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Your life in ten songs

 
  

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No star here laces
15:03 / 18.06.03
In the spirit of nicking cool stuff off of ILM, I really like this'n.

Basically you pick 10 songs that either you associate with important bits of your life, or that track your relationship to music, or anything really that personalises them and gives an idea of your musical history. Don't matter what they represent, just so long as you explain it and talk us through it...
 
 
No star here laces
15:43 / 18.06.03
1. Vivaldi - the four seasons

Okay, so not a song, so getting off to a technical cheat maybe, but I think it's allowed. This is the first piece of music that I ever had a relationship with. When I was a little kid I had to have this playing (on one of those little tape players with the single speaker on top) by my bed otherwise I couldn't go to bed. I'd usually nod off somewhere in the third movement. In some ways I guess this defined my relationship with music because I always try to pick stuff appropriate to mood, and would love someday just to have the perfect track for every mood.

2. Woody Guthrie - "This land is your land"

I had this on a tape too. My dad had insisted I only listen to classical music, and this was pretty much rigidly enforced up until around the age of 9 or 10 - we never had the radio on, or Top of the Pops. But I managed to sneak this under the radar aged around 8 or so because my mum was a bit of a 60s folkie and she had lots of Bob Dylan, Joan Armatrading et al. And Woody, who I loved. I'd listen to this over and over, and being precocious listened to it while reading Steinbeck. It just conjured up this huge weird empty country of America and all these bizarre people who I couldn't picture, but only imagine.

3. Iron Maiden - "Seventh son of a seventh son"

Fast forward a couple of years and I had sufficient pocket money to buy pop music and sufficient independence to demand top of the pops and a radio to listen to radio 1 on. I'd sit in my room taping the top 40 so I could talk about it with my friends. But I also wanted to be more extreme and rebellious than them, so I saved up and bought an Iron Maiden album on cassette cos I thought it would make me hard. I'd draw little pictures of "Eddie" all over my textbooks and all my classmates thought I was weird. Thank fuck I got this out of my system early, is all I can say...

4. Spiritualized - "Sway"

Ahhh, being a teenager, discovering pot, sitting around and talking shit about pretentious music. My best mate loved 70s hippie music like the Dead and Santana, but I'd always bring my Spiritualized "Lazer guided melodies" LP round his house and demand we listen to that instead. It was so lovely and expansive, even on my Dansette record player. It just carried you away. I could be melancholy and lonely and horrible feeling and this would just sweep me up with it. Or I could be lying flat on my back with my similarly long-haired and greasy friends listening to this and hoping I wouldn't whitey and find something new and majestic in it every time. It's so scratched up now that I never listen to it anymore, but I should cos it's still an amazing song (and album). I always knew that there was some stuff in my collection that was cool, or current or whatever, and some stuff that was just timelessly great, and this is possibly the first record I bought that came into the latter category.

5. Tom Wilson's Bouncin Beats

This was a radio show on Forth FM. I couldn't tell my mates I listened to this, because they were all into obscure indie rock and this was dance music, which was the devil. More to the point, it was Happy Hardcore, which for those that don't know means hyperactive tempo, helium vocals and saccharine melody. It was just so weird to me - it spoke of this other world, where, like people had fun and where music was an active, enjoyable thing and not a badge or a prop to your angst.

6. Koenig Cylinders - "Carousel"

And this was playing the first night I went clubbing. I was 17, I'd just finished school and I'd said to myself - "now I'm going to be one of the happy people". I went out, bought new clothes (that were colour coordinated and baggy, instead of dirty and multicoloured) and went to a club. In the club I bought some ecstasy, because someone offered it me and I thought "why not". I genuinely didn't know what it did to you, only that 'ravers' took it. Fuck me, that was an experience and a half. Never looked back. The music was just on another level. So many textures, so much to experience - it was like one long tune that went on for hours, and it just picked you up and didn't put you down until you were soaked in sweat and you'd hugged everyone in there. So cliched, but so what.

7. Hawke - "3 nudes in a purple garden"

Me and my first girl would listen to hardkiss all the time. We broke up listening to it. I still can't bear to listen to it.

8. Shy FX - "Original nuttah"

Raaaaarghhhhh! So this is what people down south listen to? This is utter lunacy! Where the fuck did that come from? Like a great big shout out of the unknown....

9. NuYorican Soul - "It's alright, I feel it" (Armand van helden mix)

I never felt so on top as in this period of my life. All my friends were pretty and well dressed. I was in possession of an unending series of student loans which could be spent solely on nice clothes, good drugs and 12" import vinyl. I got invited to every party, I got laid all the time, I thought there was no-one cooler than me. I really shoulda known better. But these were the true good times.

10. Townes van Zandt - "If I had no place to fall"

Present day. Music's not just about having fun anymore. Lots of time to reflect. Lots of wanting something that just sounds like the person really means it. Really really means it. He means it, if only "it" wasn't so goddamn depressing...


Sorry, unneccessarily cathartic, that. But fun - give it a go...
 
 
electric monk
16:38 / 18.06.03
"Blinded by the Light" - Funkstar De Luxe
The first song I ever loved. Made the five-year old me want to get up and dance 'n sing, much to the chagrin of my parents.

"Fly like an Eagle" - Steve Miller Band
That sythesizer ending induced my first altered state of conciousness. I'd never heard anything like it before and it bent my young head in new directions. I was never the same.

"Billion Dollar Babies" - Alice Cooper
My love of heavy metal scores Dad a bonding opportunity. "This is the music I listened to when I was younger, and it probably inspired a lot of the bands you listen to." Suddenly, Twisted Sister seemed a pale imitation of the real thing.

"How Soon is Now?" - The Smiths
I recognized the song the first time I heard it. A good summation of my high school years.
"...and you go home and you cry and you want to die." God, I was pathetic.

"Kill Your TV" - Ned's Atomic Dustbin
I joined a fraternity because of this song. When you go from a town where you're the only one who listens to Ned's to a college where you meet a group of guys who're blasting Ned's on the frat house stereo, well...what would you do?

"Reverence" - Jesus and Mary Chain
Still a bit of the pathetic loser in me, but at least he was a rockin' loser. Blasphemous lyrics and arty video. Hooked me like smack. "I wanna die just like JFK. I wanna die on a sunny day." Fuck yeah. FUCK YEAH!

"Hardcore UFOs" - Guided by Voices
The first transmission from Planet Bob. DIY Lo-fi punk/rock/folk. My head is bent yet again, and the Do-It-Yourself spirt possesses me to this day. It's about 8 years on and GBV remains my favorite band. I've only ever known three people who liked them as much as me: One was the guy who set up shows for them in Dayton, OH., one was the friend of that guy, and the third is my brother.

"Flavor" - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Ah! Taking up smoking, pretty girls, an endless supply of beers, and I'm changing my major to art. This is the meeting-my-future-wife song. And oh yes, she got the flavor.

"Cups" - Underworld
A month of late nights. My fiance out of town making the wedding preparations. Sexual yearning, mac 'n cheese, and messing about in Photoshop. "Little girl you feel like a movie."

"Coded Language" - Krust + Saul Williams
Required listening for the 21st century. Inspired me to participate in open-mike nights with my poetry readings. Raises the goosebumps on my arms every time I listen to it. Now if there were only a way to do a live cover version...
 
 
Foust is SO authentic
16:49 / 18.06.03
Well, my list isn't nearly as hip as East's, but these are the songs that I identify with various stages in my life.

1. Star Wars Main Theme

Yeah. This music played through my early childhood dreams. Sometimes it felt like it was running through my head 24/7. I was a sci-fi nerd from birth. And I'll die a sci-fi nerd.

2. Rankin Family - Mull River Shuffle

My mom is from the east coast, and maritime music has always been in my vains. Songs that covered standard country themes, but with catchy jigs and sometimes sung in a strange, wonderful language that I'd never heard before (Gaelic). This is another song from my early years.

3. Rich Mullins - Calling Out Your Name

Rich Mullins gave words to the faith of my early years. A Christian that made Christianity poetic and mystical. I travelled by car with my family a lot, and I remember watching the empty prairies roll to this song.

4. Jars of Clay - Worlds Apart

The faith of my late adolescence defined in a nutshell. I was looking for an unpretentious yet utterly abandonned spirituality, and this song spoke about that.

5. Bruce Cockburn - Call It Democracy

What, you mean the west might be exploiting the rest of the world? Cockburn in general has had a major effect on my political views. He really pulled me left. Suggested to me that there's more to human experience than this middle class whitey had seen.

6. The Flaming Lips - Fight Test

I have a tendency to be a path-of-least-resistence kind of guy, and this song always plays in my head right before I make a difficult decision.

Sure, only six. But I'm also only 22. Need more time to find those lifetime songs.
 
 
Mr Messy
20:59 / 18.06.03
Cholister - sorry you feel you are drivelling on. I'm finding it all fascinating. And I guess if you are drivelling, then we all are.

I'm not ashamed of any of these songs. I promise.

