What I thought when I first heard this album...

[LuvMyQuad]

Hey Jude. The Beatles American compilation album. I didn't realize it was a compilation album for years. I also never realized there were British versions of Beatles albums that had different tracks for even more years.

My parents weren't crazy about the long hair or the beards.

 

[Quad Linda]

I have framed LP covers of Hey Jude (Beatles Again), along with Santana I, Moby Grape 1st, John Westley Harding and Waiting for the Sun.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Another one that knocked me out on the first swing was Patrick Moraz's The Story of i.

By 1976, my sister & I were no longer sharing the Zenith console stereo in the living room - each of us had decent stereos of our own. I'd built a Heathkit AA-29 integrated amp to drive a pair of Large Advents, along with a nice used Dual 1229 w/ Shure M97ED cart. Across the hall, Sis had the same setup but with a cool Sony PS-4750 direct-drive table. I don't know how Mom put up with all the racket from down the hall in those days, heh.

I didn't know much about Mr. Moraz except for his work on Relayer, which I really liked a lot. Based on that, I bought this solo LP as soon as it came out, even though I hadn't much of an idea what to expect. But that was part of the excitement back then, wasn't it? I mean, if we hadn't already heard it on the radio or at a friend's house, sometimes we just paid our money & took a chance, right? So I carefully slit the shrinkwrap & removed the plastic waffle, applied the Discwasher, dropped the cue lever and cranked it up...

I was very into electronic/weird music (still am!), having built a couple of small modular synthesizers by that time; so I was immediately impressed by the opening cacophony of noises! The loud crash - sounded like a piano going down a flight of stairs! - the Mellotron strings, that big sweeping synth sound... Teenage synth nerd me was just thinking to myself, Hey cool, that's an oscillating filter, swept by an ADSR, run through a sample-and-hold - nicely done! And THEN:

DOMMMMMMMMM...

Sweet Baby Jesus what the hell was THAT ?!?!?

That was it man, I was hooked. And that was just the first thirty seconds!!

I still love this one - it's easily #1 on my wish list for surround remixes.

 

[elroy]

The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

I was a freshman in college and the fall semester life/college experiences had included expanding my prog rock horizons at the nerd-filled Southern California engineering college I was attending. I knew Yes - Roundabout, ELP - From The Beginning and a little Tull but soon was immersed in Genesis, King Crimson, Triumvirat, Camel, Gentle Giant, and many others wafting from the many open dorm doors. Definitely a Prog Rock fan thereafter.

I had been offered a ride back to Phoenix for Christmas break from Pat, another Phoenix denizen. We Phoenicians stuck together beacuse of being surrounded by all the Californians. We got into his very old Fiat with a broken heater for the 6 hour drive. There were 3 of us and I got the back seat. He had two 8-track cassettes and played the Springsteen first.

I had never heard of him - this was a year or so before Born To Run. This album was nothing like prog rock! All the songs told stories, with that raspy Springsteen voice singing those story poems. I'd never heard anything like it - I found his voice odd for a bit but soon started savoring it.

And that band - wow! The first song that caught my ear was Incident on 57th Street.

Then Pat put in the second 8-track. I don't remember what it was and asked if we could put Bruce back in. I think I heard it 5 or 6 times on each leg of the trip.

Soon I started burrowing into other songs. Rosalita, Kitty's Back, New York CIty Serenade...wow. I became a big Bruce fan in time to be able to look down my nose at those who only came aboard the Bruce train with Born to Run - yes, I could be a bit of a twerp when young!

And also realized I could enjoy ELP and Bruce and Elton and jazz and Billy Joel and Genesis and Bacharach and Steely and.....singers with unique voices!

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Early Springsteen is pretty hard to beat, yup.

 

[efb18]

Two albums that warped my fragile little teen mind that I can think of:

(1) "Selling England by the Pound' by Genesis. I had "Invisible Touch" (also, "So") on cassette, and really liked them and wanted more like this of them. So I (blindly) bought "Selling England"--it was in the "compact price" range, meaning it was a discount CD. I had no idea pop or rock music could sound like this.

