The Hits Just Keep on Comin' (Part I)

* What follows is a rather self-centered exercise in musical autobiography -- if that makes any sense. What's worse, it's only part one of two.

Recently I've been getting a lot of pleasure watching Alison and Henry as they develop a taste for music. As we were driving home this afternoon I switched on a Jack Johnson CD, then clicked back to the beginning of the song. During the momentary pause, Henry objected from the back seat: "Hey!" He calmed down as soon as the music started up again. I shouldn't have been surprized, though, because he's always been a Jack Johnson fan. He still asks all the time to hear "the la-la song," (actually, "Bubble Toes" from his first album).

As for Alison, it was just a few weeks ago that I wrote about her emerging interest in music, and when she won a personal radio during a post-Thanksgiving bingo game she spent the next thirty-six hours with it glued to her ears. In just a few years we'll have to buy her an iPod of her own.

And so all of this has gotten me to thinking down the road a bit. What kind of music might my children have in their collections thirty or forty years from now? Will Jack Johnson be there? What about Miles Davis and John Coltrane? The Beatles?

From there, of course, I came around to my own collection and a thought that's been itching my subconscious for almost a year now. A friend of mine sent an e-mail which included this line: "Here are some records I thought were life-changers when I bought 'em that I no longer listen to and probably haven't for years..." He then went on to list six albums, but what I couldn't stop thinking about was a bigger question: as much as I love music, are there any albums that have really and truly changed my life?

Well, it took me eleven months to figure it out, but here are twenty answers listed in the order in which they came into my life. (Well, actually it's ten now, ten later.)

1. Best of the Monkees
My first album. When I was about six years old I used to love watching re-runs of the old Monkees sit-com, and at the end of each episode there would always be the same commercial for a two-record collection of their hits. After finally saving up the coin to order it, I had to wait an inhumane six to eight weeks for it to arrive -- but the the payoff was sweet. For the first time in my life I was singing memorized lyrics in front of the mirror, belting out classics like Day Dream Believer, Valerie, Last Train to Clarksville, and, of course, "Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees!"

2. Paradise Theater, Styx
Ah, Styx. They were my first favorite band, and Paradise Theater was their magnum opus. This album was also a favorite for "air concerts," during which my friends, step-brother, and I would choose a favorite song and divvy up the parts for a living room performance. We weren't dorks, we were just a bunch of fifth- and sixth-graders. Okay, we were dorks.

3. Outlandos D'Amour, The Police
During the summer following my sophomore year of high school, four friends of mine came over every single day to spend the afternoon swimming in my pool. We always listened to music, but for some reason there were only two tapes we ever played, and one of them was this, the first album put out by Sting and the boys. As a result, every lyric was burned into my brain and the Police became my favorite band. Sting's influence slowly engulfed the group over their next four releases, leading to better albums, but this was probably the purest "Police" record they put out. Sure, everyone knows "Roxanne," but my favorite tracks are still "So Lonely," "Next to You," and "Can't Stand Losing You."

4. Bring on the Night, Sting
I love live albums, and this is by far my favorite. It was recorded in Paris during Sting's first solo tour, a time in which he was clearly enjoying his newly discovered freedom after having left the Police behind. He seemed to be making a conscious effort to blur the typical boundaries of musical genres as he enlisted the help of noted jazz musicians such as Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis, and Omar Hakim to create a band that could not have been more different from the sparse three-man outfit he had played with for the previous decade. The result is a thirteen track collection of songs spanning his entire musical career, each reinterpreted by this new, more dynamic band. When I first listened to this album towards the end of my high school years, I was struck by the general fluidity of music. A song might seem complete when it is first recorded, but when another artist adds his or her own influence, it changes dramatically. (In the mind of a sixteen-year-old, this is powerful stuff.) This communal nature is, I believe, what lies at the very heart of jazz, perhaps the purest and most joyful music you can listen to. There is a sense that the music changes from one night to the next, depending on the mood of the performers, the atmosphere of the venue, or even the random hand of chance. Neither the audience nor the musicians knows exactly what might occur on a given night, but the journey is clearly more important than the destination.

5. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Genesis
Not quite as much to say about this one. They produced this ambitious double album when Peter Gabriel was still the driving creative force of the band and Phil Collins was just a drummer. Looking back at it now, it really isn't that much different than a lot of the grandiose material produced by other seventies rock bands -- achingly long instrumental sections wrapped around mysterious lyrics. I'm not sure how great this record is, but when I was a senior in high school it was my absolute favorite, so it makes the list. Incidentally, I never even upgraded to the CD version, but the album still sits in my parents' garage.