1. Gimme Gimme Gimme - Abba
God - why did my mother never guess the truth about me. I remember just absolutely loving this song. It felt so grown up and wistful. I cut the lyrics out of my sisters Smash Hits and listened to the whole top 40 (which I'd never done before) just so I could sing along when it came on. Then got too embarassed coz my Mum was ironing and wouldn't leave the kitchen.

2. Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Another early fave. Fell in love with her voice. I could do a good impression too - before my voice broke - and was often called upon to do so at school.

3. Shostakovitch 5th symphony - third movement.
There was an excerpt of this in my music a-level syllabus. I listened to this again and again on my crusty old tape player, the version I had was produced by John Player ciggies strangely enough. It seemed to convey all I felt about teenage angst and being completely alienated from my own sexuality.

4. There's no other way (if its really called that) - Soup Dragons
This song was omnipresent during my year in halls at university. I feel as though I could always hear it playing down some corridor, drifting out of one window or another. Consequently it has overstayed its welcome. Hell on toast.

5. Precious Things - Tori Amos
I've always had trouble expressing anger, and I think that this is why this song has drawn me in. At this time I felt so angry with everyone. I had tried so hard to be a normal white anglo saxon good boy. I know now I was missing the point. This song - its image of letting those precious things bleed and wash away. Just perfect.

6. Solar Race - Not here (think thats what its called)
This song is pure cathartic wonderment. I listened to it again and again after a string of disappointments with men. I could never seem to get beyond the one night stand, and I so wanted romance.

7. I float alone - Julee Cruise
I was heavily into Twin Peaks. I found this album very evocative and spent months dreaming of a life spent in diners listening to trippy music, smoking, wearing sunglasses, uttering only the occaisional mysterious off the cuff remark. Hmmmmm. Of course the song is about a doomed relationship or unrequited love or something. Wallow wallow.

8. Rhapsodie - Over the Rhine
Many years pass. At the end of an intensive 3 year training last year, I had grown to love my college friends so much. I don't believe I've felt closer to many people before. We decided to make our own compilation CD to share with each other. This was my choice. This song is about perfect unconditional love.

9. School Night - Ani DiFranco
It took me five years to come to the point where I could end my last real relationship. This was such a painful scary thing for me to do. For all of our problems, I was comfortable to an extent with my partner, and I knew I was going to hurt him when I left. I wept every time I played this song for months after.

10. Serpentine - Ani DiFranco
Ani gets more than one choice here. She is fast becoming one of my favourite artists ever. In the last 8 months since leaving my partner and making myself homeless for a while I guess I've been in a different emotional state. Rawer (if such a word exists). This is another song where I can feel her emotion coming out of the speakers and it chokes me every time.
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
22:46 / 18.06.03
in some order.

She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult

comes with a whole bundle of memories. it is a good example of the music my brother listened to when i was little. he was also a Motorhead, Sisters of Mercy and Sigue Sigue Sputnik fan.

This is the Day by The The

this was on constant play when i was studying my a-levels at college. difficult times, self-doubt... teenage angst and suicidal counsellors. great lyrics, in truth when i heard it again recently well the song ain't so good.

Cherish the Day by Sade

my first true love... all those years ago... played this all the time. everytime i hear Sade i think of her.
*im such a soppy bitch*

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane

represents my psychedelic late teens and early twenties. did way too much acid listening too Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground. seems so cheesy now looking back... i really thought people would just chill out if they took a tab.

Little Britain by Dreadzone

mean Whirlygig at camden and hammersmith town hall. hippies and chill out rooms, glastonbury when the police weren't allowed in and being covered in mud.

Brown Paper Bag by Roni Size

*jumps around like a loon*
me... i'm staying up FOREVER!

Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin

group of friends i knew from parties all moved in together in a house in harlesden in the mid nineties. it was messy, house parties would last for days and days. the rig was in almost constant use in the living room. by the time they left they'd thrashed the house so bad the landlord sued them for eight grand. so much fun.

Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin

what i've got back into a the moment. i dunno the passion is intoxicating and... screaming seemed to mean something in those days/songs
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
22:59 / 18.06.03
I find it weird that this thread seems to be delurking a lot of people, whereas many of the prolific posters are seemingly steering clear of it.

Also: "Pyramids" is a far better title for the song than "Pyramid Song," I think. Too bad Thom Yorke didn't think so.
 
 
Saint Keggers
00:24 / 19.06.03
1. The Littlest Hobbo theme song. Many a canuck has this one in his/her heart.

2. Hey Jude - The Beatles. When I was young my aunt stayed with us as she went to college and would play the beatles (and Cat Stevens) constantly. This was the first song I ever learned the lyrics to.

3. The Jungle - Faith No More. Much of my highschool days were spent around this song...not one of their most well known but still damn damn good.

4. Wave Of Mutilation - The Pixies. Same as above except for it was my college days.

5. Diamond Mine - Blue Rodeo. One of their best songs IMHO.

6. anything by The Tradgically Hip - My favorite group.

7. Fiddle and Bow - Natalie MacMasters w/ Bruce Guthro. Haunting song from my post college funk.

8. Superman's Song - The Crash Test Dummies. Awesome song that i've loved ever since seeing it at the end of the Due South movie.

9. Any and all of the Oopa Loompa songs

10. The Time Warp - RHPS Many a drunken nights had this as its soundtrack.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
00:40 / 19.06.03
I thought I'd have trouble finding ten, I didn't. It's amazing that I don't even like/listen to most of these anymore...

1. David Bowie- China Girl

My parents used to play this a lot when I was very young. It makes me feel safe and I gain a sense of abandon when I hear it. I recall the house that I spent the first twelve years of my life in (well, those that I remember) and specific details like the colour of the carpet before laminate floor was put down.

2. Hole- Violet

I remember absolutely everyone listening to Hole when I was about thirteen. I'd only been living in my house for about six months and this song seemed to be the soundtrack for that period of time. We had cable installed and it was on MTV constantly, it was on the radio, it was played on my classmates walkman's at lunchtime. Everyone was wearing Nirvana hoodies and still talking about grunge like it was their main reason for living.

3. PJ Harvey- Send His Love To Me

This was another track that MTV dragged in to my life. Unlike the first it's one that's stuck with me as I've gotten older. I fell madly in love with her voice. I bought it after it left the charts. It was the first time I went to the big Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street and I recall being wowed by the size of the place.

4. Radiohead- Paranoid Android

Released when I was spending a lot of time hanging around in Tufnell Park with a friend who lived there. Hours were spent with a stereo listening to OK Computer on Hampstead Heath. We would drink vodka and smoke and talk about our sexuality. I remember one of his friends that I didn't like sitting opposite me on a tube train and showing me both parts of the single that he'd just bought. This was about the same time that everyone went gothic and started buying clothes from Elizium in Camden Market.

5. Counting Crows- Anna Begins

A friend who I've known for years used to make me listen to this song about once a week. She was in the middle of an extremely fucked up relationship though she didn't know it at the time and she made me a mix tape that included this. It reminds me of how very weird it all was but it also reminds me of losing my virginity because the little slut's best friend loved this group.

6. Leftfield- Afro-Left

I would ring up my ex-boyfriend when I had terrible insomnia and we would go on late night drives and listen to Leftfield. I feel terribly detached when I hear this but strangely the emotion hasn't changed at all. Driving through dark roads at night and listening to this always evoked the oddest feeling.

7. Duran Duran- Rio

I wasn't sure where to stick this chronologically but most Duran Duran just makes me think of my friend Cameron. I've known him since secondary school began and he's been ever present since the age of 11. He used to play this at parties and everyone would groan collectively because they'd heard it so many times.

8. Warrior- Warrior

My housemate used to come in to my room and play this in the first year at uni. It's really reminiscent of the Halls of Residence in the summer. The guy from the room below would yell and tell us to turn it up and you could hear it four floors down on the pavement.

9. Basement Jaxx- Just One Kiss

I love it. It seems to spread over my entire second year at uni and then over the following summer. It reminds me of the best drug addled nights and they were one of the best live acts I've seen in the last few years.

10. London Elektricity- Different Drum

My brother's got this on constant repeat at the moment and I think I'm falling for it. It's reviewed as 'spine tingling' and I'm inclined to agree. The balance is just right and it makes me wish I listened to more drum n' bass.
 
 
the Fool
04:51 / 19.06.03
These songs are sort of sign posts. Starting about age 11-12 through to now...

1. Respectable - Mel & Kim
The first time I ever bought music. The first time I'd ever liked a song enough to want own it. Listened to it on repeat while reading Magician by Raymond E Feist (Odd yes, but I wus a youngin)

2. Among the Living - Anthrax
This song sort of exemplifies my early metal period. Full of long hair, black t-shirts and angst. Lots of horror movies, depressed suicidal writings, and dark monstrous pencil drawings...

3. Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd
Also known as the period the Fool discovers pot and is amazed. Become obsessed in 1967 as a mystical year. Guitars and stoner rock.

4. Leave them all Behind - Ride
The shoegazer thing. At the very end of high school. Indie stuff, all mysterious and different to a boy who loved metal. The sound of autumn leaves falling. Smoking joints at school and hiding under staircases.

