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Three Albums To Soundtrack Your Life

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My first real exposure to Pop music was a gift for my fifth birthday, With The Beatles. We had no record player but the gifted brought one round whenever she babysat. I was entranced by those songs, transported by their fresh, wide-eyed excitement. I’d dance myself to sleep. My aunt was a skilled babysitter.

By the time I was eighteen, it was Songs In The Key Of Life, a wondrous, sprawling album, covering every aspect of life. It was cool, sophisticated and definitely very grown up. It was music to dance to, to fall in love to, to pray to, to drink to, to laugh to, to flirt to, to stand up and be counted to, to man the barricades to. It had jazz, rap and soul. Even a crying baby couldn’t spoil it.

Today, I’m recovering from a really difficult year. A Moon Shaped Pool documents a car crash of the soul but has splinters of hope. I listen to it and marvel at how far Pop music has come since my childhood. Radiohead have effectively created a Classical Song Cycle rather than a Rock record. Its ebbs and flows transport me just as much as With The Beatles did back in 1963. The only pity is that it doesn’t make me dance myself to sleep.

Over to you, Afterworders. Three albums to soundtrack your life. One for your childhood, another for your coming of age and a third for where your head is at today.

9

Comments

  1. Rubber Soul. The only pop record in our house in my childhood. Played to death and buried deep in my psyche I expect. Informs my appreciation of musical melody, mood, arrangement, variation, ambition and intention still.

    Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. My difficult teenager years. The Sabs’ Sgt Pepper. Huge in scope, sound, pretension and it’s impression on me. A glorious, impossibly ambitious and underappreciated work. By far the best thing Rick Wakeman did in 1973.

    Kid A. Not my favourite album. Possibly not even my favourite Radiohead album. But the one I return to most frequently. The use of repetition, the trance-like state induced, it is the sound of the modern world to me, paranoid, anxious and discomforting.

    • I’ve never willingly listened to Black Sabbath and was blissfully unaware that Rick Wakeman had played Moog on track four of their masterpiece. I can’t argue that it was his best of 1973, a year that saw the release of Tales From Topographic Oceans, Yessongs and The Six Wives Of Henry The VIIIth. However, everybody knows that his best piano playing is to be found on Hunky Dory.

      • Apparently he would nip across to the Sabbath sessions, which he enjoyed far more than the po-faced Topographic sessions. Yessongs is incredible, but all recorded in 1972.

        If you’ve never heard prog Sabbath, do try and listen to Spiral Architect.

  2. I grew up in a house where only two kinds of music were allowed – classical or conversation. Exposure to pop in the early Seventies was limited to half an hour a week of Top of The Pops if dad was late home from work. I developed a fascination for The Beatles despite frustratingly little access to their music. Even photos of them were hard to find – I’d stand outside the newsagents and stare at copies of The Beatles Book reprints. Then one day my 14-year-old sister came home with both a cassette player and a copy of A Hard Day’s Night. Forensically scouring the tiny artwork, we hit Play with shaky fingers and listened with quivering ears. Like someone born into a religion who just knows it is superior to all other faiths, despite not having experienced or investigated them, I immediately believed this was the greatest pop album ever made. And I still do.

    From 14-16 I was all about singles, partly because that was all I could afford but also because 1978-80 was such a good era for three-minute pop. Albums – I guess it would have to be Ultravox’s Vienna. Billy Currie’s oscillating synth was just thrillingly new paired with Ure’s guitar. The year I turned 17 my world sounded like Astrodyne. I had a hat like Midge’s but couldn’t afford the coat. The moustache would have to wait too.

    Now: I have lost touch with popular music. I rarely actively listen to it and when I do it’s usually the ease and comfort of old favourites rather than the challenge of the new. Maybe that’s a symptom of where my head is now. I like stuff that sounds like stuff I like. Apart from when entertaining, cooking or ironing, the soundtrack in my house now is Radios Three and Four. Classical or conversation – now where did I get that from?

  3. Nice thread. Wish I could participate, but I have almost completely stopped listening to contemporary music since I was about 24, so the third stage would be either “where my head was at when I first listened to this 20+ years ago” or “where somebody else’s head was at before I was born”.

    • Well, you can do the first two. Bartleby’s third choice is sixteen years old, but it is where his head is at now. Even if you are living in the past, there’ll be an album soundtracking your present.

  4. Hard to pick just three. Among the many that were, at their time, played to death as the best thing I’d ever heard, I’ve gone for two that have seemingly had a very lasting influence on me and a third that might well do. The first I still consider one of the best albums of all time.

    Electric Warrior
    I have a shite memory and only recall limited bits of my childhood. I do remember that Slade and The Sweet were popular among the boys at my primary school, David Cassidy and Donny Osmond among the girls. For me it was T.Rex. Between my 8th and 11th birthdays T.Rex had a string of great singles and one absolutely perfect album. It was the first album I bought and I now reckon its mix of electric and acoustic with a touch of fey glam were the foundations that shaped my lifelong tastes.

    Sandinista!
    Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon and Rainbow’s Rising were both massively important to my teenage years, but by the time I got to university I was big into punk and post-punk. Sandinista! was my way in to a lifelong love of reggae and dub, an appreciation of loose and sloppy (as opposed to perfectionism), and an interest in left wing politics.

    Above The Bones
    I’d never heard of Mishka before this summer. I came across him after by chance hearing Matthew McConaughey praising him on some chat show on youtube. His 2009 album sums up where I am right now. A very happy, carefree sound that’s definitely both spliff and beach friendly. Above The Bones, and its acoustic companion Guy With A Guitar, soundtracked my summer this year. I might well have no interest in them this time next year, but right now they perfectly suit my inner vibe (even though Leon Bridges and the new Van have usurped their regular place on my stereo).

  5. Neither my mum or dad had any records of their own before they married in 1969, but as newlyweds living on base in Berlin, instead of blowing the whole of their maternity payment on a posh pram like the other forces mums, mine chose a more sensibly priced pram plus a lovely Dual record player. Neither mum or dad had any records of their own before, but now that they had a bit more money spend (at least until us lot came along) their record collection grew steadily, including new releases and recent-ish stuff they’d missed out on like Let It Be, the Hey Jude comp, loads of soul best-ofs, a startling amount of Creedence (or as mum came to call them, living in a tiny RAF hut with no TV, “Bloody Creedence”) and a trio of Stones; Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, all bought from the NAAFI or the PX.

