mindsayI'm sorry this took me so long. I had a fantastic dinner Saturday, had a long work day on Sunday, and had a wonderful 4-course dinner last night.
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I've decided that, since I'm getting burned out writing so much (and, consequentially, writing less about some of the later albums on the list), I will continue the list by posting one album at a time.
So here goes: Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Ones that dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then, when you finish, tag 15 others. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill.
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Ok, I know a lot of you are just gonna post your favorite albums of all time or the albums you think are the best of the best and then rank them but I took this pretty seriously. I've ranked the 60 albums, out of my personal collection, that most affected me after listening. They range from 1963 to 2009. Some of these albums I don't really listen to much anymore (but the funny thing is that now I'm re-listening to a lot of these and finding that they're just brilliant [Blink-182 - Enema Of The State, for example]) but they helped shape me, musically and personally, into who I am now. This isn't merely a "this album is better than the previous" list. I did factor that in with some of these (mostly the newer albums that really hooked me in but haven't had a profound effect on my life, yet) but most all of these are ranked above others because of their substantial impact on my personality. This took me a pretty long time to put together so, without further ado, here they are:
This album was crafted during a very strange time for Radiohead. Thom Yorke was just a 20-something-old boy from England who was thrust into the spotlight for that world-renowned song "Creep." Anyone actually demystifying The Bends can see that "Fake Plastic Trees," their biggest hit from the album, is actually a song taking a stab at world consumption and the ever-growing issue of climate change. So it seems natural that Thom Yorke would end up in an area that would cause him to write an album such as OKC.
OK Computer, from start to finish, sounds like the soundtrack for driving as fast as possible on the Autobahn while blurred images scream past your windows. It's an album that fits together ridiculously well with its themes of politics, technology, and vehicular disaster. It sounds smoggy. The album begins with "Airbag," a song about being reborn through the flames and wreckage of a high-speed car crash. The song sounds robotic. The drums for the song were recorded in short burst takes. Each take was then cut up and pieced together to form the backing beat of the song. It's random and sporadic. Jonny uses his guitar effect pedals extensively on the song and at 3:35 in his guitar takes on a completely different personality. The combination of echo, reverb, pitch-shifter, and his signature signal-stopping button (his Telecaster was customized to include a button that would cut the signal immediately, effectively rendering his guitar completely silent until the button's release) causes the "solo" to sound like a malfunctioning computer. At the song's end, there's a countdown in time for the next track. Only, instead of the standard click of drumsticks, it's a bloop-bloop-bloop-bloop of a computer. Then comes my favorite alternative rock song of all-time: "Paranoid Android." If you're not familiar with this song, you need to be. It is, essentially, 3 songs in 1, but never feels forced. Everything happens completely naturally. From the tropicaliac (apparently it is a word) acoustic beginning to the rock & roll hook in the middle to the ominous gloom of the latter half to, finally, the brilliant scattering return of the rock hook at the end, the song never holds to catch breath and never regains sanity. It is, in my opinion, the most brilliantly-thought-up rock song that has ever existed.
The rest of the album falls just as well into that computer-rock category. "Lucky" sings of, what I think to be, the moments just before death after an airplane crash. "Let Down" is apparently supposed to give you the feeling of looking out a train window as buildings blur by. "The Tourist" plods along slower than any other song and screams "Hey man! Slow down! Slow down!" during the chorus.
There aren't many albums that carry imagery so well. Every lyric, every phrase is used in such a way that it completes an emotion or image within the song. This album inspired so many great artists and bands today and for good reason: OK Computer is, simply put, one of the greatest albums released in music history.
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------------------
I've decided that, since I'm getting burned out writing so much (and, consequentially, writing less about some of the later albums on the list), I will continue the list by posting one album at a time.
So here goes: Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Ones that dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then, when you finish, tag 15 others. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill.
----------------------------------------------------
Ok, I know a lot of you are just gonna post your favorite albums of all time or the albums you think are the best of the best and then rank them but I took this pretty seriously. I've ranked the 60 albums, out of my personal collection, that most affected me after listening. They range from 1963 to 2009. Some of these albums I don't really listen to much anymore (but the funny thing is that now I'm re-listening to a lot of these and finding that they're just brilliant [Blink-182 - Enema Of The State, for example]) but they helped shape me, musically and personally, into who I am now. This isn't merely a "this album is better than the previous" list. I did factor that in with some of these (mostly the newer albums that really hooked me in but haven't had a profound effect on my life, yet) but most all of these are ranked above others because of their substantial impact on my personality. This took me a pretty long time to put together so, without further ado, here they are:
4/ Radiohead - OK Computer - 1997
I remember, during the first time I really listened to OK Computer, thinking that it was near impossible that someone like myself, with such a diverse interest in music, had never fully heard this album before. I truly believe this to be the absolute best alternative rock album to have ever graced our planet. I wouldn't exactly classify it as straight rock though. And that's what makes this album what it is. It's the twist on rock that was and is needed. There were plenty of other bands trying to do it and plenty of other bands that came damn close but this album perfects it. It's the milestone on the "Rock-expansion Road."This album was crafted during a very strange time for Radiohead. Thom Yorke was just a 20-something-old boy from England who was thrust into the spotlight for that world-renowned song "Creep." Anyone actually demystifying The Bends can see that "Fake Plastic Trees," their biggest hit from the album, is actually a song taking a stab at world consumption and the ever-growing issue of climate change. So it seems natural that Thom Yorke would end up in an area that would cause him to write an album such as OKC.
OK Computer, from start to finish, sounds like the soundtrack for driving as fast as possible on the Autobahn while blurred images scream past your windows. It's an album that fits together ridiculously well with its themes of politics, technology, and vehicular disaster. It sounds smoggy. The album begins with "Airbag," a song about being reborn through the flames and wreckage of a high-speed car crash. The song sounds robotic. The drums for the song were recorded in short burst takes. Each take was then cut up and pieced together to form the backing beat of the song. It's random and sporadic. Jonny uses his guitar effect pedals extensively on the song and at 3:35 in his guitar takes on a completely different personality. The combination of echo, reverb, pitch-shifter, and his signature signal-stopping button (his Telecaster was customized to include a button that would cut the signal immediately, effectively rendering his guitar completely silent until the button's release) causes the "solo" to sound like a malfunctioning computer. At the song's end, there's a countdown in time for the next track. Only, instead of the standard click of drumsticks, it's a bloop-bloop-bloop-bloop of a computer. Then comes my favorite alternative rock song of all-time: "Paranoid Android." If you're not familiar with this song, you need to be. It is, essentially, 3 songs in 1, but never feels forced. Everything happens completely naturally. From the tropicaliac (apparently it is a word) acoustic beginning to the rock & roll hook in the middle to the ominous gloom of the latter half to, finally, the brilliant scattering return of the rock hook at the end, the song never holds to catch breath and never regains sanity. It is, in my opinion, the most brilliantly-thought-up rock song that has ever existed.
The rest of the album falls just as well into that computer-rock category. "Lucky" sings of, what I think to be, the moments just before death after an airplane crash. "Let Down" is apparently supposed to give you the feeling of looking out a train window as buildings blur by. "The Tourist" plods along slower than any other song and screams "Hey man! Slow down! Slow down!" during the chorus.
There aren't many albums that carry imagery so well. Every lyric, every phrase is used in such a way that it completes an emotion or image within the song. This album inspired so many great artists and bands today and for good reason: OK Computer is, simply put, one of the greatest albums released in music history.
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