5. Martyr (Front Line Assembly Remix)- Fear Factory
This song really marks the end of the metal days. It basically the last metal album/ep/song I ever bought. Things were changing.

6. Little Fluffy Clouds - The Orb
Then everything changed and a grand adventure of unbelieveable proportions began. Acid happened. This song seemed as innocent as the start of this period. It was all fun and incredible and inspirational. It was also the start of a love affair that I would never understand until it had torn my heart into a billion pieces. This was his song, it always will be.

7. Higher than the Sun - Primal Scream
One of the best gigs I've ever been to. Primal Scream on the Screamadelica tour with Dr Alex Patterson as DJ. Perfect, beautiful, a night I'll never forget. Amazing acid, profound revelations. Lighting bonfires in the middle of the city 'cause I was cold.

8. Stakker Humanoid - Stakker
Acid, Raves, Dancing, More acid, dancing, parties, more acid, dancing, raves... The grand adventure, the secrets of the universe, an invisible revolution. I felt at this time it was important that everyone should have acid, often. Stakker Humanoid sums up the feeling - full on, exciting, futuristic. Like it was never going to end. Me and my best friend were the new centres of the universe, all revolved around us and our profound wisdom and methodology.

9. Sing it back (remix) - Moloko
I still love this song, but the time it represents probably the worst time in my life so far. I began discovering house, and clubs as opposed to raving and techno. My best friend was destroying himself in a tidal wave of drugs and stupidity, and I was trying to keep up. I'd seen a doorway into another life but didn't know how to let go of the one I was in. There were still good times and beautiful music but eventually crushing darkness defeated everything. This was the last fragile gasp of a dying phase of my life. It was also the meager start of the current phase, when I'd finally come out to the world and start being myself for once.

10. Fix my sink - DJ Sneak
This is this year. Me a lot happier. There is dancing still, but with more cheeky grins. There is more lovin' More smutty comedy. Inner city living.
 
 
waxy dan
08:58 / 19.06.03
No explanations, sorry. Tad too personal methinks.
But, you're right, this is a really interesting way to see a development in personality over time. I should make a CD of these and add to it every couple of years. I cheated though and puin 11.

~6 years old
Disney's Jungle Book: I wanna be like you

~12 years old
Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb

~14 years old
Led Zeppilin: Going to California

~17 years old
Bauhaus/Peter Murphy: Crowds

~17 years old
Underworld: Born Slippy

~18 years old
Saint Etienne: Hobart Paving

~19 years old
Cure: Head on the Door

~23 years old
David Gray: Please forgive me (okay, that ones kind've embarrassing but there it is)

~24 years old
Mama and the Papas: Dream a Little Dream of Me

~25 years old
Various (preferably Edith Piaf): Autumn Leaves

~ now
Guided By Voices: Dusted
 
 
waxy dan
09:05 / 19.06.03
oh arse!
And Nine Inch Nails: Head Like a Hole, and Reptile

and.. and.. and....
 
 
rizla mission
13:41 / 19.06.03
I think I'll have to spend some time assembling a cntributon to this thread..
 
 
grant
15:55 / 19.06.03

10. & 9., age 5. Beethoven, 5th Symphony & Beatles, And I Love Her.

As a little kid, I had a record player. It was made of red plastic. My mother allowed me to play three records: Beethoven's 5th, and the soundtracks to Help! and A Hard Day's Night. I still have the Beatles records, but the Beethoven got played out. Me, the red record player, out in the carport on a spring afternoon, blasting the classics for the neighborhood to hear.

8. age 7. Jungle Book I Wanna Be Like You.
In my cynical 20s, Los Lobos came out with a cover of this one. It wasn't nearly as anarchic as the original. Jumping on the beds with my sister and the girl down the street, seeing who could be the best monkey. We had the songs from the movie on a 33rpm 7" album. I'm pretty sure I tried playing it at 45rpm at some point.

7. age 9 or so. Bill Conti Rocky's Reward.
The first two records I ever bought with my own money were the soundtracks to Rocky and Star Wars, possibly before I'd seen either movie. The Star Wars one had the best added material - interview with John Williams, descriptions of what went into each piece, photographs from the scenes the music played behind - but Rocky was, let's face it, Rocky. It was on the radio a lot with that loud, optimistic brass. But I was suckered in by two tracks: Frank Stallone's little doo wop group singing "Take You Back," and the really melodramatic, all strings, minor key and melancholy final track. It's sooo sad. I'm sure repeated listenings to this made me prone to like sad, sad songs. And instrumentals, especially.

6. age 12. Kim Wilde, Kids in America.
I was hooked on the Top 40, and this song was everything I wanted to be: different, cool, half-alien, all new. There's a surging sense of *something* in this song that's totally adolescent, and totally beautiful. I'm pretty sure my later infatuation with Pat Benatar can be traced back to this one song. It's an anthem of sorts, but a kind of grim and cynical one. "Looking out a dirty, old window...." It didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before, and it made me feel totally different.

5. age 14. Led Zeppelin, Dazed and Confused.
By this point, I'd fallen out of love with the Top 40 - it was way too repetitive. Synth pop was the music of the cool kids who either loathed or ignored me. I needed something angrier and unlike anything they'd ever like. So I found heavy metal. Late at night, K102 ran a show I loved called the Vinyl Frontier, which got replaced by the Metal Shop. This was back before ClearChannel homogenized radio, so you'd occasionally get these strange hour or two-hour shows that played stuff that only a few people liked. So on the first or second Metal Shop show, they played an interview with Deep Purple, and the guy asked them what the heaviest song they'd ever heard was, and this was the one they chose. This was the song that changed the way they heard music. So, having taped the show and listened to it a few times over and over in my bedroom, I let it change me too. It's like getting rolled over by a tank or something. There's also the seeds of the blues in there, too, which became really important later on.

4. age 15-16. Dead Kennedys, Kill the Poor
Everything I loved about heavy metal was distilled here, only smarter, sharper, and more guaranteed to piss off the normals.
There was also something else – it had an ideology. It was something I could do, you know. It had simple melody, simple chord progressions, and that same weird gut twist I got the first time I heard Kim Wilde. Only it was angry. And =smart=. That was key. All of a sudden, I wanted to do this. I wanted people to hear this.

3. age 17. Camper Van Beethoven, Interstellar Overdrive.
The Heavy Metal Years were also, to a lesser degree, the Psychedelic Years for me. I mean, I’d grown up with the Beatles, and there’s only so many times you can listen to “I Am The Walrus” as a kid before you realize there’s something more than an appreciation for Lewis Carroll going on there. I was the only person I knew (besides my immediate circle of friends) who was really into early Pink Floyd – the stuff that got played on Dr. Demento. (There’s another freaky radio show that you probably won’t hear nowadays.)
So in college, I discovered that not only did other people know about the early Floyd, but there were whole bands that did. Bands that brought the psychedelia together with the punk rock. And Camper was my very favoritest. They had a violin. They played folk and country and Russian music and they still rocked out. One got the impression, upon listening to a Camper Van album, that anything was possible. Even a dead-on cover of one of the Floyd’s noisiest & weirdest pieces. Suddenly, everything was an influence, right? Everything you liked could come out in the music you played – and that was =cool=.

2. age 23. The Magnetic Fields, 100,000 Fireflies.
Ah, the dread winter of 92-93, when the love of my life left me with no explanation. It was either this or Codeine that I listened to. Codeine was more of the same punk rock/heavy metal stuff, only bleak enough to suit my bleak and abandoned soul. The Magnetic Fields, though, were soft and sweet and sad in a whole different way. They weren’t afraid to be homemade and =pretty=. Pop. Like Abba, or Kim Wilde. Only filtered through a kind of DIY electronic aesthetic that kind of appealed to me at a nearly preconscious level. I wasn’t into electronic music at the time, although I was really into all the New Wave synth-pop stuff I'd left behind when I turned my back on the Top 40 in high school. Soft Cell, Wall of Voodoo, that sort of thing. It was a new way of hearing that stuff, in a way. But really, it was about being ephemeral and beautiful and sad and haunting and poppy as hell. "You won’t be happy with me...."

1. age 27 or so. The Burnside Project, Cleveland.
This was one of the first songs with a techno dance beat that I really liked, and one of the first songs I really liked that I found on mp3.com. This was during the dot-com boom years, when any excuse to get on the internet meant a chance at fame and fortune, even if you were an unsigned home recordist with less than no marketing aptitude and very limited "fan appeal."
So this was the first time I ran into a guy who later recorded me in his studio. It was the first taste of an interaction that I really have grown to enjoy - meeting a musician online where both of you become fans of each other. The song isn't online anymore, and the dot-com crash has left mp3.com a commercialized, pop-up riddled husk of its former self, but Burnside is now signed to BarNone and pretty much on their way up in the world of indie pop. Which they are, no doubt. Melancholy, thoughtful vocals & twangy guitar over pretty dense electronic dance tracks. It's the ideal soundtrack for the turn of the millennium. This specific song is about the chronosynclastic infundibulum in Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" (I think, or so Rich says). It features a Sonic Youth sample ("Shake off your flesh!") and lyrics about operating machinery and traveling through spacetime. ("To find yourself a reason means to justify your worth, I've run the seasons together... now I'm circling the earth.") Which is pretty cool. A slightly different version than the online one appears on their first album. They're both pretty similar, though - weird mechanical joy layered under pensive intellectualizing. Which, let's face it, is pretty darn cool.


