Thread: Albums / Pieces of Music that Changed Your Life (classical and non-classical)

Hi. For me, there were a couple albums that really made me want to play and listen to music as much as possible. He's a list of music that changed my life, please share your own:

Ozzy Osbourne - Randy Rhoads Tribute Live album and Diary of a Madman
Shawn Lane - Powers of Ten Live
Return to Forever - The Romantic Warrior
Chick Corea Electric Band - Inside out
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon (with headphones on)
Chopin - Etudes
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
Mingus - Let My Children Hear Music

ALSO --- FORGOT THE MENTION THIS BUT HAD A HUGE IMPACT ON ME:

Pat Martino - Live at Yoshi's

All of them: they made me financially insecure, robbed me of my free time, caused weight gain and social isolation

At age 8 (I think) I went to a sleepover at an older friends house and we spent the night listening to The Beatles. Red and blue albums IIRC. I became a huge Beatle fan and Classic Rock fan in general, and went most of my childhood not listening to my generation's music.

Age 17: A teacher mentioned persuasion in class, and a kid next to me said "Pretty Persuasion." I'd heard of the song and somewhat impulsively used this as an excuse to buy REM's Reckoning LP. I soon had a new favorite band and made an abrupt switch to college/alt rock that lasted into my mid 20s.

Neither of these really changed my life though, other than my listening habits. I've never had One Big Moment with Classical Music.

Originally Posted by GreenMamba

At age 8 (I think) I went to a sleepover at an older friends house and we spent the night listening to The Beatles. Red and blue albums IIRC. I became a huge Beatle fan and Classic Rock fan in general, and went most of my childhood not listening to my generation's music.

Age 17: A teacher mentioned persuasion in class, and a kid next to me said "Pretty Persuasion." I'd heard of the song and somewhat impulsively used this as an excuse to buy REM's Reckoning LP. I soon had a new favorite band and made an abrupt switch to college/alt rock that lasted into my mid 20s.

Neither of these really changed my life though, other than my listening habits. I've never had One Big Moment with Classical Music.

I'm the same way with classical. There hasn't really been one big moment that did it for me. It's a great form of music, and i have been listening to it a lot lately but i'm still kind of waiting to hear that one big moment. I said that chopin's etudes were a big moment for me, and they were - but mainly because they were some of the first classical music i listened to. Stuff like the Tribute album, romantic warrior, live at yoshi's, and powers of ten live gave me chills as if i had heard it before in a past life or something

"Tales from Topographic Oceans" by Yes. I first encountered this in the 6th form common room at school when I was 17 and it opened a whole new world of discovery and wonder that has never completely closed since.

First rock purchases included The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (The Impossible Dream), Deep Purple (24 Carat Purple), Led Zeppelin (IV), Yes (Relayer), Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon), Status Quo (Live) and The Who (Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy) and I still love them all to varying degrees.

As regards classical, I knew that once I'd bought my first Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler cds I'd want to take a real deep one from the well.

While the general direction of my musical taste had been set in early childhood (classical--the Russians, mostly; and popular music--first, Jimmy Dorsey and his band and singers, then 1950s Tin Pan Alley), there were moments of true revelation to come. One of them was the discovery via an AM radio station of so-called "race music"--Blues, R&B, Doo-Wop. Songs like Earth Angel, Life is But a Dream, Bo Diddley, Ray Charles' early work all served to blow my mind, and I continue to enjoy all these genres.

At roughly the same time, I became hooked on cante flamenco, the addiction cemented by the album Festival Gitana on Elektra. This had Sabicas, his brother Diego Castellon, and Mario Escudero as guitarists and two generally unheralded singers, Enrique Montoya and Domingo Alvarado. The force and influence of the renowned Sabicas compelled all concerned to create a unprecedented moment of flamenco utterance that firmly bound me to this compelling art form. Again, a lifelong enthusiasm.

In classical, hearing recordings of Hovhaness' Lousadzak, Sibelius' En Saga and of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra set me in new directions musically.

In Rock, I've been influenced by Genesis: Selling England by the Pound; Soundgarden: Louder than Love; Jane's Addiction: Nothing's Shocking--actually I'll quit here, as this could go on indefinitely.

Led Zeppelin II was the album that started it all for me.

I was 13 when I bought it.

There was no going back.

With classical music there was no one album.

This

Originally Posted by Dr Johnson

Led Zeppelin II was the album that started it all for me.

I was 13 when I bought it.

There was no going back.

Your taste was sure. Led Zeppelin's oeuvre, for me, represents a pinnacle, a Denali, an Aconcagua towering above other and lesser summits in Rock. The degree to which textures, timbres, instrumental juxtapositions are clearly enunciated and constantly altered in their work is extraordinary. Led Zeppelin I is one of a handful of albums that approach perfection, and is even more startling when one considers that it is a first effort. Ortega y Gasset, whom I have referenced before, penned this observation that I have always thought applied particularly to Led Zep:

"In the great hour of the decline of the genre...the opportunity of achieving the perfect work is excellent...when accumulated experience has utterly refined the artistic sensitivity." From Notes on the Novel.

I am happy that we share this respect for Led Zeppelin. They are our overlords.

Genesis - Wind and Wuthering
In particular One for the Vine. Huge influence on my developing taste in music. I was obsessed with Genesis subsequently for many teenage years.

There were quite a few albums and pieces of music at various stages throughout my life, that altered it.

When I was still a kid, it was Sargent Pepper's. It opened my mind to music other than the usual pop songs.

In my early teens, it was probably the 1st Black Sabbath album.

Then, very shortly after that, it was a pretty obscure album, "It Will All Work Out in Boomland" by a British band called T2. This album finished the job of opening my mind to new musical forms. This is often considered 'proto-prog', as it was so early, and still had many aspects of psychedelic music, but it also had many attributes that are associated with prog.

Still listening to mostly hard rock (Sabbath, Purple, Uriah Heep, Zeppelin, etc), and this one outlier (T2), I discovered the rest of the prog world. At this point, I was no longer interested in the music I was currently listening to, and the exploration of prog ensued.

These were the first few that I discovered:

YES - Fragile
King Crimson - Larks Tongue
Camel - Mirage
Genesis - Foxtrot
Gentle Giant - In a Glass House

These clued me into world class prog from other countries besides the UK and the US:

PFM - Storia di un Minuto
Banco - Io Sono Nato Libero

Then I discovered the avante-prog bands of the time. Henry Cow, Art Zoyd, Universe Zero, Samla Mammas Manna, Stormy Six. I did not know it at the time, but these types of bands were the most responsible, after I listened to Stravinsky, for getting me into classical, since they are influenced by mid 20th century classical.

The fusion of Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Brand X, Iceberg, Weather Report, Jean Luc Ponty changed my view on jazz.

And finally, The Rite of Spring was the piece that opened the door to classical for me. Before that, all that I heard were the composers (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Hayden, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, etc) that are the favorites of most members here, but do nothing for me.

Stravinsky lead me to Bartok, Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, Carter, Magnus Lindberg, Joan Tower, Schwantner, etc, etc and ever increasing need to discover more 20th century and contemporary music.