The Influential 15: Music

One of the annoying things about Facebook recently is that I have received a barrage of notes by people filling out questionnaires in order to reveal facets of their deeper personality. This is an extension of the ever popular “25 random things” meme that became so widespread that even I put one together. Now it seems to have become more trivial and I can’t find any reason why I would care who some random person from the past first talked to this morning. I know this seems like a strange rant from someone who has spent the past four and a half years posting his entire life to the internet but I have two reasons why I feel my blog is superior: 1) All of these posts are lovingly hand crafted and are not dependent on questions someone else has devised and 2) After years of building a readership the thought of competition in a more readily accessible form frightens me.

Still, one of the latest notes I received caught my interest. It is to simply list the 15 most influential albums of your life. I liked that idea and have decided to expand it. All week I will be posting top 15 lists of the most influential albums, books, movies, television shows and cultural events of my life. Now note that I am talking influential here and not favorite or best. I will be listing a few things that I absolutely hate. This is a list of what changed my view for good or for bad.

Let’s start with the music list.

Men at Work “Cargo”: This is the first musical recording that I ever purchased with my own money. I bought the cassette at the Musicland inside the North Riverside Mall, for those of you who are intent on tracking every moment of my life. I would like to think that now that Colin Hay is this respected, indie artist that this showed my musical cred at an early age. More likely it is an indication that I liked the song Down Under a lot and wanted to get their new album on the hope that it would just contain 12 different versions of that song.

Nirvana “Nevermind”: All you need to know about me is that I had just turned eighteen when this album was released. The first time I heard the opening guitar riffs on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” the entire universe changed. I was never a hair band type of guy and could never understand what everyone saw in Bon Jovi or Poison. All I needed were to hear those first few seconds of intro and I knew that music had changed. Personally I still find Come As You Are to be the high point musically and from a video perspective. That song was the death of hair metal.

Sting “The Soul Cages”: It probably is odd for anyone who knows my musical tastes now to discover that a) this was the first CD I ever purchased and b) Sting was the first concert I ever attended. I wish it was because I was a huge Police fan but it was more that I was a fan of Sting’s rather whiny solo work. I’m listing this here because it is the first CD of what would become a massive collection and it really is the first step on a journey of a thousand miles.

Jeff Buckley “Grace”: What can I say? I found this album fascinating when I first heard it and anyone who was in college in the early 90s and didn’t think that Last Goodbye explained their life is lying through their teeth. After Jeff’s death (and all of the fame that he gained from it) makes it difficult to appreciate this album for what it was. Everyone paints it to be a glimpse of brilliance from someone who didn’t have a chance to fulfill his potential. I just like it for what it was when I first bought it: an album that you would listen to in the dark at two in the morning in order to see if it helped you to make sense out of life.

Spice Girls “Spice”: For the record, I do not and have never owned this album. But it really should be mentioned in the same sentence as Nevermind. While that album marked the end of hair metal the Spice Girls marked the death of grunge. Sure, we all held onto some hope after Kurt’s death that someone would pick up the mantel but the Spice Girls becoming huge was an indication that we had returned to the age of bubblegum pop. To be honest, I’m not sure if we have left it yet. And as much as I hate to admit it, my mood does brighten whenever I hear “Wannabe”.

Zachary Richard “Snake Bite Love”: I’m not entirely certain if this is the first Zydeco record I purchased or not. If it isn’t it was in the first group as I know I bought it while still in college. First off, if you ever want a starting point in learning the music of Louisiana Zachary Richard is a wonderful place to start. This disc is all sorts of brilliance and that is before you get to a song that consists entirely of singing the praises of crawfish. I’m listing it because it marks the start of my becoming incredibly fluent in a style of music that you never hear on the radio and that is something I think everyone should do at least once in their life.

Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”: It is going too far to say that this disc saved my life but it certainly kept me going during a time when things were really dark. There is just something about her voice that digs into my soul and on certain songs I really do get chills up my spine every time I hear them. It is an album by someone who was ready to give up on the music industry and decided to try to just once create the music that she believed in and not what someone sitting in an office thought was listener friendly. By being true to herself she had the biggest release of her career and gave me something to listen to during many a dark day stuck in a cubicle.

