Domingo 2 Mar 2008, 15h:08

I'm going to list a few albums I think have either effected me or my taste in music drastically. It's surprising me that after going through the list, most of these albums aren't the most popular by the artists. With that said, exceptions will be made.

In alphabetical order by artist

Animal Collective - Feels
Feels is the kind of album that freaked me out the first time I listened to. It's probably the first album I listened to that wasn't considered Indie Pop, which is all I listened to. It prepared me for an entire style of music I would fall in love with in the future.
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
You honestly have never heard amazing songwriting until you've heard Highway 61. Every song is like a novel packed into however many minutes. Don't even get me started on Desolation Row, definitely one of the all-time best songs.
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
It may not be as intense as any of Pop's other albums, but I knew I was in love with it as soon as I heard Sister Midnight, and by Funtime, I was totally convinced
Clock Hands Strangle - Redshift/Blueshift
Clock Hands Strangle are pretty much unknown. The first few releases were just passed around to people who knew the band and weren't extremely impressive. I wasn't expecting anything different with Redshift/Blueshift. My God was I wrong, with some of the greatests songs I've ever heard packed into an album likely to go entirely unnoticed. You can listen to it all for free right here on last.fm, I HIGHLY recommend it.
Interpol - Turn on The Bright Lights
This album is so good, words can't describe it. I think on my old iTunes before I had last.fm, every song on this album had at least 100 listens, with NYC with an insanely high amount
Lou Reed - Transformer
Never before has mediocre song writing, average singing, and nothing special instrumentally come together to make an album beuatiful in its minimalism. Lou Reed and David Bowie are legends in my mind because of this, White Light, and of course The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Pink Floyd is probably my all-time favorite artist, despite what my charts say. Needless to say, it's tough to choose between a massive collection of albums. It always comes down to The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, or Piper at the Gates of Dawn, with honorable mention Animals. Piper wins every time, though. Syd Barrett was a freakin genius, and this is the climax of his career.
Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising
This album is almost ALWAYS over looked for more mainstream sounding albums like Daydream Nation, Goo, or Dirty. Don't get me wrong, those are all great albums. Well… except for maybe Dirty. It's so creepy dark, it can only be played at night. The entire album is a statement about the scum of America that's still noticeable 23 years later
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
Another album ignored just because it's different. And when I say different, White Light/White Heat is as different as it gets. We see that we can thank John Cale for that, because almost all screeching feedback is lost on the next album, The Velvet Underground, when John leaves