    By the time I came along in 1974 dad was on civvy street, and both the family and the record collection were larger. At some point they bought the album that became the one I listened to the most growing up; Rolled Gold. It is of course the best of the Stones compilations, and one of the best distillations of any artist, ever. I rarely see it at car boots these days, which is a shame as I only have it as a download, which just doesn’t seem right somehow, especially with all those pesky extra tracks.

    The second, released when I was 12, is of course Appetite For Destruction. I didn’t hear it until the following year because a girl at school I hated really liked G’n’R, and also I was content at the time with the likes of Terence Trent D’Arby, Roachford, Deacon Blue and the Housemartins, plus to be honest I wasn’t entirely sure who G’n’R really were. A late night TV showing of Axl and co. live at the NY Ritz the following year (I sat up with my mum, who enjoyed the bits she didn’t nod off through) made me fall for them hard, and aside from a handful of other cassettes I listened to little else for the next couple of years. My dearest wish is for the lovely tigs to give Appetite a proper whirl and report back. To date he refuses, but I’m confident it will happen one day.

    As to the third, hmm. I listen to a much wider array of music in these days of sonic plenty, and I’m really struggling to pick out any one record that could be described as a soundtrack. What resonates changes from month to month, even day to day, so I’ll have to pass on this bit, although I can tell you that I’m listening to a car boot Tupelo Honey as I type, and unlike me who has to keep deleting and correcting every few seconds, it’s pushing all the right buttons.

  6. I like this thread very much. In my earliest musically aware years around about 1965 ,I would say, my mum bought a brand new Radiogram which was the pride of the house. Really it was her pride and joy, something she could play her lps .of the great musical shows on so we had to listen to the likes of South Pacific, My Fair lady etc and the magic of Herb Alperts Tijuana Brass. As a way of getting me into music she bought me an album of Beatles songs however they were covers by a band called Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots. I am not making this up – they can be found on Wikipedia. Anyway one of the covers was I saw her standing there which remains to this day my favourite Beatles song.

    In my teens I fell hopelessly in love with a girl called Angela. Even though we never got past first base she was the one or so I thought. Looking back part of the attraction was she had an elder brother with a seriously cool record collection who introduced me to the likes of Richard and Linda Thompson and John Martyn. Anyway she dumped me and I went home heartbroken and played Joni Mitchell’s The hissing of Summer lawns over and over again. Specifically Shades of Scarlet conquering which seemed to have been written about us.

    In 2016 I Will be reaching my 60th birthday and music still continues to dominate my life and continues to throw up new surprises of real quaLity.In the summer my wife and I went to see Carole King at Hyde Park courtesy of some tickets from @niallb. One of the artist’s performing that day was Michael Kiwanuka. He opened with Cold Little Heart from his new album Love and Hate. It was beautiful. I subsequently purchased the album and this song had been played over and over and over again. Best thing I heard this year so thanks to Niall.
    You are also right about Radiohead by the way.

  7. Apart from South Pacific which Mum played non-stop for years the first album that opened my ears up was Bobby Vee which actually belonged to my older brother’s girlfriend. At 10 or 11 years old the magnificence of Take Good Care of My Baby blew my cotton socks off.
    Fast forward to 1966 where I found myself in a record booth (remember them?), mouth wide open, listening to Blonde on Blonde. And of course years later I found out that Bobby D played on Bobby V’s second album as a session player (piano I think).
    As for today, well since January of this year I have played Holly Williams’ the Highway virtually every day. Haven’t done that with an album since Blonde on Blonde. What comes round comes round, eh?

  8. In ruminative mood, so….Like others here childhood home was relatively music free or at least parents were pre-rock n roll/pop and had very few records (unless you count James Last which I don’t) so I would start my list with the first LP I bought was Slayed?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPTk5poAa1c

    Coming of age? Well I was always a late developer so I will claim Rattlesnakes – aptly because I am off to see Mr Cole tonight 🙂

    And where is my head at today? Last night it could have been this;

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgR5CaV12PM

    But today the list would be nearly endless but I’ll go for Ezra – the happiest evening I’ve had at gig this year (and it’s been a good year);

  9. When I was 5 or 6, I couldn’t stop playing The Best Of Rolf Harris. I knew practically every word on it, and even performed Two Little Boys in front of most of the school.

    “Coming of age” would have to be All Mod Cons or Unknown Pleasures. From 1972 to 1978, probably with the exception of Bowie, Pink Floyd and Slade, I was a singles child.

    This year has been all things Bowie, together with A Moon-Shaped Pool and reissues. However, after taking Mrs Biggles to Hyde Park in the summer to see Little Stevie Wonder, it is Songs In The Key Of Life (slightly edited/truncated) that I keep returning to. That and Joy Division, New Order and Peter Hook & The Light…

  10. My dad bought the best quality German stereo system he could find, but he bought it to be used so it was never off-limits for us kids, and I was taught how to operate it and take care of records as early as three years old.
    My two older sisters moved out around the same time, but left a couple of Beatles albums behind, and every day when my older brother had left for school I’d sit myself down in front of the stereo, armed with A Hard Day’s Night and our laminated copy of The Beatles Souvenir Film & Song Album containing the notes, lyrics and photographs.
    I knew how to read from the end of my third year, so I’d read along with the printed lyrics, index finger following every line carefully (with my other fingers tucked between the pages where the next track’s lyrics could be found quickly – they weren’t printed in the order of the album, so I’d find the next track in the book during some short instrumental break to be prepared and not miss a single word). Probably laying the foundation to my grasp of the English language (and spelling) at the same time. I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t understand what they were singing, which is a bit weird.
    I’d listen to this album, singing along with gusto, at least twice every morning. There were other albums that means a lot to me and instantly transports me back to my childhood, but this one was my absolute favourite at the time and the only one that had a ritual surrounding it; even though I knew the lyrics by heart I had to sit there with my fingers stuck between the pages of the album and read along as I sang along.
    It’s still my favourite Beatles album, and one of few that I still listen to since suffering from slight Beatles fatigue… Still own the souvenir album as well, holding together nicely. Like the publisher’s introduction says: “In years to come this album may well bring back nostalgic memories to you…”

    Almost impossible to choose the next one, so many to pick for so many reasons, but in the end I’ve chosen XTC’s Black Sea, because it was one of the first albums I bought myself, for my own money, and it was the album that started my intense love affair with XTC (still going strong). And I can remember the exact moment when I first heard “Generals and Majors” on the radio in my bedroom, waited for the announcer to say what it was so I could write down the name in my little alphabetized book (the first of many such books in my life) and when I realized that I’d already written down the names of other songs by the same band I decided I had to get the album. And I remember the intense joy I felt when I listened to the album for the first time and loved it from start to finish; the energy, the originality, the tunes!
    Quickly saved up to get their earlier stuff, and bought every album after that. Crazy good.