(2) "The Waking Hour" by Dali's Car. A couple of years later, a friend played me some other stuff that I might like, including this album--a one-off collaborative project between singer Peter Murphy (formerly of the postpunk band Bauhaus), and bassist Mick Karn (formerly of the new romantic/synthpop group Japan). I'm not sure it's aged all that well (particularly the drum machine sound), but at the time I hadn't heard music this abstract before. Murphy's double-tracked "speech-singing" made it all the more abstract. And then there's Mick Karn's bass. I remember thinking, "is that a.... bass guitar? How on Earth does that guy get a bass guitar to sound like that?" (Of course, now I know how he gets it to sound like that--I bought my first fretless bass not too long after that, and nowadays I can play most of the album, though really nailing that tone remains elusive.) Anyway, this was before I had heard any actual Japan or Bauhaus stuff, though this album isn't really comparable to either. It was another foray into just how otherworldly music could be.

"Selling England" as well as all the other Genesis stuff was released in 5.1 a little over a decade ago. I don't think "The Waking Hour" will ever be released in that format--it's a bit too obscure. Steven Wilson once listed Japan's "Tin Drum" as one of the albums he'd love to do in surround sound though, but alas, apparently the multitrack masters of that album have been irreparably damaged.

 

[flytomars]

Almost 30 years ago, I was in high school and suffice to say- I did not have alot of money, especially for CDs which back then cost about 20$ here. There was a coupon in the local newspaper for a local record shop- it was about 3$ and there was also a sale on In The Court Of The Crimson King- I remember seeing the cover and being slightly intimidated by it, back then I only listened (solely!) to The Beatles and Pink Floyd. It completely blew my mind and opened up an entire musical universe which I did not know existed. Today my King Crimson favourites are Lizard and Island, but there is still a warm spot in my heart for this album.

 

[humprof]

Two Road to Damascus moments that come to mind right away.

1) I guess I must have been in or just out of sixth grade, and my brother, who was either a high school senior or a newly minted grad, was joining the Columbia House Record Club. He decided to go with cassettes--partly because, for some reason, my parents had bought a Craig portable stereo cassette player a couple of years earlier (the detachable right speaker was hinged, and it fastened to the base unit with a clasp), but possibly also because even then he had his eye on a Triumph TR6 that he hoped to buy with money from his road-construction job. The rosewood paneled dash had a built-in cassette player.

Anyway, he was having trouble filling out his dozen selections for a penny (or whatever it was), and scanning the ad, I liked the graphics of Roger Dean's Yes logo on the cover of Close to the Edge--I knew nothing about the band, though--and persuaded him to add it to his cart. When the shipment came, I think he gave it a quick listen and was sort of nonplussed by it. Wasn't really his bag--or mine, necessarily. (I was into Chicago, Elton John, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grand Funk, and the late Beatles, and with three older brothers, I'd been exposed to everything from Simon & Garfunkel to Stevie Wonder to ? and the Mysterians to Freak Out. But not prog. From the opening synths under birds and running water, though, I was intrigued, and when the guitars-bass-and-drums hit hard, a minute in, I was floored. 18 minutes later I emerged from a trance, mind duly blown. I couldn't believe you were allowed to do something like that on a rock album!

2) I was out of college and bouncing around, not really knowing what to do next. I'd gotten close to a favorite prof--a brainy, complicated ex-Marine whose musical tastes ran from late Beethoven to Bob Seger. By this point, meanwhile, I was a confirmed Yes-and-Genesis freak, but also deep into Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell and Peter Gabriel and Rickie Lee Jones and...I donno, The Roches, maybe? Pat Metheny? (Come to think of it, Lyle Mays's solo on "San Lorenzo" was another epiphany.) Anyway, we were hanging out in his den-slash-library when he told me, with a slight air of mystery and foreboding, that I had to hear an album a friend had lent him. He seemed a little spooked by it, and as he pulled it out of its sleeve he pronounced, in an oracular way (he wasn't given to this sort of thing), that he thought this might be the "future of music." 20 seconds into "Sharkey's Day" (it was Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak), my mouth was hanging open. I'm sure I sat stock-still, transfixed, through both sides of the LP.

