, I'm not sure that any of these had any real affect on my life. But I started to listen to Jimmy Buffett at age 10, and becoming a Parrothead really did change my life. It affected my attitude, my choice of clothing and it's the only reason that I discovered my favorite place on Earth in Key West. The rest of them are important because of a time and a place, but not really sure of any "profound" effect they had on my life. And this is NOT a list of my favorite 20 albums of all-time. That would be a much more difficult list to come up with.

  1. Jimmy Buffett - Son Of Son Of A Sailor
  2. The Who - Quadrophenia
  3. Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
  4. John Cougar (pre-Mellencamp) - Nothin' Matters And What If It Did
  5. Little Feat - Waiting For Columbus (Live)
  6. The Pretenders - The Pretenders
  7. Blondie - Parallel Lines
  8. Pink Floyd - The Wall
  9. The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
  10. Sonic Youth - Goo
  11. The Pixies - Doolittle
  12. The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me
  13. Sub Pop 200 - compilation album (Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Green River, Screaming Trees, Steven J. Bernstein, etc...)
  14. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - More Noise And Other Disturbances
  15. Shonen Knife - Let's Knife
  16. PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me
  17. Sleater-Kinney - All Hands On The Bad One
  18. Cake - Fashion Nugget
  19. Sublime - 40 Oz. To Freedom
  20. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America

Howsabout you?

Here's a little video for ya to round things off. Sublime with "Badfish" - Enjoy!



Badfish - Sublime
When you grab a hold of me
Tell me that I'll never be set free
But I'm a parasite
Creep and crawl I step into the night.
Two pints of booze
Tell me are you a badfish too? Are you a badfish too?
Ain't got no money to spend
I hope the night will never end
Lord knows I'm weak
Won't somebody get me off of this reef

Baby your a big blue whale
Grab the reef when all duck diving fails
I swim but I wish I've never learned
The water's too polluted with germs
I dive deep when it's ten feet overhead
Grab the reef underneath my bed
It's underneath my bed
Ain't got no quarrels with God
Ain't got no time to grow old
Lord knows I'm weak
Won't somebody get me off of this reef

Ain't got no quarrels with God. Ain't got no time to get old
Lord knows I'm weak
Won't somebody get me off of this reef

______________________________________________________

Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. All the bad fish are doing it.

24 comments:

Avitable said...

A few of your albums are ones that I considered, too. Mainly The Cure, Bosstones, Cake, and PJ Harvey.

Verdant Earl said...

Avitable - maybe our musical tastes aren't so different after all. Still doesn't mean that I didn't consider Cyndi Lauper, Madonna or Weird Al at all. ;)

RW said...

Really, twenty? I'm not sure that many have had that big an impact on me. Beyond Sandinista and Get Happy! I can't think of much that blew me into another mode of transport.

Verdant Earl said...

RW - Dammit! I knew I forgot The Clash! Crap! Yeah, I agree. None of these really changed my life, per se. I was just stuck doing a meme, ya know.

Michelle said...

The Hold Steady and Cake!!!

Well i want Cake now!!! Does that count!???

Happy Tuesday!!!

Heff said...

I'll give ya The Who and Pink Floyd. I haven't even heard the rest of that stuff, lol.

Slyde said...

i think i was into Sublime before you were... so there.

Dr Zibbs said...

Not to top Slyde but I was in Sublime.

And my Dad is God.

Verdant Earl said...

Michelle - of course it counts.

Heff - There would probably be some stuff on your list I wouldn't know either. ;)

Slyde - If you were it would be a miracle. I mean, you liking good music would be the miracle.

Zibbs - Jesus Zibbs has a nice ring to it.

savannah said...

i'd have to think about that, sugar, but i can tell you for sure, most of them would be jazz with just a dash of rock&roll, alternative, punk...

xox

Candy's daily Dandy said...

I suck at music.
But I loved Little Feat, "Dixie Chicken".

Mrs. Hall said...

the whole theme of these albums, well, it would be very similiar to mine if i wrote this meme out.


ya know, I'm kind of proud of that. After all, you are out east, all new york and such. I am from a smaller place, yet still I found this music, FOUND IT BY MY OWN volition.

kind of makes me proud of myself :)

because after all, this music here, on the meme, is awesome.

:)

Verdant Earl said...

Savannah - I always wanted to get into jazz, but it never took. Yet. One day. Maybe.

Candy - My personal favorites are "Old Folk's Boogie" and "Fat Man in the Bathtub". I can relate to both. Sigh.