    To represent me today I choose Wilco: Schmilco. They are the XTC of my adult life; I bought my first Wilco album because I saw it was £1 in a virtual bargain bin and took a chance; loved it madly from start to finish and bought everything they’d recorded prior to that one, have bought every album since, never heard one I didn’t love.
    Also because they are a band that some people don’t “get”, and that’s the kind of reaction people have towards me as well. And Wilco’s music is – at first listen – simple and unfrilly and meat & potatoes, but if you go on it opens up to reveal so much more. It rewards loyalty, so it gets loyal fans. Anything that Jeff Tweedy gets involved with; I’m in.

  11. Very few records growing up – apart from Radio 2 it was a pretty music-free existence.
    From memory: Abba, The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, John Denver and the 1812 Overture
    (all transferred to tape and played on any car journey exceeding 10 miles).
    My “own” music arrived in the shape of a Best Of Showaddwaddy tape and a Barron Knights album.

    The single was the format of choice for childhood, and the first album I ever bought was Iron Maiden Number Of The Beast in 1982.
    The soundtrack to the later “coming of age” time would be a dead heat between Quadrophenia and Carter USM – 30 Something.

    Soundtrack to life now?
    This morning was Dire Straits – Alchemy, yesterday was Big Country and Friday was P J Harvey and The Damned.
    Soundtrack is whatever takes my mood at the time.
    Will anything survive in memory from this period? Probably John Grant and Public Service Broadcasting, and Steve Mason has released the best 2 albums of the past 5 years.

  12. Ride The Lightning – Metallica

    Not the first album I ever loved per se, but the one which sent me spiraling into a “tribe” of people and one which spoke to me as I tried to build my own personality. No one else at my school liked it apart from me. This was important.

    It Takes A Nation Of Million To Hold Us Back – Public Enemy

    The gateway album to a world of actually good music, and a huge education to me about the world at large

    Moving Up Country- James Yorkston and the Athletes

    He’s kind of me and my wife’s “go to” artist as a couple. He reminds me that words spoken softly can be very powerful and he also reminds me that Scotland now is not the Scotland of my youth. In a good way.

  13. Thanks for the kind words, @SteveT. I’m so glad the tickets had such an effect.

    In 1967 my elder brother and I were sent to stay with my Mum’s sister, Aunty Peg, in Barnet. Mum was pregnant with my little brother, her sixth child, and was having a difficult pregnancy. Kevin and I spent part of the summer holidays with my Aunt’s family. Her eldest, my cousin Alan, was 15 years old, my brother, Kev, was 13, and I was not quite 11. During that summer Alan took Kevin on a bus trip into Central London, to HMV Oxfod Street. When they came back, Alan was very excited – he had bought Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
    I was already a Beatles fan. My Dad worked for The Defence division of EMI Electronics which meant that he had access to Beatles singles at least a week before they were released. For my brothers and I, they were our band. As soon as a new single arrived we would dig out the tennis rackets and learn the words so that the three of us could mime along. I persuaded my younger brother, Phil, that my tennis racket was left-handed, so I had to be Paul. Kev, being the oldest, was John, so Phil had to be George. (In a wonderful twist, Phil went on to become an amazing guitarist.)
    So, when Alan pulled the beautiful cover out of the bag, Kev and I were as excited as he was. For the next three weeks, we played the album constantly, poring over the cover and the words. Alan even read out articles about it, from the dailies and from Melody Maker, explaining the meaning behind A Day In The Life and She’s Leaving Home.
    A few weeks ago, for the first time in over 40 years, I played the album (CD, unfortunately) from start to finish. I wept. I was back in that small front room, in Barnet, missing my Mum and Dad, away from home for the first time, but enraptured by the music. It was the first time I realised the possibilities of music, of where it could take me, of where my imagination could go.

    The album that chronicled my 20’s and 30’s was Born To Run. I was introduced to it, inadvertently, by the bloke that my girlfriend had dumped me for. It was the cover, under his arm, that was so different, so intriguing. Once I immersed myself into the world that Springsteen had created, I was gone, lost forever to small time gangsters, escapes from a mundane life and, most importantly, girls to go with you on that never ending journey.
    Looking back, I know that I needed somewhere, in my mind, to escape to. Married too young, to a woman 10 years my senior, with two small boys, I was desperately unhappy. Born To Run gave me a way out, if only in my head. I would put my headphones on, or jam the cassette into the car stereo, and disappear for hours. Thunder Road is still my favourite piece of music, still my funeral choice, still my escape. When I finally got to see Bruce, live (29th May 1981, Empire Pool, Wembley) the audience sat down when the quiet intro started. Not me. I stood on my seat, on the floor of the Arena, ignoring a steward furiously beckoning me to sit down, as I belted out the words. Nowadays, Bruce doesn’t sing these lines, the audience does. Back then, it seemed like it was just me and him.
    “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night. You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re alright. Oh, and that’s alright with me.”
    These days, the whole album is still played, constantly. I doubt that a week goes by without Thunder Road or Tenth Avenue or Jungleland or Meeting or Born To Run cropping up on another playlist. My favourite live music memory is from a few years back, on a sultry night in Cardiff, as The E Street Band, still with Clarence and Danny, broke into the intro to Jungleland. I sang so loud that my throat burned, and cried so much that my t-shirt was soaked. All of the pain and loneliness of those lost years came out in that ten minutes. When it finished, my gorgeous (2nd) wife hugged me, for ages, knowing exactly what had just happened.

