First 10 influential albums

Yes, I know this whole "viral notes" phenomenon is supposed to happen on Facebook, but what with their new terms of service fiasco, I prefer to keep my content out of their grubby little hands, thankyouverymuch.

These aren't 100% in chronological order, since some of the albums I discovered years after they were originally released.

1. Pink Floyd - The Wall (1979) - A perfect companion for my teen angst. Nobody Home was the first "pop" song I learned by heart on the piano, and I played it in my high school's talent show.
   
2. Def Leppard - Pyromania (1983) - This is about as hard as I like my rock, but the backing vocal harmonies really grabbed me.
   
3. Joe Jackson - Night & Day (1982) - My first exposure to piano pop. Real Men is a fantastic song, with a great message, and a great chorus.
   
4. Sting - Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985) - All the songs on this album are great, but Russians is the one I played over and over, with the theme borrowed from Prokofiev.
   
5. Bruce Hornsby - The Way It Is (1986) - More piano pop. I spent many hours with a calculator and sheet music programming Mandolin Rain into a really poorly designed sequencer on my Amiga. But River Runs Low Tonight is still my favorite off this album.
   
6. Little Shop of Horrors Original Soundtrack (1986) - My first introduction to Ashman/Menken, which led me to Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. But none topped their original. Suddenly Seymour is the gem here.
   
7. James Taylor - Greatest Hits (1976) - I remember blasting Carolina in My Mind from my new CD player to my new JBL studio monitors in my dorm room freshman year. Good times.
   
8. Elton John - Greatest Hits (1974) - A roommate introduced me to Elton. I promptly bought the sheet music where he was thrilled to discover the real lyrics to Rocket Man, which he thought were "burning all the trees out on the lawn".
   
9. Billy Joel - Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2 (1985) - The same roommate introduced me to older Billy Joel (The Entertainer, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant) before he got all melodramatic and cheesy (Tell Her About It, Uptown Girl)
   
10. Todd Rundgren - A Cappella (1985) - Guys in the Michigan Men's Glee Club turned me onto Todd and a cappella music in general. Pretending to Care is one of those songs I never get tired of. And the bridge of Johnee Jingo still gives me chills.

This is getting a bit long, so I'm going to break it up into 3 posts.

Comments

[reinharden]

I keep thinking about this particular meme, but keep remaining too lazy to do it myself.

But Pink Floyd's _The Wall_ always seems to be near the top of my list as well. I literally wore out the vinyl and cassette versions of that. The CDs seem to be holding up. And man, I simply can't watch the movie version without being thrown deep into depression for a week afterwards.

I've a very weird relationship with that Def Leppard album. But getting into that probably requires chips, salsa, and margaritas -- not public web pages. ;-)

And I'm right there with you on that Bruce Hornsby album and older Billy Joel...

Anyway, I'm looking to see the next two posts. Always interesting to see where one crosses streams with other folks.

mikel