 

[elroy]

Two Road to Damascus moments that come to mind right away.

1) I guess I must have been in or just out of sixth grade, and my brother, who was either a high school senior or a newly minted grad, was joining the Columbia House Record Club. He decided to go with cassettes--partly because, for some reason, my parents had bought a Craig portable stereo cassette player a couple of years earlier (the detachable right speaker was hinged, and it fastened to the base unit with a clasp), but possibly also because even then he had his eye on a Triumph TR6 that he hoped to buy with money from his road-construction job. The rosewood paneled dash had a built-in cassette player.

He was having trouble filling out his dozen selections for a penny (or whatever it was), and scanning the ad, I liked the graphics of Roger Dean's Yes logo on the cover of Close to the Edge--I knew nothing about the band, though--and persuaded him to add it to his cart. When the shipment came, I think he gave it a quick listen and was sort of nonplussed by it. Wasn't really his bag--or mine,, necessarily. (I was into Chicago, Elton John, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grand Funk, and the late Beatles, and with three older brothers, I'd been exposed to everything from Simon & Garfunkel to Stevie Wonder to ? and the Mysterians to Freak Out. But not prog. From the opening synths under birds and running water, though, I was intrigued, and when the guitars-bass-and-drums hit hard, a minute in, I was floored. 18 minutes later I emerged from a trance, mind duly blown. I couldn't believe you were allowed to do something like that on a rock album!

2) I was out of college and bouncing around, not really knowing what to do next. I'd gotten close to a favorite prof--a brainy, complicated ex-Marine whose musical tastes ran from late Beethoven to Bob Seger. By this point, meanwhile, I was also a Yes-and-Genesis freak, but also deep into Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell and Peter Gabriel and Rickie Lee Jones and...I donno, The Roches, maybe? Anyway, we were hanging out in his den-slash-library when he told me, with a slight air of mystery and foreboding, that I had to hear an album a friend had lent him. He seemed a little spooked by it, and as he pulled it out of its sleeve he pronounced, in an oracular way (he wasn't given to this sort of thing), that he though this might be the "future of music." 20 seconds into "Sharkey's Day" (it was Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak), my mouth was hanging open. I'm sure I sat stock-still, transfixed, through both sides of the LP.

Just thinking of The Roches vocals in surround...sigh!

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Yes! Mister Heartbreak is my favorite Laurie Anderson album. It was the first of her I ever heard, and definitely a jaw-dropper. I still like to listen to it, usually late at night in a darkened room. Around the time it was released, I was dating a girl for awhile who was a big Laurie fan. She was pretty cool.

(Sigh...)

 

[TVB]

I was a teenager and had a Denver post paper routt that payed diddly squat (in a city not in Denver). I delievered papers riding my bicycle all over town because subscribers were few and far between. I bought a western auto 5 speed stingray on credit paying by the month with my paper routt money. I wanted a schwinn 5 spd stingray but that was too much $$$. By the way, phooey on all of you subscribers who used to say "come back tomorrow" when I went to collect but never payed!!!
I would ride to the Gibsons discount store and pour over the records, which were all $4.96 each. I would make fantasy lists of records I would buy if I had $100. A few years later, I had a panasonic all in one stereo with an 8 track deck. The built in record player had a ceramic cartridge. I think the first album I ever purchased was bread-guitar man. What did I think of after hearing it...I want more!! The next albums were Doobies -listen to the music and CSNY -deja vu. The recordings were excellent and l loved the music. I scrimped and saved for my next album (and a fenwick fly rod). I remember having the cat stevens "Teaser" album that would skip on that ceramic turntable but play just fine on the dealers magnetic cart turntable. I also remember having breads "baby Im a want you" album that had some high shimmering parts that were present on my friends expensive stereo but were absent on my panasonic set up because of the ceramic cart. Happy was the day when I traded that panasonic stereo in for a real pioneer integrated amp with a powerful 20 watts per ch rms with .5 THD. I bought a bic 960 table and shure m91ed cart by mail order because it was so much cheaper. I finally had a "real" stereo. Waiting for that turntable to come in the mail was painful and my waiting time doubled after I sent the mail order company the receipt for the money order instead of the money order! Those were the days. The 70's...Best music, best audio equipment and best motorcycles of my lifetime.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Hee! For years as a kid I had a Huffy "stingray" bike, which I always liked the looks of better than the real deal Schwinns some of my friends had.