    In my mid-fifties, I had got to the stage where new music came along only rarely. I didn’t seek it out, partly because I had so much old stuff that I still loved and played, and partly because I hadn’t found anything that moved me too much. Then, within the space of a few weeks, this site introduced me to Dawes and to Big Big Train. Both bands have given me so much pleasure, ever since, both on record and live. But it is the album English Electric Parts 1 and 2 by BBT that has made me feel 16 again.
    I had come to realise that nothing would affect me as much as music did when I was 14, 15 and 16, when I discovered Yes and Genesis and Wishbone Ash and Led Zeppelin and so many others. When I dived into this wonderful whirlpool of sounds and excitement and images and imagination. Life moves on. We grow up. The world gets in the way. And then English Electric came along.
    I bought the beautifully packaged double CD, with 96 page booklet, from the band’s website. Greg Spawton, the leader and bass player of BBT, put a hand-written note in the envelope, saying “Thanks for buying our music.” For the next month I played nothing else. Three hours a day, up and down the M40, this amazing, exciting album was my soundtrack. The musicianship was amazing, David Longdon’s voice was a throwback to early Genesis, the sound was immaculate and the stories behind the songs were wonderful. But it was the songs, the melodies, the lyrics that captured my heart. Songs of England, of miners and ship workers, of dogs and countryside. And of trains. Washing over everything was the stunning guitar of Dave Gregory. A song called Permanent Way has the most beautiful guitar I have ever heard, but it is not alone. His playing is the constant, the lynchpin that stitches the songs together into this patchwork quilt of England.
    The album has restored something in me. It has made me remember what it was like, the first time I heard Sgt. Pepper, in Barnet, in the summer of 1967. It has made me remember the excitement the first time I heard The Yes Album, the first time Kev played Led Zep IV, the first time I saw Wishbone Ash. It has sent that same shiver down my spine the first time I remembered every word to Thunder Road, the first time that the world of Jungleland seeped into my brain.
    And for that, I can never thank the band enough.

    What a great thread, @Tiggerlion . That’s really cheered up my Sunday afternoon.

  14. Blimey, brilliant idea. I wish I could ever have been focussed enough to stick to any one record as my left-motif at any time period of my life.I feel I have been scavenging and hoovering for new ever since my parents bought a dansette, along with the 40 or so singles that came with it. I was maybe 7 and I guess the Beatles then figured heavily, if mainly through the second hand of my sister, a sentence which reads wrong but the meaning of which I hope you understand. Indeed she bought Sgt Pepper for my 11th birthday, in mono of course; we didn’t need stereo. Sure, I played it to death, well, most of it. I am sure the grooves of track 1, side 2 remain near unsullied, bar the deep scratch, as I tried to approximate its end. And might explain why, as I matured (ha!) into prog/country-rock/folk-rock I had to leave the Beatles behind, they being tropes of childhood. But, LP1 will be Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
    How do I define the next period, adolescence into marriage and parenthood? Probably with folk, not least as it is a genre that still appeals strongly, if less exclusively than it did once. Fairport might seem an obvious choice, my second ever single was Si Tu Dois Partir, aged 11/12 and I bought their last CD, a year or 2 back. But I think it is the offshoots and branches that have offered most to me, so LP2 is Morris On. Hell, I was guessing the dances for years until it even had me joining a side and doing it for real. Only my knees and the evisceration of the rest of the side through age and infirmity that stopped me. Still get the odd yearning.
    Is the now my 2nd childhood? It certainly feels so, but how do I pin anything down enough to allow it to define the today me? Impossible, as I devour both new and new to me, the latter, within the last decade, including the whole genres of jazz/electronica/world. Add in that I still love folk/blues/country. I guess rock is my least loved these days, but I can still get much pleasure from the joy of shuffle, as I recall and remember when I did. The CDs on max rotation in my house this month are, I guess, Skeleton Tree (Nick Cave), Love and Hate (Michael Kiwanuka) and Sadnecessary (Milky Chance) but that says more about the squeeze having a Tiggerlion approach and some to records. She plays anything she likes 6 x in a row. Daily. Sometimes I have to break free, love all those as I do. So what do I escape to, which, for today, is my 3rd choice. Perhaps booted by the fact it is playing now in my ears, Its Songs From the Argyll Cycle, Vol 1, by Jackie Leven. Astonishingly only 20 years old.

  15. Following the parameters of the OP, my childhood was dominated mainly by singles, and my elder brother naturally acquired most of the albums that have retrospectively had the most lasting impact on me (Slade Alive?, Ziggy Stardust etc); but the first albums I bought with my actual own money were Gary Glitter’s Touch Me (ok, don’t judge me, I was a huge glitter fan then!) and The Sweet’s Sweet Fanny Adams, the latter really signifying the group’s aspirations to be a serious hard rock band (that aspect of them never really did it for me – the glamtastic singles were just fine in my book).

    My ‘coming of age’ album could have been ‘Rattlesnakes’ but that’s already been mentioned, so inevitably it must be The Smiths, released just a fortnight after my eighteenth birthday and chiming exactly with my extant unrequited-romantic-shy-Northern-student experience.

    My current obsessive listen is Blackstar, being both an artistic triumph on its own terms, but also of course serving as such a powerful, enduring signifier of all the devastating artistic loss we have faced this year, the passing of Bowie himself and Prince in particular still proving very difficult to process.

  16. Ok, you all must know my “favourite” albums backwards now so here’s a different view

    First up is “New Boots And Panties” early teenage years listening to this in my brothers bedroom being brave enough to listen to “Plaistow Patricia” at full volume. It made sure that lyrics would always be important to me and is as evocative of that time as any album.

    Next is Biffy Clyros “Puzzle” my eldest boy loved Biffy from day one, me and my younger boys caught up later thanks to this album. An astonishing force of nature screamy rock that some how also appealed to my “pop” side. Seeing Biffy Clyro live a Reading festival with all my boys is a highlight of a less than successful marriage. If you have never listened to Biffy Clyro (@Twang) you should just give “Puzzle” a go

    Finally is The Monkees “Good Times” because it clearly defines a return from the wilderness that matches my own life. A fantastic selection of songs of joy and happiness that suits my current mood. In other threads I have declared that “Headquarters” set my musical senses to pop. Almost 50 years later “Good Times” came along and confirmed this to be the case despite the life lived in betweeen

  17. There weren’t many records in my house when I was a kid – a few by the likes of Bing, Sarah Vaughn and Mel Torme, and a few classical but that was about it. But like it seems a lot of people here The Beatles were an indispensable part of my childhood. The first record I owned was a present on my seventh birthday and it was She Loves You/I’ll Get You. I played it to death. But the first album I owned and the record I bought was Creedence’s Cosmo’s Factory, when I was thirteen. I loved it then, I love it now – the sound of pure, economic, American rock.

    When I look back at the records that came out when I was 17 to 19 – 1974 to 1976, it seems a remarkable time. Great records by Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder, and so many more. But the artist who meant most to me by then was the Novel Laureate. And no record meant more than Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. Obviously at that age I hadn’t the first clue about the emotions and relationships charted on that record but the record still spoke to everything I wanted to be – emotional, intelligent, articulate, wise, passionate. It told me as much about humanity as I felt I could ever know.