6. The Joshua Tree, U2
A good friend of mine recently described U2 as our generation's Rolling Stones, and I think that's about right. They've been making music for about a quarter of a century now, and it's difficult to believe that the Joshua Tree was released almost twenty years ago, but it's certainly held up to the test of time. The album opens with four solid hits that are still staples in the band's current live shows, but its strength lies in some of the lesser known tracks, most notably the story of a heroin addict told in a song so beautiful ("Running to Stand Still") that I can sing it to my daughter without reservation. When I heard this record it was the first time that I realized that a rock and roll band might have something relevant to say about the world around me, and I became a fan for life. Bono, the Edge, Larry, and Adam are my John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and U2 will always be my favorite band.

7. Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads
Another great live album. On the very first night of my freshman year of college someone slipped this disc into a CD player and the world started to change. After the opening track played, I took the liberty of skipping ahead to "Burning Down the House," then jumping to "Once in a Liftetime," and finally clicking back to "Girlfriend Is Better." Amidst a sea of dancing eighteen-year-olds, a guy I had met earlier that afternoon looked in my direction and said, "Yeah, he knows all the cool songs." (Ten years later -- almost to the day -- I'd make a toast as best man at his wedding; two years after that he would return the favor.) No discussion of this album would be complete without an in-depth discussion of "Once in a Lifetime." Three of us adopted this track as our theme song that year, and we made sure that it was played at every party we attended so that we could dazzle everyone in attendance with a not-so-elaborately choreographed performance which was loosely based on David Byrne's on-stage ticks and gyrations. As the three of us danced from one move to the next, first rhythmically chopping our forearms, then whacking our foreheads with our open palms ("Same as it ever was..."), the music literally carried us away. I don't think we ever stopped to think about the significance of the song title, but we probably couldn't have chosen a more approriate song to represent our college years. Even now, almost twenty years later, whenever I hear that song I am instantly eighteen again. Same as it ever was.

8. Document, R.E.M.
Before starting college I figured I would learn a lot, but it never occurred to me that what I'd be learning about would be music. In a dormitory filled with more than eighty people from all over the country, musical tastes collided each night in marathon listening sessions and debates. If you had asked everyone in our dorm that year who they thought was the "coolest" band out at the time, I have no doubt that R.E.M. would've won in a landslide. (Close second: The Replacements.) Michael Stipe and the boys were still years away from mainstream success, but they were already huge with the college crowd. "Document" was their current album, and we played it every single Friday night as friends piled into our room in preparation for the night's festivities. The centerpiece of this album, "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" seemed to have been written especially for us. The frenetic, nonsensical lyrics, placed in contrast with the soothing background chorus ("It's time I had some time alone") capture the contradictions of the eighteen-year-old psyche perfectly.

9. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me; The Cure
Up until this point, if an album didn't grab with the first spin, I usually gave up on it. Aside from obvious classics (like "Just Like Heaven," certainly one of the coolest singles of all time), there were some challenging spots on the record. But instead of putting it aside, I stuck with it and it remains one of my favorite albums.

10. Disintegration, The Cure
During my junior year of college, five friends and I enjoyed a terribly odd existence. Aside from going to classes and parties on the weekend, we had little contact with the rest of the world and often spent hours and hours listening to music. At some point the Cure's "Disintegration" would always find its way into the CD player, and all energy would drain from the room as the smooth textures of the music washed over us like molasses. And then there were the lyrics:

"If only I'd thought of the right words,
I could've held on to your heart.
If only I'd thought of the right words,
I wouldn't be breaking apart
All my pictures of you."

And did I mention that we listened to this album all the time? I still love this disc, but I'm beginning to wonder if maybe we played it a little too much. One of my friends never went to class, another skipped spring quarter and went home, and I almost dropped out. The amazing thing is that I never put all that together until five minutes ago.

So there you have it. You'll have to tune in tomorrow (or maybe next week) to find out the next ten, but I promise you won't be disappointed. While you're waiting, why not fill the time by coming up with a list of your own? I'd love to hear if any of these ten albums resonated with anyone else, or if you've got a completely different list. Do tell.

Click here for the second half of the list.

Comments

[MetroDad]

Great playlist of albums! Brings back a lot of fond memories. Interesting to see how we mark time by the music we listened to. Looking forward to hearing the next round.

[Rose]

Isn't funny how music plays such an integral part of your life when you're growing up? The angst, anger, frustration, sadness, and jubilation of the teenage years and 20's especially.

I saw The Cure and Trent Reznor in concert recently and their music just isn't the same sung by 40 something men. But it was refreshing to see Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) who is now a practicing Buddhist (and cleaned up Heroin addict) sing songs that once were about drug abuse being applied to the War in Iraq. (The sadness and overwhelming sense of loss and frustration.)

[Dutch]

Are you a Styx purist? Because I only know their more popular songs (renegade) but they make me wish I knew more. I wish I was ten years older than I am and I could have danced the last dance at the junior high winter ball to come sail away.