Uncle Tupelo “Anodyne”: The number of chances that I had to see Uncle Tupelo while I was in college and didn’t go astounds me. I really didn’t become a hard core music fan until well into my twenties and by then the band had broken up and I realized that the best music I have ever heard was being played three blocks from my dorm room and I didn’t go. For those less into the history, this is the band that resulted in the formation of Wilco and Son Volt and pretty much paved the way for much of the alternative country scene. This is their final album and is pure brilliance the entire way through. Why does this disc make the list? Because ever since I heard the song “Chickamauga” I have always contemplated the meaning of the lyric “Catch yourself in midair thinking your dreams can never be bought.”

Josh Rouse “Nashville”: For the life of me I am not sure exactly how I ended up buying this disc. At best I may have heard a song from it on the Americana music channel on my cable system. That is a really tenuous start for a trip to the music store to plop down some money on something you are not even sure you will like. But I don’t believe I have ever become a fan of anyone faster than I have of Josh Rouse. I can’t explain what is so wonderful about his music. It’s rather simple singer songwriter stuff but there is something about it that really speaks to me. And for some reason if I listen to his music good things tend to happen to me. He’s my good luck charm.

R.E.M. “Life’s Rich Pageant”: Like every other suburban kid R.E.M. was my entry point into the alternative scene. You really can’t diminish the importance of that; the fact that there was a world beyond Top 40 radio was mind blowing as a 17 year old. Of all their recordings I have to say that Life’s Rich Pageant is the one that best represents the group. There are lyrics that you can comprehend (or at least have words), jangly guitars that stood apart from the rest of the music scene, and one of my favorite songs of all time in “Fall on Me”. It really is the band at its pre-widespread popularity best.

Neko Case and Her Boyfriends “Furnace Room Lullaby”: This record got me into business school. Ok, that is not entirely correct. My GMAT score got me into grad school; this was what I listened to night after night while writing entrance essays. Even the music snob in me is happy that Neko has gained a real following after my first seeing her as one of maybe a hundred people in a bar. Her voice, which is best if heard in a smoky, slightly dingy club, really does sound like Patsy Cline after a tortured love affair. She has my favorite voice on the planet.

The Frames “Set List”: Tough to choose a Frames album that really works for this list so I will go for this one. When I first started listening to them in 2004 it was really difficult to get a sense of their back catalog and this live album was the best in introducing me to their music and give me a sense of just how powerful they were in concert. Given that they have become, in all of their various incarnations, my favorite band I just have to list them here.

Lyle Lovett “Joshua Judges Ruth”: This was the first disc that I purchased that would unequivocally be considered a country record. Lyle was always viewed to be a country act and slightly strange looking. But I was able to get over that hurdle of “Country = Horrible” and start myself on a journey into music that is much closer to my own tastes than I ever imagined. The talent of Lyle cannot be doubted either. This album contains one of the best lines written by any person in any medium, ever: “There is nothing as unwavering as a woman when she has already made up her mind.”

Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes”: Yes, I had to get one of the “Alternative Female” records on the list. The amount of music that I purchased in the 90’s by female singer songwriters was stunning. Some I still count amongst my favorites (Liz Phair), some haven’t aged as well (Sarah McLachlan) and some I really wonder just how drunk I was when I made the purchase (Paula Cole, I am looking in your direction). But much like Nirvana broke the mold so did Tori. No one was making music like this, or at least not that you ever saw on MTV. Imagine seeing Motley Crue’s ode to strip clubs “Girls, Girls, Girls” and then have it be followed up by a song like “Silent All These Years”. It marked a sea change in what music could (and really should) be.

Arcade Fire “Funeral”: There are a lot of discs I could put in this last spot. What I wanted to do was list a more recent one that made me stop what I was doing and go, “You’re not supposed to be able to do that.” Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree both fit the bill but I felt it better to acknowledge Arcade Fire because, seriously, no one should be able to make music like they do. It breaks so many rules but in the end you are mesmerized by it. I probably listened to Rebellion (Lies) a dozen times the first night I owned the disc. That is the sign of an influential album.

Tomorrow: My 15 most influential books. See you then.

Best of 120 Minutes: Since I mentioned it, here is the video for Come As You Are.

Nirvana MTV Music

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Air “The Virgin Suicides”
2) Mike Doughty “Haughty Melodic”
3) John Mayer “Any Given Sunday”
4) Bob Dylan “The Essential Bob Dylan”
5) Richard Buckner “S/T”