    And now? Lucinda Williams’ The Ghosts of of Highway 20 is a record for and by people in the last third of their lives. Mortality, loss, memory of early days – it’s all there. But at the same time as she rails against ageing, Williams expresses life and vitality in everything she does – there is no way she is going to go gentle into that good night.

  18. In our house it was all other people’s classical and jazz when I was young – stuff I now admire mostly rather than love, if I’m honest. With three older sisters I imbued all the 60’s singles: Beatles, Stones et al. I was bullied into spending my pocket money on ‘Breakaway’ by The Beach Boys, up there with the best of the singles from that decade IMHO.
    Sticky Fingers was the first LP I bought, dirty ass rock n roll: great guitars, attitude, musical sex appeal, Mick Taylor bringing the band to an aural peak they never hit again. Great sleeve too.
    Then I remember listening to ‘My Aim is True’ in Virgin Records on Marble Arch and hearing a sound that articulated all my late teen insecurities, my fears about my sexuality, my social incompetence, all wrapped up in pop sensibility and melodic instinct that was unsurpassed over his first five albums. I camped out in Swindon for Christ sake to see one of the great gigs of all time as in a manky night club the Attractions suddenly found their sound and drive in the first summer of their existence.
    And these days I consider new music that sounds interesting on paper but return to the old stuff more and more – that washed out Neil Young trilogy, for instance: On the Beach, Time Fades Away and best of all Tonight’s the Night for ramshackle existential crisis sung by guitars and keening voice. I cannot tell you how lucky I feel to have lived with such a musical soundtrack through the Sixties and Seventies. Yes, there has been great music since but not that shaped my sensibility and plugged into my shifting emotions so directly and earnestly.

    • Break Away is a thing of wonder. Dad, Murry came up with the idea and wrote the lyrics under a pseudonym, Reggie Dunbar. Brian’s music is sublime. There are so many delicate twists and turns, the song floats like a sycamore seed caught in the breeze.

      The backing vocals alone are incredible, testament to the vocal harmony the group were capable of at their best.

      For some reason, the Americans didn’t like it and its sales were poor. Made top ten in the UK, though.

      http://youtu.be/U8Siahb5LuE

      PS. Love those Neil Young albums for the same reason.

  19. I thought about the early album and there were a fair few contenders, but I’ve settled on Free’s Fire and Water. An album I can still listen to after all those years, though I probably hit stop before final track Alright Now. I’ve just heard far too many times to get any pleasure from it. Having said that, when I was young I hated side 2 track 2, Don’t Say You Love Me which may now be my favourite song on the album. But I still get a buzz from Andy Fraser’s bass on Mr. Big and love that simple piano figure on Heavy Load. Kossoff’s guitar on the title track is still a pleasure too,

    The middle years one was (is) very difficult. I think I’ve settled on Randy Newman’s Little Criminals. Apart from opening the door to the sort of music I listen to today, it opened my mind to a singer singing about life – usually other people’s lives in thumbnail sketches, rather than their love life or half-baked political causes.

    Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball, although nothing like the rest of her oeuvre nor country music as a whole was key work for me. It wasn’t my first Americana album, but is one of the most significant. It led me to explore Emmylou’s back catalogue and to explore many of the people associated with her: Gram Parsons – who led me back to The Byrds; Rodney Crowell; Guy Clark; Rosanne Cash and many more. Wrecking Ball is also in itself a stupendous piece of work. Hard to believe it is 21 years since it came out.

    • All three of those albums have been sitting quietly on my shelves for some years now. None are likely to appear in my top one hundred of all time list but that’s possibly more to do with my negligence. I tend to listen to Heartbreaker, Sail Away and the first three Emmylou albums. I think I’ve simply heard them rather than actively listened to them. I’ll put all three in the car. They’ll get a good few more listens there and I think they’ll follow each other nicely.

  20. Chiz’s experience at the top of the thread is in some ways similar to mine. My parents disapproved of pop music in the sixties, and to be allowed to watch Top Of The Pops on our flickering black and white telly was a rare treat. I was too young to grasp the revoultionary nature of music at that time, but I knew enough to know that I liked it, and radio became a companion that I have never since been without. Hard to pick an album from that time, as singles that got radio play were where my musical education started from, but Sounds Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel was one of the first to invade my consciousness.

    When I went to university in 1981 Roxy Music’s Avalon was probably the album that I turned to the most; those years were not the fun packed voyage of discovery they should have been, and led to a lengthy period of what I now realise flirted closely with depression. Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town album seemed to reflect some of the thoughts I had at the time, not a time I look back to with any fondness or often wish to dwell on.

    These days I have a greater awareness of different musical genres and artists than I have ever had, but I’ve lost the knack or the incentive to keep discovering new stuff, and fall back on music that I know well or new stuff that sounds like it. ‘New’ music no longer sounds fresh and original, either just an inferior parody of what’s gone before, or too challenging for me to want to bother with it. It wasn’t always thus.

    And so Classical has become for me the final voyage of musical discovery that so many of us make in later life. The sublimity of Bach or Beethoven, a Mozart string quartet or a Haydn symphony, a concerto by Geminiani or Albinoni, an exquisite piece of choral music by Tallis or Taverner is where I am at these days. It’s all the same thing though. It’s all music that speaks to me, and in some way or other continues to soundtrack my life as it has always done.

    • Darkness is a seething, coiled spring of an album as though created by a caged animal. A number of Afterworders have waxed lyrical about Thunder Road but Racing In The Street is the one for me. It captures that moment of acceptance, when adolescent dreams and hopes have to be dashed by the harsh realities of adult life.

      I do hope you have Promise, @bungliemutt, recordings he made around that time when he was in dispute with his record company. Overall, it is far more sprightly and cheerful, yet almost as good. I think you’d enjoy it. It might break up the Classical a bit, even if there is very little that can compete with an exquisite piece of choral music.

      • Re: Racing in the Street

        You know this verse, and particularly the third line here:

        “Some guys they just give up living
        And start dying little by little, piece by piece
        Some guys come home from work and wash up
        And go racin’ in the street”

        Well, in my teenage years I thought “Great! he’s done the washing up. That’s nice of him. Considerate of him to do the dishes before going out. Nobody likes to come back home to a sink full of dirty pots and pans…”

        It wasn’t until decades later that I realised that “wash up” meant something else in American English.

  21. Like many replies on this thread – I don’t remember much music in the house as a child except Radio 2. When I was 15 we got a stereo – and the one of the first batch of albums my parents bought was the Beatles Red and Blue. Let’s call them a single album. For sure it was my entry to rock music – must have been 1975.