I'm surprised this list doesn't include any Bauhaus, Cramps or John Lee Hooker, but that's how it came out.
 
 
uncle retrospective
16:41 / 19.06.03
1) John Farnham: Your the Voice.

So I’m a little kid who doesn’t get this whole music thing at all. Then this blasted out of the radio and had me bellowing out and shaking my fist. I still have a terrible weakness for anthems

2) G 'N' R: Welcome to the Jungle

Speaking of anthems. Well I heard this as they were just breaking and I couldn't believe just how rocking and how cool it was. After this my road to Metal Hell was paved in RWAK.

3) Godflesh: Like Rats

This was the point when I realised that metal was pushed about as far as I was going to take it. Brutal, brutal stuff. It took 12 years to see them play live and was actually worth the wait.

4) NIN: The Becoming

I was doing my final school exams, feeling more and more cut off from everyone and everything and I was listening to the downward spiral on repeat (don’t do that by the way) There was just something about the muttering slip into madness that ends the song so well.

5) Sisters of Mercy: Ribbons

Sometimes you hear a type of music that seems to be waiting for you to wonder along and hit you over the head. Unfortunately for my cool level, that music was Goth. This is just one of the best Goth songs out there (and has loads of guitars) The pretension of it all still makes me smile.

6) Pixies: Head On

So I heard Tromp and realised that some of this indie stuff was not just great but possibly the best thing in the world. I loved the huge amount of energy that song has, it's just such fantastic song. Imagine my surprise to find out it was a Mary Chain cover.

7) Underworld: Born Slippy

I hated myself for listening to this, I was in full Goth / Industrial / Metal mode and liking top 20 dance made me sick. But it's so good! Live it's amazing and I don't care if the crowd are shouting larger larger.


8) Orbital: The Box

This was were the rot got me. The single of the Box ended my Goth / metal-ness (well not really). Suddenly I noticed that dance music wasn't just for Muppets in white gloves and blowing whistles. It has also lead to an almost frightening Orbital collection.

9) Mogwai: Like Herod

So I'd read that they were the bee's knees in NME. The bastard sons of the Velvet Underground no less. So I went along hoping for a good Mary Chain. Boy was I surprised. Like Herod kicked my ass and opened up the whole instrumental music thing, and showed how to do quite bit noisy bit.

10) Hallucinogen: LSD

Like the Sisters, Hallucinogen opened up a genre that was just waiting for me to happen on it. The thing I love most about dance music is that acid squelch. So once I met Psytrance, it was dancing shoes at dawn. Huge beats, acid squelch all over the place and samples from sci - fi and horror movies. "Banging"!
 
 
Hattie's Kitchen
17:45 / 19.06.03
Hooo...let me see...can only think of eight right now, and these choices are not indicative of taste, just key moments in my life...

1) aged 7 Visage - "Fade To Grey".

There was just something so mystical about this song at the time, and was unlike anything in the charts in 1981. The song I remember the most from that year was Joe Dolce's "Shaddapya Face"...nuff said.

2) aged 11 The Smiths - "How Soon Is Now".

I hit my depressed teen hermit phase before I actually became a teenager, and this is the song I'd play at full blast to drown out the rest of the world.

3) aged 14 Locus Eaters - "First Picture Of You".

A glorious uplifting summer song perfectly capturing the first stirrings of lusty hormones.

4) aged 16 Neneh Cherry - "Buffalo Stance".

Just 'cos it reminds me of gruesome school discos and teachers getting pissed and girls in waistcoats and scrunchy pineapple perms.

5) aged 21 OT Quartet - "Hold that Sucker Down".

Ah, my first forays into the gay scene, and this was the track that was played to death at the time.

6) aged 23 Toni Braxton - "Unbreak My Heart".

In the midst of a long-term relationship, and the first crisis...this song summed up how I felt at the time.

7 aged 27 Sarah McLachlan - "Solace" Album

The end of one relationship, and the beginning of a brief and very painful rebound relationship...can't listen to this album without crying, especially the song lyric: "Funny how it seems that all I've tried to do, seems to make no difference to you..."

8 aged 29 Nuyorican Soul - "Black Heart of the Sun".

Choon. And reminds me of someone very special.
 
 
dream serum
19:14 / 19.06.03
10. Age 8 - Jungle book
This muic just had me dancing all over the place.

9. Age 10 - Beatles - Hard Days Night
It was more this whole album at this age but my parents bought me all of the early beatles albums.

8. Age 13 - Led Zeppelin - Stairway to heaven
Dancing with pretty girls to the longest song played.

7. Age 15 - Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
My friends mother was an ex-hippie and got me hooked on floyd and weed (she introduced the floyd, I found the weed) a little early in my life.

6. Age 16 - Against all authority - Above the law
Alcohol and rebellion thrown into the mix.

5. Age 17 - The Weakerthans - Pamphleteer
Introduced me to some cool canadian rock. Inspiring music at that point in my life.

4. Age 18 - Pink Floyd - Bike
The story of Syd Barret had me fascinated with Acid. The whole piper cd was played during my first experience. It was a bit scarry and I ended up not playing it much after that.

3. Age 18 - Oxes - I'm from hell open a windle
Introduction to my love of instrumental music. Don cab, Dianogah, Godspeed, Mogwai to follow shortly after. This song/album is just angst and never fails to get me fired up.

2. Age 19 - Velvet Underground - Stephanie Says
Fueled my love for this band. A very vital song that was on the soundtrack to an important relationship in my life.

1. Age 20 - The Shins - New slang
Not sure what place it has in my life but its been playing pretty often lately, and since I'm sitll a youngin its a song for this year.
 
 
suds
20:32 / 19.06.03
this is a really wonderful idea for a thread & i've enjoyed reading everyone's lists. lists rock. i am in this really reflective mood, so now seems the best time for me to jump right in.

1. "the tide is high" - blondie
this is the first song i remember. my mum would put the record on, and we'd whirl around the room dancing & singing along. my brother was still in her tummy. she'd laugh and teach me her moves.

2. "like a virgin" - madonna
madonna was my first crush. i super loved madonna. i'd dress up in lacey gloves and wear a million different bead necklaces and strut around singing like a virgin. i was about five at the time. my best friend's big sister recorded me the whole album onto a tape for me.

3. "buffalo stance" neneh cherry
this song stands out for miles & miles. it was the first single i bought. i was about ten at the time and i'd been all around america for the first time. i thought rap music was really cool and so i thought that neneh cherry was just about the radest girl ever. i remember wanting these shoes she wore one time on top of the pops so bad i wouldn't let up on my poor parents.

4. "retard girl" - hole
i was in a band with this boy. and one day after school i was at his house in his room and he put this on. and he tried to stop it half way through and i smacked his hand and said, "what the fuck is this?" i hadn't heard a girl scream like that before. as soon as i heard this, the first song i heard by hole, i was straight down bikini kill ally, babes in toyland lane, sleater-kinney street. hole opened up the door for me big time. when i hear this song now, i can remember hearing it for the first time so vividly.

5. "could this be love" - bob marley
i was seventeen & finally single again. my best friend and me were on fire, we were so close. we were boy crazy that summer and went to phoenix 1996, possibly the best festival ever. we slept well, woke up early and raced to the front of the stage and watched bands all day. we headed home on a crowded train filled with 9 to 5 suits. we played the whole bob marley lp on the stereo and a calm filled the carraige. one guy even sang along to this song.

6. "le gayi" - asha bhosle
i did dance class while teaching in india with about seven girls. we had to learn fast for culture evening and so tenzin helped me out with this number. i found myself singing along even though i couldn't follow all the hindi words. the singer sounded so haunted and fragile but so strong. the beats are fucking awesome, too. i loved a lot of hindi music but this was my total favourite.


7. "horses" - tori amos
this song sums up true love i felt with a boy. and he doesn't know that this song totally makes me think of him. the first time i heard it i was actually with him. and i was so full of love that my heart burst and i ended up crying like a dork and staring out the window so he wouldn't see me. how fucking emo is that. and the stupid thing is, i thought tori was singing: "i got me samosas, to write on to write on" and i still burst full of love. there are a million songs that remind me of him but this is the ultimate.

8. "re-definition" - mos def & talib kwali
a super cool dj turned me on to hip hop in the biggest way in 1998. i loved the way he could cut up and scratch on records. there were so many that year, but my favourite was this. he put it on a mix tape for me and i'd play it just about everywhere.

9. "ponderosa" - tricky
he knows why.