Holly - yeah, I can tell that you and I would have similar lists. Just from the stuff you post on your blog. Most of the stuff on my list was pretty popular nationally though. I didn't really go for any of the obscure stuff in my collection. Like I said to RW on his blog, popular music is popular for a reason. It's usually pretty good.

hello haha narf said...

mmmmmmmmmm, seamus. he shall be performing yet again in the burgh in june. you and the mrs. should come down to play. we have a few greyhound type buses so we can lug our coolers and chairs and stuff for the tailgate. plus i am friends with a buffett impersonator who sets up and performs in front of one of the buses. GREAT time. oh! and a preconcert pool party the night before. june 23rd, i think. (as usual, a tuesday.)

hello haha narf said...

oh...and, ummmmmm...good list. sorry jimmy sidetracked me.

Verdant Earl said...

Becky - never heard anyone call Jimmy by Seamus before. I dig it! AS for the concert...you never can tell. ;)

Bruce Johnson said...

I actually thought about this scientifically, which is to say, I didn't look at your list before I made mine (not that it would have mattered)....this is what I came up with, and it is also on my blog with credit to you, of course!

1 Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles
2 Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
3 Countdown to Exctasy - Steely Dan
4 Chicago II - Chicago
5 Razamenaz - Nazerith
6 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
7 The Blue Brothers - The Blues Brothers
8 Sandinista - The Clash
9 Aja - Steely Dan
10 Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
11 Avalon - Roxy Music
12 The Tales of Hoffman - Jacques Offenback (with Beverly Sills - Soprano)
13 Beethoven's 9th Symphony - Ludwig von Beethoven (Performed by the Berlind Philharmonic with Herbert von Karijan)
14 Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin
15 Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin
16 The White Album - The Beatles
17 Yellow Submarine - The Beatles (Soundtrack - more George Martin than anything else)
18 American Beauty - Thomas Newman (Soundtrack)
19 The Road to Perdition - Thomas Newman (Soundtrack)
20 The Altogether - Orbital

Now I can go back and read yours.

Kate said...

Me me me! (in no particular order)
1. Dark Side of The Moon -PinkFloyd
2. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil!
3. Never Mind the Bullocks - Sex Pistols
4. Strange Days - Doors
5. Bob Marley & Wailers - That live album
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd - One More From the Road
7. My Aim Is True - Elvis Costello
8. White Light/White Heat - Lou Reed
9. The White Album - Beatles
10. Sg Pepper - Beatles
11. 4 Way Street -CSNY
12. Reggatta de Blanc - The Police
13. Sticky Fingers - Stones
14. Who's Next - The Who
15. The Harder They Come -Jimmy Cliff
16. Live In Cook county jail - BB King
17. okay, I gotta go..
18. Really, every Beatles record ever made
19. Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell
20. That band that wrote that song that goes "When I'm a walking I strut my stuff and I"m so strung out, I'm high as a kite I just might stop to check you out.." (drawing a blank)

Verdant Earl said...

Bruce - I feel bad that I left The Clash off of my list. And I liked "Dark Side" more than "The Wall", but I was reaaaallly into "The Wall" for a while. And that was what this was about.

Kate - #20 would be The Violent Femmes. Blister in the Sun. Elvis Costello could have been on my list too, but stupid me... ;)

marty mankins said...

Nice album list. Good to see some Pixies on there. And that Cure album from 1987 was great. And of course, The Who. Although Tommy worked more wonders for me than Quadrophenia did, even though i liked most of what The Who put out.

Verdant Earl said...

Marty - It's funny. There are Who fans who are on the Tommy side of the fence and Who fans on the Quad side. That seems to be the division. Everyone likes Who's Next though.

Kate said...

True Earl, re: The Who album preferences. I also like "Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy" (Boris the spider....)

Verdant Earl said...

Kate - "Meaty Beaty..." is their first compilation or Greatest Hits album. Boris was 1st on "A Quick One", I believe. Love that song!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I don't know how to copy and paste! Still, I hope you'll indulge/tolerate me! Here's my 20:

The Cars--"Heartbeat City"

John Denver--"Windsong"

James Newton Howard & Hans Zimmer--"The Dark Knight" (filmscore)

Henryk Gorecki--Symphony No. 3

Paul Simon--"Graceland"

ELO--"Time"

Ravi Shankar--"Chants of India"

Richard Strauss--"Also Sprach Zarathustra"

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan--Greatest Hits, Vol. 1

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan--Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

"No Quarter--Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded"

G.S Sachdev & Zakir Hussain--"Flights of Improvisation"

Bernard Herrman--"Psycho" (filmscore)

Ravi Shankar--"Three Ragas"

Ali Jihad Racy & Simon Shaheen--"Taqasim: Improvisation in Arab Music"

Jerry Goldsmith--"Basic Instinct" (filmscore)

James Newton Howard--"King Kong" (filmscore)

Elliot Goldenthal & Guns N' Roses--"Interview with the Vampire" (soundtrack)

James Newton Howard--"Unbreakable" (filmscore)

various artists from Zaire--"Super Guitar Soukous"