    A few years later – college years – other albums were vital – Rattlesnakes,London Calling but the one that really grabbed me – I think in 1979 – a little late- was Born to Run. My circumstances not as dramatic at Niall above – but I can remember where I was when I first heard the first bars of Thunder Road. It blowed me away – heady stuff for a suburban kid in North East England – and perhaps part of the reason I know live in the US (I have a screen door the slams!).

    The third album – SouthEastern – Jason Isbell – music that grabbed me like I had not been grabbed in many many years. More importantly I discovered it not on my own but with the new Ms Drew. There is something about sharing a passion.

    • The Beatles Red and Blue compilations were released at the time. At the time, it seemed so long since they broke up, somewhat unbelievably, they were almost forgotten. Klein is much derided but it was he who put them together and decided to include only original songs. Maybe, Revolver could have a couple of extra tracks (say Here There & Everywhere and Tomorrow Never Knows) especially as there is plenty of spare time available on the Red album. Otherwise, they are hard to fault. The inclusion of Old Brown Shoe is particularly pleasing.

  22. Great thread!
    My early years choice is an easy one with no contest. The Slade album “Slayed” represents my childhood, growing up, learning guitar, imagining a future as a rock star, the early 70’s, long hot summers (well there was one in 1976), O Levels and leaving school to go to music and drama college. I still have the original vinyl, which I played just the other day whilst working from home.

    At the afore mentioned music and drama school (it was Dagenham’s answer to “Fame” a few years before the programme and the leggings) I met the love of my life to whom I am still married some 40 years later. If there is one record that represents this rather elongated phase it is Joe Jackson’s “ Night and Day” although in truth I treat it as a double album by combing his “Body and Soul” record from 1984. We have to have the song “Be My Number Two” you see. This represents working for a living, getting married, having kids, playing in bands, a life of frustration following West Ham and loads of other things that would confuse Joe Jackson if he were to come across this particular thread.

    Later years, as in “now” is a tougher choice. In the last few years I’ve rediscovered the album format. There is some great stuff being made and of course years and years of old classics to fall back on. Nowadays I play and perform less but listen more, which is turning out to be a real blessing in disguise. I’ve even started going to gigs again.

    The artist that perhaps best sums up this era for me is Steven Wilson. My intro to his work was the “Hand Cannot Erase” album. I’ve seen it performed live (twice) and I often come back to it late at night lying in bed with headphones on. It’s a kind of song cycle based around a news story from a few years back which I won’t go into now. Do check this out if you are not familiar with Steven Wilson, it ticks an awful lot of boxes and represents a new hope for the future of rock music and the album format. Rather appropriately for this thread it represents the future of music rather than the past.

    All three of the above are very close to my heart. Now where’s that Slade record, I can feel a vinyl day approaching!

  23. Childhood – Max Boyce Live in Treorchy, only non classical album in the house until I was 14, then A Hard Day’s Night bought on cassette for my birthday
    Coming of age – Astral Weeks, not relaeased then, but discovered during the dog days of my first year at Liverpool Uni, the few weeks after first year exams are amongst the happiest of my life.
    Now- Equally love Radiohead, but you will be pleased I have to go for Blackstar.

  24. Surrounded by music from a very early age, all kinds, typical Ireland. My folks had a record player and stuff by Tchaikowski, Clancy Brothers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Chubby Checker, and the Beatles. I added singles from 1964 onwards (Animals’ HOTRS) and albums from 1967 (Traffic’s Mr.Fantasy). The album that truly leapt out was 1969’s In The Court Of The Crimson King: this, I felt, if I’d known such phrases at the time, was a qualitative step forward from all the live bands back then and their ubiquitous Johnnie B Goode reruns. Still pretty special. I was 14.

    At 19 I was introduced to jazz and not just the Mahavishnu/RTF/Miles albums I already knew but more radical black and free stuff. My second nomination is light on free but adds Indian drone and a floating lightness hard to achieve in any genre, and it’s still challenging. It’s Alice Coltrane’s Journey In Satchadinandra. Probably my most-played record ever.

    40 years later there are good young players around and everything that’s ever been available is available, basically. Music’s in great health, choice is eternal. The industry of curating or breathing on old stuff to make new product could hardly have been predicted before the internet changed our ideas of buying but when it throws up things like Frank Zappa’s Lather*, his originally-intended 4-LP project nixed by his evil record company back in the mid-70s, well, count me in. That’s one place my head’s at today.

    *Ironic that I live in Germany but can’t make an umlaut!

  26. Crikey – this makes choosing eight Desert Island Discs seem like a walk in the park.
    We got our first (second hand) record player from my mum’s friend in 1960-ish, along with a few singles: Richard Chamberlain, Connie Francis, Matt Monroe, Cliff’s “Batchelor Boy”
    It was a motley collection, which didn’t stop me and my brothers from playing them all to death, often at 78rpm – what fun we had!
    There were a few stand outs: Eden Kane; “What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?”; Carole King; “It Might As Well Rain Until September”. The song I really, really loved was Ketty Lester singing “Love Letters”; her smoky, smooth voice captivated me though at four or five years old I didn’t have much experience of love letters or the ache of missing anyone. I still have the song on a single – not the original as my brother took it and several others to use for target practise with his air rifle. The bastard.
    It’s more difficult to choose one from my formative years as music consumed me completely at the time but I’m going for Maria Muldaur’s “Waitress in The Donut Shop” I bought it second hand in the Cottage in Brighton, where I used to spend large parts of my Saturdays. I really wanted the one with “Midnight At The Oasis” but they didn’t have it in stock and I couldn’t afford to buy it new so it was a second choice – a pivotal one in the development of my musical tastes.
    The music was quite different from her big hit – lots of blues, gospel and old time music which I fell in love with. My favourite song at the time was “Cool River”, written by Anna McGarrigle. There was a photo on the inner sleeve of Kate & Anna, who sang backing vocals on one or two of the tracks. I was intrigued, (and slightly in love with the Kate in the photo) and eventually bought “Pronto Monto” at the Cottage (slightly scratched – I still have it). I saw the McGarrigles several times over the years, seeing Rufus & Martha go from bashful teens singing backing vocals to fully fledged performers themselves, though for me they have never matched the brilliance of the McGarrigles. I found my way to the Roches and Geoff Muldaur, not through the McGarrigles but I’m not sure I would have got there if I hadn’t have bought Waitress. It’s still a record I play frequently.
    Choosing a current album isn’t so straightforward either. I really like Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker’s last two albums which point toward possibly great things ahead (Their new one is just out but I’ve not heard it). I love Kelly Jones’ album “Alta Loma” which came out before she recorded with Teddy Thompson – it’s got a kind of California sunny feel to it, though many of the lyrics are fairly introspective. Anais Mitchell is brilliant and absolutely mesmerising live but I’m going with Amelia Curran, who is a bundle of nerves live but turns out beautifully realised albums, tunes with great hooks and she’s good at telling a story in four minutes. Her last album, “They Promised You Mercy” is played often chez Wayf and probably will be for years to come.