10. "keep on livin" by le tigre
this song got me through times i had buried and told myself never to think about again. this song was therapy. when they played it at the knitting factory i could not stop this angry loud sobbing crying. where you feel like the tears are chocking their way out of your body. & i knew i'd be ok. and the music was so powerful and it came at the end of such an amazing show and i was so fucking sad but afterwards i ran down nyc streets with my girlfriends and and and.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:03 / 19.06.03
Fuck, I knew this would happen, I've got more than ten.
 
 
kaonashi
23:42 / 19.06.03
I've got to say that I find this absolutely fascinating.
I'm coming from the younger side of the Barbelith spectrum and some of these posts are making me wish that I'd have lived longer.
 
 
Shrug
00:00 / 20.06.03
What about..

"You ain't nothing but a Hound dog" Elvis Presley.
Because I spent a large part of my younger life listening to Elvis at maximum volume(said song in particular) on vinyl records and jumping off the sofa, trying to Jailhouse Rock (or god knows what) and generally being a huge spaz. Still I did manage to amuse myself without bothering anyone else (much).

The Going gets Tough-?
Used to sing this all the time with my sister while she looked after me. Very tied in my memory with beans on toast and custard and apple which were the only dishes she knew how to cook.

Still quite young (11 ish)
She Drives Me Crazy- The Fine Young Cannibals
Used to sing this in the car on the way home from school everyday for good luck, it was especially good luck if it came on the radio. Maybe a sign of emerging mental illness or maybe I just liked the Whoo Hooo bits.

Skunk Anansee-Weak
The first song that ever really piqued my attention in my teenage years. I suppose it encapsulated the way I was feeling at the time, weak, and used, and self absorbed. Plus I fancied Skin, alot. In addition liking any kind of alternative music thankfully distanced me from my old generally nasty thug friends. yay no thug friends .

Pj Harvey- A Perfect Day Elise
Just remind me of a period in my life 15-16 when I was constantly stoned (work/home/school) blatantly smoked marijuana in my room everyday and tried to make bongs out of everything with my mates.

Marilyn Manson -1996 Chemical Brothers- The Sunshine Underground
Club Kid days. Did way too much E, drank too much, didn't have much of a personality, said "Chuuuuuuunes" alot and loved the no pressure oblivion of it all.

dEUS- Morticiachair
Sat in my room and wondered if I should kill myself alot... hated my ex who fucked me up and molested me in my sleep but still loved him too. Didn't see a way out.
Now, let's talk about the time
I had this morticiachair
in my apartment
right there in front of the living room
As an open invitation to strangers.
(a cold machine might show)
Smiling like a face
waiting for a telephone call
of a beloved feline
She is in a state and it's California
she's been there for quite a while

I've got no presents (x2)

Drop the phone take the plane and come back home again (x5)
She knows where she rolls when she goes for the doorknob (x2)

By the time of my second car crash I got totally wired
Like in the days I cut myself up with a razor-blade
oh nostalgia
Lost myself in so many ways
I didn't know what to think of him
Ah, maybe I think too much, I don't think so
Fell madly in love with a couple of beautiful ears
It's only a variation
Had long and boring conversations about nothing
Talked so much I bored myself to death
And the more I talked, the more I turned into a vegetable

God I'm such a fool

She knows where she rolls when she goes for the doorknob (x4)
I'll behave won't you shame me |
I'm into deep, won't you shame me |(x2)

Taste of orange
orange
Little Christ
I'm in her bath-tub, consulted
Consulted (x3)

She knows where she rolls when she goes for the doorknob (x4)
I'll behave won't you shame me |
I'm into deep, won't you shame me |(x4)

Information !
Information !
I'm bored !
Bored !
Information !

Turn !

At the mo' I'm listening to Ex-con by Smog.
Cause eventhough I'm very together now sometimes I still "feel like the robot by the river".
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
00:37 / 20.06.03
1) John Farnham: Your the Voice.

So I’m a little kid who doesn’t get this whole music thing at all. Then this blasted out of the radio and had me bellowing out and shaking my fist


You just described the life of almost every 20something in Australia.
 
 
suds
08:04 / 20.06.03
matter arising: i *love love love* ex con!
flyboy: i had way more than ten: just try out editing yourself.
 
 
that
08:49 / 20.06.03
i thought tori was singing: "i got me samosas, to write on to write on"

suds - I thought that for the longest time, too. Duh...
 
 
Mr Messy
08:59 / 20.06.03
Threadrot

Tori amos needs diction lessons.

In Mother I thought "and I cross my legs, oh my god", was actually "and I cross my legs o'er my c**t".

(I have no problems with c word, merely being cautious)

Endrot.
 
 
—| x |—
09:51 / 20.06.03
1. Super Trooper by Abba. This goes way back to the beginning of any real personal interest in listening to music that wasn’t the Smurfs or a Marvel Comic Adventure (like the FF) on 45. It brings back the memory of being out at my cousin’s family’s farm, and him liking both Abba and Kiss, but for me it was more like choosing Abba over Kiss. I don’t think my young brain was ready to give Kiss any sort of relevance to my life, but Abba, well, I could walk around a whole afternoon singing about being a “Super Trooper” to myself! Needless to say, I don’t really listen to Abba anymore (don’t mind hearing some now and then though) and haven’t for many years (and I’ve never really been any where close to a Kiss fan!).

2. 99 Red Balloons by Nena. This relates to a phase in my life where I was really into ideas and concerns surrounding nuclear war. I mean, it was a time of movies like Threads and The Day After. A few years later I was reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen and still listening to Nena. There was the whole Cold War Regan years, and some people we’re really scared of the end. I drew some art now and then protesting nuclear war and later on in high school wrote a report on MAD. That, and Nena was totally hot—German voice and accent, hairy armpits, and all! Most of that whole album is great and I still listen to it every now and then. I’ve never picked up her second album though, but I’ve always wanted to hear it.

3. Strange Animal by Gowan. I don’t know. It reminds me of summers as a young boy—late grade school and early junior high. I used to play D & D with the kids down the block, and we’d also run around the close playing guns, hide and tag, or something. My friend Shawn had the tape and we’d listen to it while hangin’ out or playing D & D sometimes. I got hooked on listening to the wolves howl in the song, and I began to quite enjoy Gowan’s music. This lasted all the way until after high school, and I even saw him play twice in the same week: once in Edmonton at the University there (I borrowed Mom’s car and went alone—no one I knew wanted to go!), and then again in my hometown of Red Deer (where I met Gowan’s brother and he got me into the sold out show for free—underage me with a fake ID). I haven’t really listened to Gowan much in the last ten years.

4. 21st Century Boy by Sigue Sigue Sputnik. This was the first really “alternative” music that I’d ever heard, and it was the first music I’d heard with samples. In a way, Sputnik were, like they proclaimed, the future of pop music, but at the same time, their cheese is totally a product of the times. It brings back memories of early junior high and even of high school when I had my first serious relationship with a girl named Shannon. She liked Sputnik too, and we were both thrilled to get a copy of their next album “Dressed for Excess.” I still enjoy Sputnik on occasion.

5. Orion by Metallica. I went through a phase late in junior high into early high school where Metallica were my metal gods—in fact, they were almost the only metal that I actually enjoyed: perhaps having something to do with them being a so-called “thinking man’s metal band.” This particular song was the first Metallica song I learned to play on my guitar. I used to practice it so often that I began to practice it blindfolded. I went and saw their “And Justice For All” tour when I was fifteen. It was the first rock concert I’d ever been to, and my friend Josh and I were about tenth row on the floor—it totally fuckin’ rocked. I don’t really listen to Metallica much anymore though.

6. Rocket by Def Leppard. This is early high school. Memories of starting work at McDonald’s, playing Battle Tech with some friends (I was the youngest of the group, some were geeks in their mid twenties!), warm summer nights, flirting with one of the neighbourhood girls, driving around in my friend Chris’ car, sneeking out of the house, etc.. Needless to say, my days of listening to Def Leppard have long been over.

7. Ostia by Coil. My good friend Josh had returned from a trip to England with his hair shaved into a mohawk (he did it himself in the hotel bathroom—quite a shock to his father the minister) and he had randomly bought some albums based on the art on the cover. He picked up the Hellraiser Soundtrack, and because of that he also bought Horserotavator. We listened to these albums together when he got back to Red Deer and they were strange, but we really got into them. I ended up recording them and listening to them while I helped dry the dishes at home. Ostia has always been one of favorites—it’s hauntingly beautiful. Still love Coil and related bands to this day.

8. Def Con One by PWEI. It was in mid high school when I first started listening to the Poppies: a direct result of Shannon, the girl who liked Sputnik, who I met because we both worked at McDick’s and we were both in the same high school—she was one year my juniour. She had seen one of their videos on Much Music (our Nation’s music corporation) and she picked up This is the Day This is the Hour This is This. We both really got into it! I still listen to some PWEI now and then.

