“Freewill” by Rush: I heard this song for the first time when I was 14 years old and just learning how to play the guitar. Up that point I don’t think I’d ever heard a song that used odd time signatures like that and so I was instantly fascinated by that aspect. Then the solo section started. Geddy Lee’s bass playing completely redefined my personal musical direction. By 14 I’d already learned the piano, clarinet, saxophone and bassoon, and was just starting out on guitar, trying to find what I wanted to do musically. At that point in time I don’t think I was even consciously aware of the bass guitar as a unique instrument - it was just another guitar. But I heard Geddy’s bass breakdown in Freewill, and it was like a light went on in my head and a big flashing sign announced, “Thou shalt play the bass.”
“Battle Hymns”, the debut album of metal band Manowar, when I was 17. Two things on that album: 1) bassist Joey DeMaio performing the William Tell Overture on 8-string bass; 2) vocalist Eric Adams - a voice powerful and precise enough to knock a satellite out of orbit, and a vocal range that would put many opera singers, male or female, to shame. Holy f’n sh*t!
I didn’t have another moment like that until I was in my mid-30s. By then my musical tastes had mellowed and broadened, and in 2001 or so I accidentally stumbled upon Japanese pop/rock singer “aiko”, who I’ve raved about here ad nauseum. Maybe it was just because of where I was in my life at the time, but I was completely blown away by the fact that, despite not understanding a word she was singing, I could feel every emotional nuance. “Kabutomushi” is still the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.
Songs: “Eiffel Tower High” by Husker Du, when I was 16. I’d listened to them before hearing that song, but the huge sound of it just floored me.
“Got To Gey You Into My Life” by The Beatles. Not really the Beatles song most people would pick as “mind-blowing”, but I first heard it as a kid, and up to that point I’d only ever heard the early “Love Me Do”/“She Loves You”/“I Want To Hold Your Hand” stuff, so it totally tripped me out that the same band could sound like this. Later, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “A Day in the Life” similarly blew my mind, but this was the first glimpse I had that they weren’t just a 4/4 rock band.
Albums:
R.E.M., Murmur - It’s hard to believe at this late date, but this album was totally revolutionary. Nothing else sounded like it, and, to me, nothing still does.
The Clash, The Clash - This was the album that got me out of metal and into punk. Still probably my favorite album ever, the only other possible contender being…
Gang Of Four, Entertainment! - One of the only bands of the past 30 years to totally invent a sound (along with maybe My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division and I don’t know who else) and arrive with a fully-formed aesthetic. I loved that they were critiquing the very art form they were taking part in. They were never again as good, and neither are any of the countless imitators.
Phish, Pitcher of Nectar, Mango song – Your hands and feet are mangoes. You’re gonna be a genius anyway. – became our theme song when transforming from drunken partying losers to career professionals.
Saint-Saens Organ Symphony – First time I ever “saw” music
Yes – Tales from Topographic Oceans – My mind traveled to new dimensions
Widespread Panic – Greta – Life in a postapocalyptic world. At least that’s how I see it.
I should have also added the Bach Two-Part invention No. 2 in c minor. I wasn’t listening, I was learning to play the piece when I compared the two voices and discovered that the second voice is in canon with the first 32 notes later. He worked the entire piece out so that note 33 would harmonize with note 1, note 34 with note 2, etc., all the way through until the half-way mark, where the harmony reverses.
So, just to clarify - I mean that the Bach, Tubular Bells and Light as a Feather blew my mind in the sense that I was chuffed with myself for perceiving patterns and structure in the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic aspects of the album that were far more profound than anything I’d listened to up til then, and then I contemplated what it must have been like to not just hear it and notice but to conceive it and shape it into what I was listening to. THAT was the mind-blowing part for me - how these minds were light-years beyond mine.
The SmithsThe Queen is Dead changed everything about what music was supposed to be for me. Prior to, my main influences were my mother and father’s music and whatevere was on the radio. TQiD opened a entire new world of music … All roads lead to the Smiths
There’s one track off the ethnomusicology album Songs of the Eastern Khanty (imagine Eskimos from Russia) that literally had me curled in fetal position, rocking back and forth, seeing visions. It was a frightening experience–it felt like my mind was going to leap out into space and not come back.
A lot of the Khanty shamanic music had a lot of drumming, kind of like you might imagine stereotypical shamanic music to be like. But there were some particularly powerful songs that were vocals only. This was one of them.
**Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
**
It is unlike anything else I listen to. It has that disgusting “cookie monster” metal voice. But it ROCKS. MY. SHIT. I cannot explain why I love this album so damned much. I would actually appreciate it if someone could come in and articulate what it is that makes these guys so great, because I can’t.
**David Bowie - Live In Santa Monica '72
**
Because he is coked out of his mind. Because the hippies don’t know what to think of him. And because, by the end, the hippies are in love with David Bowie. Oh, and his backing band rocked too. This should have gotten a Grammy, or at least been nominated.
I agree! OK, so, that’s not all I have to say about them. The Go! Team kind of blew my mind this summer, when I was at a music festival. I remember walking up over the hill and then seeing the crowd on the grass, hearing this wave of music wash over me in the blazing heat. I wanted to start dancing right there. I turned to my husband and asked where this band had been all my life. Their frontwoman, Ninja, had a giant 'fro and knee-high rainbow socks on that day, and she looked like the coolest, happiest person in this universe or the next. It was just amazing.
I once had an online journal, and I made a long post one time about all the songs that had blown me away or influenced my life at one time or another. Many were from when I was a kid, and they ran the gamut of musical styles. I forget most of that, though. I do remember that the first song I ever recognized from the radio was “Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News. Before that moment, all “grownup” music had been one big blur to me, and now it felt like the radio people were playing this one song just for me. It has nothing to do with the actual song, though, I guess.
The other that I can remember, off the top of my head, was “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan. I was 17 and thought it was really deep and beautiful. My best friend and I were in my car one night when we heard it for the first time. She looked at me and said, “That’s what you’re going to sing at the senior concert.” I did. It was the perfect song for my voice, and I had always been so quiet with my singing that people were slightly blown away at the fact that I did it.
Neutral Milk Hotel - ‘In an Aeroplane over the Sea’…as mentioned before, absolutely timeless
GYBE! - ‘Lift your skinny fists like antennas to Heaven’
Sigur Ros - ()
What, you didn’t like Mall? Actually, Solid Gold was pretty decent, but Entertainment is the only one I listen to with any regularity. Once my friend had moved into a new apartment and, after helping him with his move, I realized the old tenant had left a Gang of Four CD behind. “Cool! What’s this Mall? I’ve never heard that album before,” I thought, sticking the album in the player. And I hope that I never hear it again.
Their frontwoman, Ninja, had a giant 'fro and knee-high rainbow socks on that day, and she looked like the coolest, happiest person in this universe or the next. It was just amazing.
Actually, Solid Gold was pretty decent, but Entertainment is the only one I listen to with any regularity. Once my friend had moved into a new apartment and, after helping him with his move, I realized the old tenant had left a Gang of Four CD behind. “Cool! What’s this Mall? I’ve never heard that album before,” I thought, sticking the album in the player. And I hope that I never hear it again.