  27. High Tide and Green Grass – mainly for Little Red Rooster , the blues ,the slide – took me down a path from which I’ve never returned. Also lead me to see the Stones in 73 in their pomp.

    Dylan – Blood On The Tracks the perfect soundtrack to an extended period of self-pity after the break up of my first extended relationship. Alas, I still get the occasional pang when listening to it.

    Thomas Mapfumo – Ndangariro. Teaching in Zimbabwe, a country alive with post-independence optimism, I’d see TM all the time. This was his second post-independence album, better sound than Shumba and showcasing the stunning guitar of Jonah Sithole. It’s been ober 30 years but it still gets regualr spins.

  28. Good thread – promotes deep thought.

    1 would have to be The Blues Vol. 1, a Chess sampler from 1963. I won it for having some po-faced letter published in Melody Maker, and I played it to death. Even now I reckon it must be the best Chess sampler, although I always felt Jimmy Witherspoon didn’t really belong. I found Buddy Guy’s First Time I Met the Blues electrifying, and still do.
    https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Blues-Volume-1/release/1390701
    2 is Five Leaves Left. I was one of the few who bought it when it came out; I wasn’t actually living in a bedsit, but I was sharing a flat with two medical students who were getting all the action (I was forever meeting nurses in over-large t-shirts in the kitchen of a morning), so I might as well have been, and it definitely suited my mood. Even now it transports me back to a poky (but poke-free) room in West Hampstead trying to drown out the serial shagging. Sold it too soon for not nearly enough money. (First reserve: Spooky Two.)
    3 is difficult – after a certain point I stopped listening to albums in quite such an intense way. Probably Lyle Lovett’s Pontiac – loved everything about it, not least his voice, his witty lyrics and his one-off geekiness. (First reserve: Gillian Welch’s Revival.)

      • Poor lad.

        If you ever need cheering up put on True Stories, like I just did. I bought it 30 years ago today. It’s still a blast – perhaps better than ever, divorced from the context of t’Heads other albums. Hey Now should have been a single. The first thing we hear from DB in Papa Legba is an impression of Bert’s laugh from Sesame Street. Dream Operator sounds like it has always existed. City of Dreams is kind of epic…. And I know how much you like Love For Sale, the Heads’ last farewell to rock and roll.

        Keep on bouncin’ bud.

  30. Totally agree Tigger. Fear of music is where they achieved greatness for me. As you would expect I love the African / world influences. The Congolese guitar on Nothing But Flowers is a delight

      • @tiggerlion

        Thank you. Black and White was where I really really got into the bass guitar…what a fantastic sound he had before it all went a bit mellow. I so wanted to be JJ Burnel but alas I’m not half French, don’t do karate and I’m a root note plodder. Brought a Black and White T shirt a few years ago which I wear to work on own clothes day….really impresses the chicks I can tell you.

    • Seven year old James EB thought that the world revolved around that ABBA album (greatest hits – they’re snogging on the back). It would definitely be my number one too.

      At eighteen, if forced to pick something of that time REM’s Murmur. If allowed an album from preceding years, VDGG’s Still Life. Intense times indeed.

      At forty-eight, All Them Witches’ Dying Surfer Meets His Maker. An astonishing record by an incredible band.

  33. “One for your childhood, another for your coming of age and a third for where your head is at today.”

    Hmmm. Been pondering this for a few days but my first reactions cannot be dismissed.

    Childhood – The album I remember hearing the most was an album of Dylan songs covered by other artists. Can’t remember the name of it but I’d recognise the cover instantly. Standouts were The Byrds’ version of Mr Tambourine Man and Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower.
    My dad had a very classy stereo and I was not allowed to touch it, or his records, unless it was a very rare occasion. And I was incredibly careful. I still get a little nervous when handling vinyl as I assume I’ll wreck it instantly. I never did any damage to anything but that’s probably partly because I was only allowed to touch that stereo about three times from the ages of eight to 12.
    Not all my music tastes were as sophisticated. My first album purchase, aged eight, was the Grease soundtrack.

    Coming of age – I was 13 and at my boyfriend’s house to ask his mum to sponsor me for a sponsored silence at school the following day.
    As I sat talking to his family in their living room, The Old Grey Whistle Test was on the TV in the background. They started playing a black and white clip of Janis Joplin singing Summertime and I broke off my conversation and sat mesmerised. I’d never heard anything like it. That voice, that sounds like it harmonises with itself. The power, the range, the depth of emotion.
    That 20-second clip was all it took.
    I saved up my pocket money for months because the only album of hers I could find was a double album called Anthology costing £5.99. I got 50p a week.
    I bought it and I’ve never looked back. She was the voice that led me on a path of musical discovery, my gateway to so much that I love.
    A proper appreciation of Jimi Hendrix. Led Zep, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and so so many others.
    At school, my friends liked Wham. And Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Nik Kershaw. According to them, the music I adored was ‘a bit weird’. I couldn’t have been prouder of the fact.
    The ones with whom I’m still in touch still think that.
    I smile, put on my headphones and lose myself in the voices I’ve loved forever, along with the new ones I’ve encountered along the way.

    Today – And among those voices I’ve discovered is the one that I turn to on a daily basis, and have done ever since I first heard him. And the album I listen to most is pictured on my avatar. How could it not be?
    It’s also probably the one album that I listen to from start to finish because I can’t not. I can’t start it and then abandon it halfway through. I can’t mix up the track sequence. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.
    It contains the voice that moves me the most, churns my stomach and melts my heart. That bloke could sing the phone book and I’d be overwhelmed with adoration.
    It has been my constant for years. The track titles suggest something downbeat but I find it intensely uplifting, overwhelmingly positive and searingly honest.
    It’s 18 years old and I’ve listened to hundreds of albums since it was released.
    But this one is still my ultimate soundtrack. If I could have an album as a soulmate, this would be it.