9. Angel by Ministry. Well, I’d been listening to some different sorts of music by this time, and Josh had slipped this into my walkman one day in the high school library. The whole album Twitch is pretty good, but this one song in particular stands out as being related to memories of high school angst and days of moping around in a pseudo goth punk style—smoking cigarettes outside the school, going for too many coffees with the crew of weirdoes that hung out at “the Nines.” The beginnings of experimentation with some drugs. Driving my beat up old car. Crazy relationship problems with Shannon (classic “love-hate” teen angst romance). Ministry? Well, I still listen, but not as much as I used to—have yet to hear Al’s last album and haven’t actually owned an album newer than so-called “Psalm 69.”

10. A song by The Leslie Spit Trio that I don’t even know the title of! It’s about heading out of the city’s empty shallow life to hit the highways and search for UFOs. Its really quite pleasant. Again, this relates to the final year of high school and after, driving my car, staying up late. Working the late shift at the local twenty four hour store, hot summer nights, skateboarding, and really a whole set of experiences of my life that were post-school but pre-moving out of my hometown. Never really a big fan of The Trio, but I really like this song.

11. (‘cause eleven is more my style) ff = 66 by Jawbox. This song reflects the final portion of my life in my hometown before I moved to Calgary and it still carries a vibe for me today. It is focused aggression and attentive direction. It captures a whole category of music and experiences that are part of the driving force of my last seven or eight years. Still listen to Jawbox, and I am currently quite distressed that the album For Your Own Special Sweetheart is not counted among the CDs that I own. I’ve been looking for it for a couple of months and I’ve yet to find it.

I have to say that this was difficult, and I regret that some songs had to be left out. I think this list also reflects more of my history than it does my last few years of existence, and I imagine it is subject to alteration with sway of mood and focus.
 
 
The Natural Way
13:19 / 20.06.03
Now this IS hard.

Adam and the Ants: Stand and Deliver

This! This song! I think I mentioned before that my Mother produced most of Adam's early videos and while I definitely DO enjoy boasting about it, I have to mention SaD here simply because I remember that period of my life so well. Still brings back memories of the very, very 70's Mike Mansfield Television office just off Wardour St, and, in particular, of my Mother when she was still cool (before deciding that Sloane-ing it was the way to go). I have visions of Mike's office and the photo of them all at the shoot with neckerchiefs and furry waistcoats...and the framed Shakin' Stevens suit on the wall. It was a weird time, and all the bitchy queens and freaks and the undercurrent of cocaine frightened me, but it's all so vivid and probably my first real memory of any music apart from 'Hit me with your Rhythm Stick' or bloody ELO. It's also here because the story about the stuntman who leapt off the castle in the video (at least, I think it was the SaD video) in a suit of armour and smashed his body to pieces in the moat still haunts me. It was such a disturbing thing for a five year old to hear about.

Oh, fuck it, I'm not going to be guilty about the *coolness* of this one: it was my life and it happened and it was important and shaped me and all that.

Dire Straits: Your Latest Trick

9 yrs old....

And now for the foray into the realms of the desperately uncool. Dire Straits were the only band Sandy Nanny played that I could really get into. I resented Quo, and Queen just never hit the right spot, but DS were okay. I liked their blues-y guitars and a lot of the songs were just about on the right side of melancholy to make me feel pleasantly depressed. I remember vividly the lack of distance between myself and music as a child, and it's difficult to cop to actually liking a lot of stuff. I didn't really understand what it meant to *like* music - it affected me too deeply for me to categorise the listening experience into simple 'likes' or 'dislikes' - I just remember that this tune made me emote a whole lot and that I used to mistranslate the lyric as 'Your Ladies Train'.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: Don't Push Me

Forget what I said before, I fucking loved this. I loved soul and rap and I loved dancing to it and I still have no idea what it was that attracted me to it. Sure, it was a craze - we all spazzed out on the floor of the Primary School Disco to this shit - but I don't know, I can't speak for anyone else, but this stuff really moved me. Maybe it was its American-ness, maybe it was because it had nothing to do with the music my Nannies-from-Yorkshire played at home (or Mum and her Goddamn 'Air Supply' and 'Chess'). Maybe I equated it with big macs or something.... But it definitely had something to do with the fact that I really, really liked to dance.

Pet Shop Boys: West End Girls

10 years old and it's around this time that my taste really started to consolidate itself. Right here, between the ryhthms of GM Flash and co. and the disco-y, electronic sound of the Pet Shop Boys, can be found the seed of my future *taste*. Or at least it's as close as I can get to it, considering I don't view life as a narrative. There was something so warm about those cold synths. This tune (and both their early albums) really did it for me.

Public Enemy: Bring The Noise

Right, for this one we have to skip right over Salt and Pepper's 'Push It' and right into the action that it led to (there just ain't enough time fo' that)! Basically, when it came early teens (12ish) and a monthly allowance, Bobboss and I got right into smash-the-transformer and clothes from Burton and BUYING MUSIC. My bro' decided he loved S&P and it led him to 'It Takes a Nation of Millions...' and deep, deep happiness. But not at first. He might of loved this stuff, but I wasn't totally convinced, not until I heard Bring the Noise and the instrumental breakbeat stuff - right there I began to realise what really did it for me. I loved rap, but.....

Royal House: Can You Party?

And this was where it ALL came together. Boboss nabbed 'House Hits 88' 'cause it had an S&P track on it, but we soon realised that was the least interesting thing on the album. From the moment I heard the words 'Too Black. Too Strong.' I was in heaven. Just the beat and the samples - no lyrics. Fucking amazing. It felt new - there was nothing like it. I loved the way house music got up people's noses, and, while everyone else was disowning it, I felt the love more strongly because I knew it belonged to me. And so began the era of dancing around my bedroom like a nutter and dreaming of raves on the M25 and designing flyers and, Jesus, it was great. There were a few of us, and every time we heard the words 'Shut up, acid house is so OUT!' we felt like we were privy to the best secret in the whole world.

Force Legato: System

You can find this in the mix on the DJ Hell 'Electro-body' thing, but we had it waaaay back then in 1990, and weren't we the lucky ones? Oh, yes. There was a whole bunch of tunes that rocked my world around this time (Genoside [sic] 2: Death of the Kamikaze, Nightmares on Wax: I am for Real, Pressure Drop: Feeling Good, Fallout: The Morning After, Masters of the Universe: Space Talk, Juno Reactor: Soul Thunder, Leftfield: Not Forgotten (the original house mix)....the list goes on and on...), but 'System' was the one. It was so fucking hardcore. We were 14 and solvents were the big thing and this tune really summed up the buzz. There was a whole bunch of stuff coming out of Germany at the time that the press had dubbed New Beat - a really eurotastic gelling of house with a harder, more electronic sound - (actually, a shit load of it sounded really similar to today's rash of electro-pop a la Anthony Rother) and System was and is prolly the best example of this sound. With it's pulsing, industrial beat and gradually rising acid line it perfectly replicated the high derived from inhaling a can of Brut for men (where the heart pounds like a jackhammer and the hot rush builds and builds) and was the perfect soundtrack to dancing around the campfire all night. Except for the fact that it was really scary. A lot of the other tunes concentrated on being spacey and nice, but System had no time for any of that stuff. Aerosol is a really heavy drug - it's really fucking dangerous and can fuck yr head sooooo badly - and that's what this'n reminded us of. After a few nasty experiences watching mates pass out or hallucinate so badly they thought the right thing to do would be to dive into a bramble bush head first, System started to take on a sinister tone. And it encouraged it what with all the creepy, whispered 'I seek you here.... Right in Front of me HERE!' and distorted 'The other side is bright..' vocal samples. The tune was just perfect for inducing bad trips. Terrifying. We once left Little Toby alone in a field with System playing. I think it made him cry.

And remember, kids: Drugs are BAD.

Spooky: Schmoo

Flashforward 4 years and I'm just about to turn 18 and we're still in a bloody field, but the drugs had to go - they really did me in for a moment there. And, well, anyway, we're in a field and there was one of two things playing: Digable Planets or Spooky's lovely 'Gargantuan' album. I really don't have that much to say about this tune, but it was around about this time that I think people started making music for me again. I loved early hardcore, but what it became didn't always do that much for me (I say 'always' because some stuff I loved.) and I wasn't much of a junglist (tho' I cop to going to a few raves on Hastings pier and at least one Ravealation). But deep, progressive house and early trance (before it became the hyperactive monstrosity it is now) really did it for me. Yeah, whenever I look back on this time I remember hanging out in 'The Shack' we built at the bottom of Fuzz's garden and having panic attacks with spliffs and the opening 'OOooooooo aaaaaahahhhhh' of this track. Lovely memories, but not much going on.

Solid Steel mixtapes

20 and, I admit it, I really like Ninjatune. If anyone wants to know why I'm so down on Trip Hop now, well, you just need to have spent any time at my student digs. Dope, dope and more dope. Stoned and stoned again. We never left the house except to score more munchies. It was fucking disgusting. But ace. Vicky and I used to stick our heads inbetween the speakers and watch our beards grow as 'On a Mission' buggered away around us. It was sad - it was waaaay introspective and wanky - but it was nice. And all of that early Ninjacuts stuff still reminds me of those long, dark nights in Hounslow and the rows with my then girlfriend about how I just wasn't going to listen to the Jodeci album any more and Jord and Jess and loads of people you don't know. Twas claustrophobic and lovely. And the Solid Steel mixtapes sounded great booming away in Vicky's convertible jeep as we sped down the Great West Road towards glamorous Ealing Broadway.

