Field Studies is totally underrated

Gotta do the kermit-the-frog arm wave for "Sung Tongs"

Loreena!

That Autechre record tho 🫪

+++ for Loreena

also goddamn do I still love Nick Drake

that's great, love the composition

Nina/Eno ftw

I initially dismissed From a Basement because it wasn’t as pretty sounding as his previous records, and I love pretty records, but I can appreciate what he was trying to do by moving away from that sound.

@y95 i similarly dismissed/didn't want to listen to it for a long time. i was working at a library around the time it came out, and i remember ripping the library's copy of the disc to my hard drive but not listening to it. i kept going "it's too ghoulish to listen to this, i need time."

one random day, "shooting star" came up on my ipod's shuffle mode and i went "what the hell is this? it's like the sound i've always wanted for my own music" and voila, my love affair with the album began.

i similarly always loved his beautiful, intricate songwork and his lilting early stuff, but there is something magical about how well he pivots into this grimy, psychedelic, noise-folk hybrid. really inspired me in the ensuing years. like you, i admire him for trying something different, for trying to move on.

Walk into the club…

I just realized that I picked 8 of 9 albums from high school years

@thelonius a person's core musical taste is basically locked in at 14-15 years old. A fact I find true (in observation, in self) and upsetting (ibid)

I'm super enjoying this, too. It's also super fun to see an album that was extremely formative for someone and go, ". . . I don't think I've even heard of it."

Re: dropping "formative artists that I just don't want to give the attention to anymore" was pretty key for me, as well. Pretty interesting to see what parts of myself got dropped along the way versus what music has a path forward towards who I am today. Almost want to make a second one just for the music left behind.

@thelonius I really wanted to pick some albums from my late 20s onward because I am still being made as a person but decided that made it too difficult.

@thelonius i feel that, and i nearly did the same! it's hard to find the happy medium between "formative years" and the true breadth of what you've taken in. i careened between "here's everything i loved in high school" and "here's what i loved last year" before making myself stick to the "before 22" criteria.

like @williwaw wonderfully said, "i am still being made as a person" and there's so much i'm coming to now that i never would have even grokked at the time.

and same, @williwaw so many albums that i honestly have NO frame of reference for; it kinda renews my faith in the idea that there will always be something new for me to discover down the road.

Yeah I had two from high school, 6 from college/shortly after college, and 1 from like a decade ago. Fascinating to see life broken into albums like this.

@wombatman70 it's a fun challenge to break everything down by the eras of your life. it brought to mind "high fidelity" where the main character is trying to reorganize his record collection "autobiographically"

I'm oddly not nostalgic for DCFC. I listened the hell out of those first four records, the band was one of my first big MP3 finds, but they've kind of diminished in stature to the rest of my favorite music over time.

God, that Rainer Maria record was the soundtrack to my time in Colorado Springs when one of my favorite forms of entertainment was Need For Speed Porsche Unlimited. I'd put on a record and appreciate the handling differences between a 356 and a 911. Still one of my all time favorite forms of recreation, up there with riding bikes around town after school and psychedelic beach walks.

I've been resisting this, but what/where is the url out of interest?

@poorusher the URL to generate the nine albums? it seems like there are a few, but i used:
https://my9albums.org

@y95 rainer maria were a real block of time for me, from this album on through the next five years or so (i tried to add their 1999 "atlantic" EP for my grid but sadly it was not in the database they used)

There's some beautiful music in there.

Controversial pick with Batman. I love it!

there's something kind of magical about TMBG in just about every era of their work. when i first heard them (in the "flood" era) i kinda mistook them for a comedy band of some kind, but they quickly sucked me in with the weird magic of their songwriting. it's kooky, it's goofy, but... it's also genuine?

All Things Must Pass remains an all-timer.

oh man I should have picked ATMP

FINALLY some love for TMBG appears in the thread

kind of surprised it took this long

in my (band) friend group, we went through an intense QOTSA phase, and i'm pretty sure we all covered songs from that first album and "rated r". good shit.

@nikkuneko Very good, I am apparently still in that phase to this day.

The Hip!

@jfaster i gotta rejoin you in that phase; i feel like i've missed so much stuff from the post-olivera phase! time to catch up!

@jpoulos Gord forever

@jfaster 🙏

i was just discussing the complete magic of the romeo+juliet soundtrack the other day. it holds up!

tbh soundtracks to musicals is another formative experience I'd totally forgotten about. The Rogers & Hart songbook is not to be trifled with.

@ardgedee Sweeney. Todd. Full stop.

That Interpol album has some of the best basslines of the era. Just fantastic.

In me are two Scheherezades. Ozawa & Gurgiev + LSO

i pulled out "moon & antarctica" for the first time in many, many years last month and was surprised how much of it came right back to me.

Feel like that Interpol album make such a huge splash on arrival and then within five years everybody was burned out on it. It's still a monster album though.

And +++ on "Kind of Blue". I literally put it on and took it off my list three times before posting.

@ardgedee 100%. And several other jazz albums I basically wore out but somehow didn’t quite reach the “formative” bar for me to hit top 9, which in hindsight feels crazy. I always say that I listen to a lot of types of music but always “come home” to jazz… spent a LOT of time painting to Kind of Blue in undergrad specifically, though.

Townes Van Zandt is one of my favorite Pop Mythologies, just the character and the journey of an incredibly talented fuck up.

Just seeing the BVSC cover starts a party in my brain.

I forgot about Let It Bleed.

I have a 6 disc changer in my truck. In the entire time I've owned it (15+ years), I've never taken out those particular Led Zeppelin or AC/DC c.d.s.

ESSENTIAL

As a kid, I wore out my "Days of Future Passed" album, playing it over and over and over

Lots to love here.