    (Electro-Shock Blues by Eels. Nearly forgot to point that out. Minor detail 🙂 )

      • Yes, great telling and I’m going to Spotify to search out that Eels album.

        I love that description ” I broke off the conversation and sat mesmerised”….. ain’t it great when music grabs you like that?

        • Eels are a group who seem to engender such a level of devotion among some fans. There are at least three Afterworders in their thrall. One uses a song title of theirs as a nom de plume. I loved their first album but lost track of them a long time ago. I need to reacquaint myself with them and this album sounds like the perfect place to start.

          Less than three quid on the tax dodgers!

          • Electro Shock Blues is, as @Scarlet points out, that rare example of the old fashioned album that is of a piece – not to be sliced, diced and randomised in I-tunes world. That overused and devalued phrase ‘takes the listener on a journey’ is at its heart and you feel that you are a fly on the wall as the artist works his way through this shit. Starting from a prone position, E slowly makes his way, if not to standing, at least at a place where he can see the door.

            It’s in no way a depressing record – oh yeah, of course it revolves round the death of his sister and mother but Hospital Food is funky, 3 Speed wistfully potty mouthed and the album is marinated in Mark’s jet black humour as he cackles – “Courtney needs love, well so do I, well, he,he,he”. Maybe you have to be a little bit unhinged to appreciate some f it’s darker laughs

            Climbing To the Moon is it’s pivot – E hopes that his sister read his last letter to her before she died but it’s full of happiness and hope – a long way from ‘My name is Elizabeth / My life is shit and piss’ The album’s closing line is “maybe it’s time to live”.

            Its a much praised but still massively underrated record that totally flipped my wig in 1997 and I can’ deny it’s helped me a lot.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiqiLDDdXb8

  35. Childhood-Blondie’s Parallel Lines. Bought for me by my Dad on my 7th birthday-when I wanted Jean Michel Jarre’s Equinoxe (& Boots didn’t have it). I loved music before then-but after Parallel Lines it became EVERYTHING

    Growing up-whilst at a Hi-Fi show with Dad (around 87) I was blown away by a blues record that Linn were using to demonstrate the quality of their enormously expensive turntables. It was loud, earthy and like nothing else I had heard that day. They held up the sleeve & named the artist. I spent 3 months trying to find it-and Spillers Records in Cardiff came up trumps. £3.49. If it had been hundred I would still have got it. Muddy Waters-Hard Again. Still love it

    Now: I could mention all kinds of different stuff that has struck me this year-but I have become convinced over the last few weeks that Off The Wall is the best pure pop record ever. No wonder when they checked Michael’s home after his passing they found a post it note on his mirror saying “Phone Temperton”…..

      • The sequels I’m Ready and King Bee are none too shabby either (King Bee turned out to be his swansong, alas)

        PS. By an incredible* coincidence I bought Equinoxe on the same day that my sister bought Parallel Lines. (*not that incredible if it had been 1978. But this was New Year’s Day 1983…. bloody nora)

    • Have you seen Spike Lee’s documentary on MJ’s transition period from the J5 to Off The Wall, Matt? The SGHIF gets everybody you need to hear from, so you’re waiting for Rod but, alas, he doesn’t appear apart from effusive tributes to his songwriting and arranging talents. It’s not the greatest doco ever – just the usual stuff, like Jacko having to fight to keep Quincy Jones as producer – but they do pay attention to all of the individual tracks on OTW.

  36. Morning all..late to the party as usual but having just waited three hours for someone to turn up and service the central heating boiler (he still hasn’t arrived!!) I’ve successfully read through this entire thread. Fantastic idea @tiggerlion now normally having read the wonderfully descriptive writing I would shy away but here goes….
    My childhood was spent in a house obsessed with the Beatles….my mum still reckons she was the oldest Beatles fan in the 60s!! I first remember seeing the Beatles perform This Boy on some local Granada tea time prog…for years I though This Boy was an a-side not realising I wanna hold your hand was on the other side!, so I could pick Hard Days Night or Rubber Soul but instead am gonna choose the first album I bought with my own pocket money…..Electric Warrior by T.Rex. Funnily enough I played this album in the car yesterday and it sounded so fresh…I can clearly remember running out at school during lunch break to the local record shop to buy Telegram Sam on the day it was released….I loved Slade Bowie Roxy and Rod but Marc came first…..
    Next up I’m going with my gave album of all time…mid twenties I had developed a serious music addiction due mainly to being mates with the Singles manager at Hmv on Market St…I first heard Prefab Sprout after Elvis Costello mentioned them in an interview….June 85 saw the release of Steve McQueen which to my ears was just perfect….few months later I went on the first date with my future wife and Steve McQueen soundtracked our journey home on the first night
    My album for now actually goes back to 1999 but Painted From Memory by Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach sums up love lost remembered and refound I could listen to this album every day and lines just jump out remind me of times past….

    • That’s beautiful, @colrow26. I was you in 1971/2. My first self-funded LP was Electric Warrior & I bought Telegram Sam on the day it was released, too. Marc came first alright!

      I haven’t listened to either Steve McQueen or Painted From Memory for a long time. I’ll have to correct that straight away. Thanks for the evocative post.

  37. Just been reading through this thread again and it’s an absolute corker – so many great recommendations, so many great stories of what music has meant to us. Listening to Amelia Curran as I read and it sounds great.

    But @tiggerlion hasn’t it been a bit, you know, expensive? You seem to have bought half the list….

  39. The first album I played obsessively, (not cool for a long time but who cares) ELO: Out of the Blue. I was about 14 and I played this constantly until I discovered loud guitar bands a couple of years later.
    10,000 Maniacs: In My Tribe. I still love this album. I first heard it in my late 20s because a colleague was stood in a record store queue and got talking to a girl who recommended it so he went back and bought a copy. It was a toss up between this and Silvertown by The Men They Couldn’t Hang but In My Tribe is perfect while Silvertown suffers from the usual couple of not so good tracks. I lived in a flat in Bletchley in the late 80s, up to mid 1991 and there was so much good stuff waiting to be discovered. I would buy something on the strength of a good review in Q and was seldom disappointed.
    The last is the most difficult. I’m not sure why but I don’t have music playing constantly in the way that I used to. However, the album I reach for first is Edge of the Sun by Calexico. I don’t have everything by them but this seems the most complete, rounded album of theirs I’ve heard. City of Dreams and Woodshed Waltz are wonderful and there’s not a duff track on the album. The sleeve is beautiful too, perfect.

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