Per my inquiry "blow your mind’ is meant in a completely serious and unironic context. Did a song or album ever have such emotional resonance for you upon first hearing that you felt your world shift slightly placing you at the brink of a new ephinany?
Kate Bush: The Dreaming
Jane Siberry: When I Was a Boy
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Geinoh Yamashirogumi: Akira OST
It’s not a “song” but the Chaconne from J-S Bach’s Partita for Violin No. 2 blows my mind every single time I hear it.
On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.
[RIGHT]Johannes Brahms[/RIGHT]
… yeah, that’s about right.
Listening to Motorhead’s Ace of Spades for the first time was greater than discovering Jesus Christ.
Wilco’s A Ghost is Born changed the shape of my world. I already owned Summerteeth and liked it well enough, but it was more of a pleasant diversion for me than anything else. When a A Ghost is Born was first released, they streamed it online for awhile. So I figured, “Hey, why not?” And I was just stunned. It’s still my favorite album above all other albums.
Neil Young “On The Beach”
Hawkwind “Warrior On The Edge Of Time”
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You were Here (cliche I know, but so true).
Iron Butterfly - Ina Gadda Davida
Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Fanfare for the Common Man
Transatlantic: Bridge Across Forever
Plenty of times. Maybe the biggest one was plunderphonic, by John Oswald. I was amazed by Dab [Bad] and Way [Blue Jay Way] in particular.
16 Lover’s Lane - The Go-Betweens.
All of my favorite albums are “blow my mind albums”,
As in - I resisted or ignored them until I finally gave in and gave them a chance. And then wow. Completely shifted my appreciation of music.
Here are my top five albums of all time:
The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
I really liked “Block Rockin’ Beats”, mostly due to a commercial, as I remember. I bought the album, listened to track 1 about 50 times, then ignored it for about two years. After discovering the internet, I saw the album listed among all sorts of “TOP X ALBUMS!!11” so I finally listened to it all the way through. Glorious. This album is probably why I love electronic music.
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
In what have must have been one of their first “editor’s choice” lists of the month, AllMusic gave props to The Avalanches. I found the disc at a local record store, shelved it for two months. One day, I was cooking dinner for my roommates and needed some background sound. I put it on. Holy God. This album is pure childhood distilled. Pure, sweet, summery. I love it so much.
Radiohead - OK Computer
I got really disillusioned with alt rock in the mid-late nineties. So I did my very best to ignore Radiohead. My friend begged me for two years (literally!) to give OK Computer a listen. I finally did, and Oh My God. I still can’t listen to Airbag without tearing up a bit; No Surprises still makes me weep. Such a good album.
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing
I resisted this one for like three years. Because it was “hip-hop” and “rap”. Then I finally caved and bought it. An absolutely stunning album. Shadow more or less broke my resistance to sampling hip-hop, rap, funk and soul. Backwards, I know. But now I love it.
The Prodigy - Fat of the Land
I’ll be the first to admit - this isn’t a great album. It’s good, but not great. It’s not even The Prodigy’s best album – Jilted and Experience are far better overall. But this was the first electronic album I ever heard (I was sixteen!) that made me sit up and say, “Holy Shit, I like this genre. I should explore it.”
I was maybe nine when the Beatles broke up. I was a fan, like virtually everyone else, but I had really only been exposed to their hits–anything that would have been played on the AM stations my parents (both dedicated nerds) would have listened to.
When I was in high school, maybe a freshman, a bunch of us were over my cousin Johnny"s house, and he played the White Album. I was…astounded. That was my first glimpse into the depth and breadth of the Beatles’ genius, my first glimpse into the astonishing body of work that both included and transcended the hits even my mom was familiar with.
I was a fan before that; after, I became a lifelong fanatic, hero worshipper, a certified Beatles freak who devoured and “studied” all things Beatles. It’s not overstatement to say the Beatles have been an enormous, enriching part of my life. And that event, listening to the White Album at my cousin Johnny’s, was the moment it truly started.
Yes, a song blew my mind - Breathe Me by Sia. Admittedly it was in the context of the finale of Six Feet Under but after watching that end sequence with that song I was an emotional wreck. I listened to it another time in bed, in the dark, letting my mind wander and ended up having a euphoric fantasy that still makes me shiver to think about.
I think it caught on and got played to death, which is sad, but I still love it.
Gotta agree with the White Album. I, of course, knew of the Beatles when I was 17-ish, but really only “I Want to Hold Your Hand” kinda stuff. I heard the White Album one night at a friend’s house, and it…changed…everything…
I quite literally have not been the same since. It was almost the exact point where I shed my “kid-ness” and started looking at the world in an adult way.
I’m sure the pot helped a little, too… 
You’ll probably hate this (which is fair enough), but I much prefer Four Tet’s remix of the same song.
Misplaced Childhood by Marillion. I was 15 or so when it came out and bought it on the strong recommendation of a sales clerk, despite having never heard of the album, or the band, before then. It opened my eyes (ears?) to music that was outside the mainstream and I’ve never looked back.
Oh yes,wasn’t the 1st Marillion album I heard but Script and Fugazi (and Misplaced) all left me in awe.
Queen’s Greatest Hits(the very 1st one) changed my life.
Warren Zevon’s I Was in the House When the House Burned Down and Nicole Atkin’s The Way it is are two songs that meant alot to me the 1st time I heard 'em.
I came in here to mention WILCO, namely “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
I have never heard a song where the instrumentation so perfectly mirrored the subject matter.
Also, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea” and “On Avery Island”. Both albums are front to back amazing, and timeless. No matter how much I listen to them, they refuse to get old. It’s an astounding accomplishment.