Jonathan Richman: That Summer Feeling

A few years ago my taste shifted abruptly again and I think it began with this song and a general immersion in all things 70's/early 80's. I listened to so much Modern Lovers, early Prince and Iggy and Bowie, it's surprising I don't hate them now. I've always been a sucker for miserable, melancholy shit (hello Dire Straits!) and this, combined with a mate's caravan, a glorious summer camp-out, a singsong and a coke comedown just hit the farkin spot. I couldn't get it out of my head for months and, of course, it led me to the incredible 'Corner Store', 'Lesbian Bar', 'Someone to Care About' and 'New Teller', so I'm a very happy runk.

Which I guess leads me here... Shit. What the fuck defines me at the moment? What's my soundtrack? Jeez, I don't know. There's a lot of stuff I like, but buggered if I could tell you.

I hate this thread. I don't know if I've been at all successful in reducing my life to series of tunes. There were loads more and, often, stuff I preferred, but there you go.

I think I'll make the last one up:

Runky-Kunk: Deliberate Shunt

There, is that good enough for you?
 
 
rizla mission
13:25 / 20.06.03
This thread is amazing.

I'm halfway through writing mine - I've done about the first six and got stuck in an unbearable heap of nostalgia.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:05 / 20.06.03
Aaah! Interesting! So THAT'S why Bleulaces goes on about how 'If you don't like Happy, you don't understand raving'! It's because it was the first thing you pilled too, wasn't it boyo?

I always thought you got into the game earlier than that, but the reformed indie-kid thing explains a lot....

You can hit me now, 'cause I really am smirking. Come on, here's my face! Hit it! Go on! It needs a slap....
 
 
Billy Corgan
16:22 / 20.06.03
Mmm.

"I Am One" - This was my first indie hit from back in 1991. Back then, music was real, but I never did like indie rock people because they were mean to me, tugged on my hair, and made fun of Iron Maiden and The Cure. This song totally fucking rocks, and it reminds me of how much I fucking rocked back then. This was also the first song on my first album, Gish, which set the rock world on fire. Things were never the same after Gish dropped - it was like a whole new era of rock n roll. You can thank me for that.

"Drown" - This was probably the song that really helped to break my band into the mainstream, since it was on the mega-selling Singles soundtrack. This is probably one of the most beautiful songs ever written by anybody. It also proved how adventurous I am - it's 8 minutes long! And it's got feedback at the end! A lot of other lame rock bands have used the word "drown" or "drowning" in their lyrics and song titles, but I'm the one who started all that. I innovated that, man. I invented it, and innovated it, and flipped it again.

"Today" - This was the first huge hit, and it changed music forever. No one had ever heard that many overdubbed guitars on a pop single before, and no one had ever heard a song so full of pain, but also irony. I've been told that this is the first rock hit to ever have a sarcastic lyric as the hook, which I'm very proud of. This song will never stop being awesome.

"Disarm" - This was the second mega-hit, and it's the song that I think made people realize that I am one of the best songwriting geniuses of all time. It had a black and white video, which was very artistic and serious. It made people notice that this song was about my painful childhood, which is important. "The killer in me is the killer in you." So true. But you probably didn't know that until you heard the song.

"Bullet With Butterfly Wings" - I remember when this baby dropped, it was all anyone wanted to hear for months on end! This is the song that transformed me from being a mere Brilliant Songwriter to being a full-on Ultimate Rock Godhead. A lot of fans like to come up to me and tell me that this song changed their lives, and of course, it did. It changed everyone's live, as far as I'm concerned. Why? Because despite all of our rage, we are still just rats in cages. Later on, the Matrix ripped off my idea, which fucking sucks. They should have paid me for use of my original concepts.

"1979" - This was the song that proved to people that I wasn't just an amazing rock songwriter, but I was also the master of the pop song as well. You can dance to it. Put it on, feel that groove! With this song, I made all disco/dance/electronic music pointless, because I added something to the mix that nobody else had ever thought of before: melodic genius and passionate emotions.

"Ava Adore" - This symbolizes my 'difficult, arty' period. Even though it is very experimental, dark, and hard to understand, it still rocks really hard, so people could still mosh to it. That was pretty clever of me.

"The Everlasting Gaze" - This song was my way of saying "hey world, I never stopped rocking out, come back to me!" Not many people understood it though, because most people are Britney-loving sheep. I can't understand why figuring out an elaborate, obtuse, quasi-mystical story about myself was so difficult for some people. Especially since I hid clues in the lyrics, the packaging, and my website. Sheep. Ba ba ba ba. Sheep!

"Untitled" - This was the final Smashing Pumpkins song, which I wrote to mark the tragic end of the rock and roll era. It was very hard, but it had to be done. But wait...

"Honestly" - This is the song with which I revived rock music, and decided that from now on, rock music would be about love, hope, and faith rather than sorrow, anger, and disillusionment. Everything is great now! Everything is wonderful! Honestly!
 
 
ChrisDodo
18:39 / 20.06.03
Not going to be as much writing as others - I don't really associate music with time that much, it's powerful enough on its own. All of these make me shudder when I hear them.

Orbital - Belfast
I used to listen to the John Peel show on a radio when I was meant to be asleep. This was the first techno record I could classify as such. It bended my mind. I went out and bought the album (on cassette, natch) as soon as physically possible.

KC Flyte - Planet E
This was on Deep Heat 5, which made me realise all this music that I liked had a label, dance music. Not only was this a revelation, but it turned me onto Talking Heads, whose "Once in a Lifetime" this sampled. And also Brian Eno, which got me into lots of ambient.

The Orb - Aubrey Mixes
I think this was the first Orb album I had (again on cassette, natch). I mention it instead of others because I remember listening to this walking along the beach near Sizewell. A pretty cold windy day, in a world of my own.

Spooky - Gargantuan (if one track, Little Bullet parts 1 and 2)
Again, merely chosen from the sea of wonderful music at this time because, for some reason, place and time sticks in my head. I bought this in Andy's Records, somewhere near Cambridge (can't quite remember where). Then my parents took me to a National Trust place, and being a stroppy teenager I decided to stay in the car, and listened to this. Loud.

The Residents - The Commercial Album
I guess I used to listen to a lot of radio. My nightly listening was Mark Goodier and John Peel. The radio used to be on constantly. I would just absorb music. Now the tele's on, and radio seems like commercial pap. Anyway, the other show I religiously listened to was Mixing It on Radio 3. It opened my eyes to so much music - hearing the Residents when I was 15 or 16 was amazing. Any one of the 40 songs on here is likely to pop into my head daily.

Various - Ambient Dub vol 1
Beyond Records collection of their first releases, just wonderful dancey summery music. I nearly wore the CD out, and most of the people on here went on to make lots of good music.

Primal Scream - Give Out But Don't Give Up
The track from the album. I dabbled in p-funk, but I think this track is actually better than most of the old Clinton and Bootsy albums. The whole PS album is underated, I think it's my favourite, mainly because I wore out Screamadelica to the point of knowing every note in every song. Backwards.

Derrick May - Strings of Life
Argh. Tingles just thinking of it. I can hum every beat of this. Most useful when stuck down a pothole, on ym own, with my light off (it's a long story). I have *no idea* how long I was there, and Strings of Life got me through.

Underworld - Moaner
It's hard to pick one Underworld song. This is the most life-affirming rush to the head imaginable.

Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi
A more modern entry into my brain. The film blew me away, the music introduced me to a lot of classical. It's the record I pull out whenever I want to be completely in the zone, to forget any worries, to concentrate, to destress.

That was a nice trip down memory lane. Thanks. It was hard to pick just ten out of everything.
 
 
Jack Fear
18:48 / 20.06.03
I've got the same problem as Flyboy—I've got fourteen-maybe fifteen on my list and I cannot seem to eliminate any of them.

I've written about eleven of them. 1500 words so far.

Kill me.
 
 
Jack Fear
20:01 / 20.06.03
Cutting this list down to ten from fifteen is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

  1. "Overture from Tommy," The Who
    We were six kids in four bedrooms. I was the youngest. For years I shared a room with my older brother. When somebody moved out and he finally got a room of his own, he left behind in my room an old portable record player—a turntable with attached speakers, the whole thing folded up like a suitcase—and a stack of comedy records (Bill Cosby, mostly)... and Tommy, which I think he must have himself inherited from our older sister.

    Tommy was a double album, with Side 1 and Side 4 on one record and Sides 2 and 3 on the other: I remember setting the first record to playing, and putting the second on the arm that extended out over the turntable: when the first record finished, the second would drop down on top of it and play, then you'd flip the whole stack over.

