The pivotal record (1 Viewer)

[dudley]

The record that turned you into an obsessive buyer/collector. Or the record that transformed your approach to music.

For the latter, for me it's 'Yank Crime', by Drive Like Jehu. As a kid I'd learnt how to play guitar along to Led Zeppelin and all the usual culprits, but Yank Crime instantly rewrote the rules for me. I pored over it, vainly trying to play along and approximate the guitar parts and to this day, it's still the only album I can play along to from start to finish. It absolutely had a profound effect on my life.

For you?

 

[pete]

No question

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[sonofstan]

Radio City - picked up in the Dandelion for 70p in 1977.

Not only changed the way I thought about guitars and songs and stuff, but also made me more interested in what was outside the canon - up till then (I was 17) I'd been a bit slavishly devoted to whatever the NME said. Big Star weren't canonical then btw. Only a few years after they broke up, they were all but forgotten. Hitting pay dirt with this encouraged me into the second hand bins full time

 

[washingcattle]

Couldn't get my head around it for about a week. When it finally clicked I was a different person.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

As a small kid I remember adoring Enola Gay, My Perfect Cousin and Honey (by Bobby Goldsboro) which my elder siblings had on 7" so I guess when I was around 2 or 3 some one of those records must have opened my mind in some way.

Later there were albums that opened up my appreciation of different kinds of music - Animals by Pink Floyd, Confusion is Sex by Sonic Youth, the first Tortoise one, Live in Moscow Prague & washington by Chris Cutler & Fred Frith , an Art Blakey gig I saw on TV. They weren't big moments though, it took a while for their effects to kick in but they were kinda doorways.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

January 1984.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax. And a few months later Two Tribes.

I'd bought the odd 12" before that but those records introduced me to a whole new concept of collecting, multi formats and the idea of the remix.

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

Dirk Wears White Sox by Adam and the Ants.
Got it when I was about 11. I was already into and had Kings of the Wild Frontier and Prince Charming,them I remember stopping in Dundalk with my parents at the shopping centre(I think it's now closed) and upstairs there was a pretty big record shop. I found it there,and of course couldn't get it for whatever reason. Took me forever to finally get a copy. Blew my head off when I heard it,it was so odd sounding and abstract to the very young me. Made me realise how nuts music could be and the hunt got me into seeking out less well known stuff. So it likely covers both.

 

[pete]

No question

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i should probably elaborate. sometime around the summer of '88 i was given a tape with that (Field Day), this (Wig Out At Denkos)

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and this (Walk Together, Rock Together)

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Up until then it'd been strictly ride the lightning, master of puppets, peace sells and the like. This changed everything.

 

[Anthony]

In playing terms. There's before this album. And there's after.
More specifically the instrumental section in this song.

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As for buyer/collector.....

 

[washingcattle]

Oh yeah how could i forget.

My first tape. I think I was 6.

 

[Jim Daniels]

Some Candy Talking by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

It popped up on a blank tape of songs that I recorded old school way (placing tape recorder beside radio) alongside chart stuff of the day -Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Marillion, Tears For Fears, Opus (Life is Life!) etc.

Everything changed after that. Including my hair and choice of shirt/jumper colour

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[Jim Daniels]

Although a few years earlier, this almost had the same effect on me (the tingles), but I never took it anywhere. Was only about 11 at the time. It also appeared on a Home Taping is Killing Music tape

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[steveamanakick]

I was into hip hop (it was called rap back then though) for aaagges, then stopped when Enter The 36 Chambers came out. I guess I figured Rap couldn't get any better
Anyhoo, enter guitar music. Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger showed me ridiculous tunings and ridiculous timings, Alice In Chains "Dirt" introduced me to a dank depressing world i had hitherto known little about. Then Beastie Boys, obsessively, then Beck, same. They were followed by a dive into death metal, a brief flirtation with nu-metal (it was called Rap Metal back then), and then...
Helmet
I got into them retrospectively, Wilma's Rainbow was already out by the time i heard of them. I got the Wilma's Rainbow EP, which had a live version of "Sinatra" on it, which to this day, might still be one of the greatest pieces of music I've ever heard.
But Meantime...
It's just straight anger, spite, and malevolence the whole way through. The opening track (In The Meantime, recorded by Albini, the only song recorded by him on the album) just sets the tone for what's to come. Guitars are used as percussive instruments. Don't get me wrong, there are RIFFS, but they're just there to bludgeon you over the skull, not to "groove" or anything like that. And everything is in Drop D, everything. Filthy bass too, and The Drums, oh god the drums. The guitar solos are just dissonance, a world away from the likes of Jerry Cantrell or Kim Thayil. They're harsh and aggressive, and just add to the overall tone of malevolence. Jazz based scales apparently.
But it was, and still is, the lyrics. Page Hamilton spat them out with spite and venom, and if he wasn't doing that, he sang them in a listless double tracked ennui equally as disquieting. Never really knew what he was on about, except for that one about Julie Brown.

Anyhoo, it's appearance coincided with my early forays into geetar learnin', and once I dropped that low E to D, i was OUTTA THERE!!!

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

As for approach to playing music,I suppose what made me want to play music was seeing the Who- "The Kids Are Alright" on vhs. My parents were away and a friend was staying over and brought it,I was about 15 and into mostly fast hardcore and thrash etc. I'd honestly not really heard the Who but watched it anyway,Keith Moon made me want to be in a band,not necesarily as a drummer,just in a band. Then a while later,still not having joined a band,I heard this on Peel

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It took a few years of figuring out what instrument I wanted to play,but when I finally started getting vaguely to grips with guitar,well....

 

[washingcattle]

Oh and this was the first piece of vinyl I ever touched. Still my favourite cover of all time.

Again I think I was about 6.

 

[therealjohnny]

for a bored teenager in the sticks this was quite the thing..

cue years of drawing eddie on every available surface

 

[washingcattle]

for a bored teenager in the sticks this was quite the thing..

cue years of drawing eddie on every available surface

That's the one shit thing about being into limp wristed wet blanket indie bollox, there aren't any great logos, or cartoon skeletons to draw everywhere. A girl I went to school with had an amazing way of drawing Morrissey in 10 lines or less, but that's as gay as it sounds really.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

LET HIM WHO HATH UNDERSTANDING -

 

[nlgbbbblth]

RECKON THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

 

[Jerry Twig]

A friend played me this when I was around 13. When I heard the sheer spiky rawness of Grinding Halt, I played the tape back about 10 times and thought 'fucking hell, this is the music for me'.
Definitely a defining moment.