Ooh, someone else with an OBD album!

Tuesday Morning is up there with Nanny in Manhattan, Underwater Love, Norther Sky, and Rhapsody in Blue as greatest songs in commercials for me.

*Tuesday Afternoon

@jazon @y95 I’ve officially worn out two. It was my test study album in uni.
@scruss And my favourite of all their albums

I almost added Robyn's to my list too. That was a tough one.

Love Khruangbin!

I had a very hard time leaving that NIN off of mine.

@homerj it is really difficult to narrow things down!
@sensorboy ❤️
@williwaw honestly I would've preferred to put Broken but it looks like there weren't any EPs selectable

Discipline is indispensable.

@MackReed I'm more of a Beat devotee, if I needed to choose.

@ba The "Discipline/Beat/Three of a Perfect Pair" trio of albums were very formative for me, but I had to pick just one ...

I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones around the time of that album and was just blown away by Victor Wooten’s bass playing. I had been playing bass long enough at that point to see the cast chasm of possibilities (and shortcomings) opening up before me as the show went on, just incredible.

i almost picked Beat, which I think I listened to every day for at least the summer that I was 15. But Discipline is iconic, and it also stands for "a bunch of other prog rock" here.

I had tickets to see him once, but was delayed for hours at the airport. I finally got home about midnight, and just went to bed - later I heard that he played until 2 am! I am the Bruce Lee of missing shows I guess.

ICYMI Beat tour is…happening…again…

Catch it at your nearest modest-capacity arena/venue!
https://beat-official.com/tour

I went a couple years ago and Steve Vai had 4 outfit changes throughout the show, a consummate showman and from what I can tell a total sweetheart.

@pete_k I've been seeing a lot of Beat vids on YouTube, was wondering what was up.

@pete_k I am going, in November! People online are saying that Terrry Bozzio is struggling, the first couple of shows of the tour, but I am unconcerned.

I'm glad to have you as a friend and so happy you're out and proud. Never apologize, never compromise.

I feel bad. I didn't know that was today. I would have worn my Haring T-Shirt!

28 years and counting!

@ellieBOA woo!!

This is the first one I've seen where I've actually owned all of the albums!

Also, if I were to do a 90s-only version (which would be very difficult in its own right), I'm quite sure "A Juvenile Product of the Working Class" would be on there.

Wow, this list is such a great representation of what my friend group were listening to in high school, did I know you?!

That Punk-O-Rama includes quite a few groups I listened the hell out of and then one day just. . . . never listened to them again.

* Carl Stalling is my favorite composer

@ufez In 1997, some friends and I drove down to Mpls from northern MN to see the Bosstones with Swingin' Utters opening. I bought "A Juvenile Product of the Working Class" the next day and they've been a favorite ever since.

@williwaw Maybe? Did you grow up in Bemidji in the late 90s? 😂

@bencmeissner Heh, I have a very similar story. 1997, saw them open for Social D in Tulsa.

Also saw the Bosstones that year, but it was at a small local festival.

Hendrix Blues!!

+3 for Carl Stalling

JELLYFISH

@drurystephanie seconded

also, Discipline 👍👍

Baxters!!! All time. It's a penninsula.

Title

Spilt Milk is in my Next 9

@0y3ahSansAcut3 that was perhaps hasty of me, but I wanted to recognize the time where I wanted Jack Casady to be World President

@y95 how the hell I did not discover this record until I was 40 something is a mystery. Supposedly RJM Jr. saw our band and liked it and maybe we could have opened some shows for Jellyfish, but it did not happen, and I never really listened to them until much later. I heard "All Is Forgiven" and was like, what? Is there a whole album like this? And no, there is not! That is pretty unlike the rest of the album, but I had no complaints.

@thelonius All Is Forgiven is an epic

So … Jandek?

This one needs cheeseballing, Stilgar.

*raises hand* I have a question

Best one

@williwaw just one? Excellent!

@dogwelder Yes, just one: Do I correctly infer from this that Joe Pesci's album "Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You" was not as a formative album for you as it was for many other people?

@williwaw, including that would have felt like saying "one thing I often do is have a heartbeat." If everyone has the same opinion about something, then it doesn't help define anyone.

This is a level of DILLIGAF to which we unworthies can only aspire.

🏆

winner

bill biv devane, "that boy is poisson"

Bravo

@dogwelder If the music you followed brought you to this, of what use was the music?

oh man, I only had "someone's in the kitchen," didn't know about "I've been thinking"

oh, damn, i really should have included some gillian welch in mine.

also, i LOVE "somethin' else". i had a live audio professor in college who would play jazz albums for us as part of his class, and that one was one of my favorites in ensuing years.

Went to add Time (The Revelator) from Gillian Welch but it wasn't there! You can't go wrong with any of her albums though. Yeah, Somethin' Else just has A MOOD.

Somethin' Else Hell Yeah!

i NEARLY put magical mystery tour on mine!

Gotta try the Ashcroft!

my favorite Beatles record

the title, but said in her olive oyl voice

he needs me

okay, mister - freeze

Oh, and for anyone hunting for that Avail show on streaming, it's generally not obvious, but you can find it as the bonus material from the reissue of "4AM Friday", starting on Track 16.

Our band has a music league and one of the songs posted on a recent round was from Gord Downie and the Sadie’s and I listened almost nothing but that whole album for the next 2 weeks.

Kick was a top five in my cassette era

I saw the Sadies live recently, and it inspired me to dig up that live album, man it still rips.

@jfaster Oh, awesome! I'm really glad they kept things going after Dallas passed.

And yeah, that show is really special. As far as I can tell it wasn't captured on video, which is a damn shame.