    When I was eight or so, I listened to Tommy every single day for about a year. It was an education in rock'n'roll that has lasted me a lifetime: I sang along, I danced, I emoted and acted. While I did, I was absorbing a musical vocabulary: the notion of motifs, the principles of musical structure, and the idea of using music to tell a story (as goofy and half-baked as Tommy's story is, you can follow the plot without an explanatory libretto). Some learned about musical narrative from listening to "John Henry was a Steel-Drivin' Man." I learned it from listening to the best rock band ever, at the peak of their powers. Not a bad deal.

  2. "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General"
    From a Golden Records A Child's Introduction to Gilbert and Sullivan. This was a 33 RPM 12-incher with edited selections from The Mikado, Pinafore, and Pirates of Penzance. By "edited," I mean the songs themselves, especially the patter songs, were abridged—"When I Was A Lad," from Pinafore, was cut from five verses to three, and "I Am the Very Model..." was cut to two. I didn't know that, of course. This was indeed my introduction to G & S, indeed to musical theatre as a whole, and even more indeed to a by-now-long-gone mode of witty songwriting that began with G & S, peaked with Cole Porter, and probably ended with Tom Lehrer.

    For the patter songs, velocity was the key. By age eleven I had learned this off by heart and would sing along with the record note-perfect. Then I cranked the turntable up to 45 RPM and learned to sing it at that speed. Seven years later, I sang the role of Major-General Stanley in a high school production of Pirates, and the orchestra could not keep up with me.

    It took me forever to learn the middle verse, though—that was the one they'd cut from the record!

  3. "Love To Love You, Baby," Donna Summer
    I have twin sisters who are ten years older than I: when I was twelve, one of them dropped out of college and moved back home. Her room was across the hall from mine, and from it rang the sounds of funk and disco: A Taste of Honey, early Teena Marie, the Ohio Players, and the seventeen endless minutes of "Love To Love You, Baby." It was all heroically randy: I already knew that music could be amusing, could be heady, could be transporting, but my sister's records, from the lord-have-mercy moans to the very record jackets (the nude silhouette on the cover of Peter Brown's "Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me" gave me some funny feelings), made me realize music could be dirty—just as I was reaching the age to understand what "dirty" meant.

  4. "Overkill," Men At Work
    The Men were the first pop band that felt like they were aimed squarely at me, that were for people my age—this wasn't a band for my older brother—the first band to give me that proprietary feeling that characterizes pop fandom. I remember waiting up to watch the band on TV (on Solid Gold, no less), studying the screen intently—Colin Hay's crazy wall-eye, Greg Ham's soprano sax (I'd never seen one before). The song still holds up—it's an immaculately-crafted mood piece.

  5. "Years Later," Cactus World News
    I could have put any of a number of songs in this slot, actually: U2's Joshua Tree record, early Waterboys, Big Country, The Church—white guitar rock bands characterized by a sense of scale, a vastness, an immense yearning. This "big music" was the soundtrack to my late teens, the years when I was starting college, defining myself, preparing to take on the world, out on my own for the first time—also the years of my father's death and the emotional freefall of its aftermath. MUSIC SAVES LIVES, as the slogan goes—and as hamfisted, adolescent and overwrought as it occasionally is, this is the music that saved mine. Nothing ever dies, it's just the years going by—nothing will die, nothing will die.

  6. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik I (allegro)
    The old man listened to a lot of orchestral stuff, mainly Beethoven, and it never blew any air up my skirt: there was an element of self-consciousness and strain that put me off—I got the impression that this wasn't music you listened to for fun, this was music you listened to because it would improve you.

    Then, Mozart. Hey! Tunes! Pretty tunes, at that! You could whistle this stuff—maybe even dance to it! Who knew? I'm still not crazy about Beethoven, but his stuff makes more sense to me now. Mozart was the key to that.

  7. "Sally MacLennane," The Pogues
    Discovered booze and the Pogues at approximately the same time, and for a while the two were inseparable: wandering the frigid streets of Collegetown, a whole gang of us legless wrecked and bellowing these songs at the top of our lungs. The idea that Anglo-Irish folk music could be recontextualized for contemporary relevance led me sideways to Richard Thompson, Nick Drake, and the British wing of the singer-songwriter movement as it overlapped with the folk revivalists.

  8. "So What," the Miles Davis Sextet
    There was jazz around the house, of course—big band swing, Sarah Vaughan, Brubeck's Time Out—but I never "got" jazz until I heard Kind of Blue. Part of it is the inescapable truth that, as Branford Marsalis puts it, jazz is not a music for kids. More important, though, the jazz I'd heard to that point was all tightly composed and structured—tight band riffs with designated solo sections. Hearing the Sextet creating group compositions on the fly from a set of changes scribbled on an envelope—BOOM. My ears opened.

  9. "Chills," We Saw The Wolf
    I played bass on the studio session for this song. When Andy first played the song for me, it was still embryonic—but it had killer hooks, and I wanted soooo bad to be a part of this. We worked hard to shape the song: I sweated blood over every note of the bassline. We cut it more-or-less live in the studio, two guitars, bass and drums—and after the initial studio session, I went home with a rough mix. It was one of those perfect driving rock'n'roll grinds, alive with nervous energy. I was on top of the world.

    Months later, without my knowledge, Andy took the master tapes (and a girl singer with whom he was currently infatuated) to NYC, for overdubs and remixing: fiddles were added, duet vocals were layered, and parts of my work were erased or remixed to inaudibility.

    This was... an educational experience.

  10. "In the Bleak Mid-Winter"
    A Christmas carol with lyric by the poet Christina Rossetti, as performed by Jane Siberry.

    When I grew up in the Church, there'd been an institutional turn away from the old foursquare hymns of tradition and towards a new breed of liturgical music heavily influenced by the singer-songwriter scene of the 60s and 70s. Out with the old, in with the new. "Cowboy songs," my father sniffed of the new music. I wanted to disagree with him on general principles—wanted to tell him that this was New Music for a New Church, a Church for people like me, not outdated old fossils like him—but frankly, I didn't much like the stuff either.

    If you've been to a Catholic church in the last fifteen years, you know the stuff I'm talking about: "On Eagle's Wings," f'rinstance. It's not inspirational, it's anaesthetizing. But for years it was the only game in town: when we did, occasionally, sing a pre-1969 hymn, there was always a guilty, atavistic air to it, as if we'd momentarily returned to walking on all fours.

    I kicked around doing church music for years because I felt like I ought to be doing something, but it gave me no joy—I was never really happy with the quality of the songs we were singing; the old hymns were stuffy (I thought), the new music was feel-good soft-rock pap and I was unsatisfied.

    1997: I found myself in charge of the choir, trying to put together a Christmas program: I was reading Thomas Day's vitriolic broadside Why Catholics Can't Sing: Catholic Culture and the Triumph of Bad Taste, and recognizing myself as a part of the problem. Miserable and stressed, I scored a copy of Siberry's new Christmas album: this tune came up, in all its beauty, in all its simplicity... and suddenly I had an angle of approach for the old hymns—one that was delicate and yet strong, that respected the rugged plainness of a traditional hymn and—most importantly—made you want to sing along.

    Everything I've done since has followed from that moment, from the way I sing and play to my understanding of what makes for "good music." For such a hushed, fragile beauty of a song, it has wrought seismic changes.
 
 
No star here laces
08:00 / 21.06.03
Bruce, it's waaaaay more complex than that, but you have to get a nice narrative together, yaknow?

Detroit techno was the first thing I pilled to, FWIW, but '87 was the first time I liked house - when "Jack your body" hit #1, predictably, but the stuff didn't become a part of my life until much later.

The reason Happy is so key is that it eliminates any pretension to cool or musicality and just leaves the dance. It's the ultimate "forget it all" music, and always will be...

So many great lists here - I almost want to make a comp of this stuff. And our thread kicks the arse of the one on ILM...
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
02:03 / 22.06.03
So many to choose from!

1) Sloop John B – The Beach Boys
I used to sit in my Mams washing basket ( I was about 3 years old) and think it was a boat, my Dad was a big Beach Boys fan so this song just seemed to click at the time.

2) Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.
Seen Ghosbusters and started my own ghost busting unit.

3) Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
Anything by Michael Jackson was amazing at this time of life but this was my favourite.

4) Prophets of rage – Public Enemy
This record seriously opened my mind and released me from all the shit I was listening to before I heard it.

5) Made of stone – Stone Roses
Although it was a long time after it had come out, I went to a University open day in Salford and this song stuck in my head.

6) U Got the love – Candy Staton
May not be the right title but you know what song I mean, a friend died, we used to play it in my car before and after, RIP Wally.

7) Faster – Manic Street Preachers
Probably the best song that they ever wrote, and a very bad time in my life, but always remembered.

8) London Calling – The Clash
London called, I came.

9) Monkey Man – Rolling Stones
Hedonistic, drink/drug fuelled excess everything comes together with this song, AM A MONKEY, MA MA, AM A MONKEY!

10) Beautiful Day – U2
The song I will most associate with meeting my wife to, just happened to be playing, at the right time two stars collided.
 
  

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