 

[DennisMabry]

Great thread! I love all of the responses. So many albums fall into this category for me but I will start from the beginning.

When I was younger in the early 70's, my friends at school and I were all signing up for the Record Club of America because when you joined you got like 5 free albums and if you joined a friend you would get another two free albums. One of my first picks was The "Who - Who's Next" it probably fell into the category of blowing my mind. I just couldn't get enough of it. If I remember correctly "Deep Purple - Machine Head" and "Three Dog Night - Naturally" were also in the bunch. To this day I still consider "Who's Next" as one of my favorites, and it must be listened to from start to finish!

On a side note, I remember Kraft salad dressing had a promotion during that time period, where if you had 3 proof of purchases you could get one cassette of Creedence Clearwater Revivals catalog for only $2. I started with Cosmos Factory and ended up buying them all. Mom made me eat a lot of salad and we still had a lot of salad dressing in the cupboard with the labels cut off!

 

[humprof]

Margaret Atwood on "Big Science":
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...ce-o-superman-prophetic-80s-america-pertinent

 

[quadstone]

This made The Beatles breaking up easier to take. Seeing the Apple label gave me hope for 70's and I wasn't dissappointed...until I heard Wings Wild Life...

 

[marpow]

I absolutely loved every single thing about this album, Lenticular cover, inside and outside gatefold, mind altering music, pretty much stoned without the weed.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

It was around 1973, and I just had a real cheapo POS stereo setup (you know the kind with short depth pressed wood speakers) and one of the first LPs I bought was-
Pink Floyd ‎– The Dark Side Of The Moon
This music was so weird and foreign to what I was used to, I wasn't even sure what to think, but it just grew and grew on me. Especially good laying in my bed at night listening with some old Koss headphones and just thinking how exotic it all was. I never viewed music the same way since (yes, because it invoked such wild visionary images.)

 

[quadstone]

No fair. Dark Side of the Moon is a cheatcode. That blew everybody's mind...

 

[GOS]

So - it had to be around 2004. My 2 boys were around 10 years old or so. We go into the local Mall...in fact it was Abercrombe as my oldest loved to shop there. I hated that store because I felt like an old fogie......but suddenly my ears pick up this music.

I was flat out mesmorized. I stood there and just soaked it in. For my ears, I'd never heard anything like it and I LOVED it. Once the song finished, I approached the cashier and said "what was that playing on your music system"?

He said "Keane, Everybody's Changing" That was from their debut album - Hopes and Fears. To this day, it's one of my all-time favorite albums. I never, ever get tired of the emotion and amazing pop excellence.

 

[madship]

AJA-STEELY DAN

This album was released late in the 70's....after all the rock classics of the 60's and early 70's this album wasn't one I should have been attracted to...but on the very first play...I was hooked....at that time if an album had 2 great songs on it...it was a keeper...but there wasn't a "filler" on this whole album...every song was impressive IMO....and it is still this way today...a big plus was how mellow it was when you were stoned...you could just "zone out" without much effort....

Ah, a great one.

I first heard Aja my sophomore year in college, 1985, enjoying my first CD player, looking for releases that exploited the format. I read about it and found it the college town's combination record and hi-fi shop. Listening to the disc, I recognized Peg and Deacon Blues, but they were nothing compared to the overall experience of the album. I thought I had found an illicit pleasure that I had to justify enjoying. Like it was a drug. That was literally what my uninformed mind thought. Great album, great pleasure for so many years. Connecting them to Rikki, Realing, and Bodistava was a mind blower.