*Your favourite record and what it means to you!

[Streathamite]

PULP "Different Class"
It befalls to certain LPs to perfectly capture their time-this is one of them. Cocker has the gift of all great Lyricists: He effortlessly and instantly sums up pin-sharp pictures of time & place in the mind, whilst also communicating the full emotional force attached. And this is perfectly balanced by his bands' cheesy70's-cum-rich, multilayered sound. "Mis-shapes" is a damn-near perfect articulation of the resentment of the outsider, as well as a manifesto for revolutionary nerd-dom everywhere, whilst "I SPY" is pure North V South Classwar, cutely disguised as a love song, but filled with the rage and loathing that clearly drives Cocker on-the same anger you can feel in the (admittedly wildly over-played) common people. Cocker has a positive side too-"Something Changed" is pure blissfulness-a near-perfect love poem born aloft on chiming guitars-it's just that noone does misanthropy and grumbling as well or as exuberantly as Pulp.
Cocker's masterpiece!
It's also an LP with an achingly sad heart - the cynical comedown blues of "sorted for Es and wizz" and the sheer "I'll be alright (sob)" vulnerability of "Disco 2000" and "I spy" attest to this. But the verve and brio of Pulp's delivery make this an LP that stays in your heart forever.
Pulp-for real people with real feelings everywhere

 

[Splat]

Smells Like Teen Spirit

first tune i ever played on my guitar

 

[Darkness]

Metallica - ...And Justice For All
My last girlfriend bought this for me for christmas '01. At first I only wanted it because a) it was another CD for my Metallica collection, and b) it had One on.

Now this is my favourite CD in the whole wide world because I think, as a guitar player, it shows discipline in "controlling" your instrument, and also the way that the guitar, bass and drums all link in the in the "machine gun" section of One, is just phenominal.

Darkness

 

[seb]

It has to be Clash,the 1st album.Iwas 12 or 13,pretty much listening to Bob Marley and some reggae stuff when a friend of mine lent me that record.And that just blew my mind away!I wouldn't be the person I am now if I did'nt have discovered that music 20 years ago!
Strangely I can clearely remember the day I was given that record,that was the beginning of a long love story with Rock n'Roll and everything that goes with it.

 

[Tin Spam]

Rancid - Let's Go

The first proper punk album I ever owned, I can truly say it changed the way I looked at music. It's sad I rarely listen to it any more, it was perfect for that time in my life and I've moved on. I'd still recomend it to anybody though as long as you "Turn It Up, Fucking Loud"

It's also good to see Paul Simon get a mention, Graceland is one of those rare albums that is truly perfect, I love every song.

 

[bathonian]

my most fav album has to be the Smashing Pumkin's 'siamese dream'.
that whole album just takes me away, the tunes from the poppy getnleness of 'today' to the near arual astral projection of 'hummer' just elevates my mood somewhere else.
if i could find that album's equivalent in a girl i'd be very happy indeed!

 

[loud 1]

alright ive give u one but heres the other album.........

mansun-attack of the grey lantern....


this album will be forever ingrained into my mind kinda 'post' listening......


i just remember the summer of 98 and getting access all area passes through the post a day before the reading festival....

driving down in a skate sticker stained astra feeling like god.....

being showen in the 'private' entrance and parking up as the sun started to set.........

and pulling out the tent as mansun played on the main stage.....couldnt see um,just hear um...........but it set the mood for my weekend.....

blew me away.......

i later met the singer paul draper in a recording studio cafe and told him this story.........not in a fan/rok star way,(im already a rok star!hehehe),just in a way like a "remeber reading" kind a way......

and he said the same about the sun cumin down and everything being hazy........

wierd aye!!!!

 

[sinisterdexter]

guns n roses - appetite for destruction

i've listened to this record probably double that I have any other record. it was the first metal album i ever listened.......recently though Refused have taken over my live, just when i was becoming ever so slightly jaded with the epi-fat punk scene up crop Refused on my radar 18 months ago, it's changed the way I look at every album now.......there are so many other incredible albums though

 

[Orang Utan]

LFO - Frequencies

My favourite record is Frequencies by LFO cos it made me realise how funky and lush electronic and instrumental music was. I remember an NME cover with a picture of them smashing up Stratocasters and Marshall Amps.
After that there was no looking back. I dropped punk and hardcore like the rotting dead horse it was (and is) and went almost exclusively techno for years and years. It's only recently that I've got back into guitar-base music and that's usually because of the electronic sampler-age aspect of it.

 

[mains]

OMG Orang Utan you are so spot on with that post mate, that pretty much sums it up for me. Frequencies is the best British electronic album ever made imho. Unlike Orbital or the Prodigy LFO managed to pull that Kraftwerk trick of making things sound futuristic - and by 1991 that was bloody hard. Rattlingly high pitched percussion, super sub bass and icy cold thin strings and DISTORTION(wahey!), all married to great basslines, hooks and melodies. Amazing album, I still think it sound bang up to date, though I liked Advance too.

 

[demandred]

difficult one

As a teenager, jilted generation by the prodigy was a total classic and is fondly remembered (loved the inside cover and intro, parents hated them natch. which was important to me at that age ).

The next big musical leap was metallica - master of puppets. The moment I heard the intro to battery I was hooked. This is such a powerful album. Still one of my favourites.

 

[Stobart Stopper]

This Used to Be My Playground by Madonna....the bit where she sings........"and before you know, you're feeling old...."

That's me!

 

[SonicZ]

I hear ya - Stobart!

Still love George Michael's Older - and for the same reason. And for the fact that he is still SEXY! My only regret is that I wasn't the one in the CA Restroom he gazed upon.

 

[dlx1]

Debbie Malone / Rescue me

12" 89 on Krunch An all time fav tune. buzzy tune / feeling good

(around 500 words) not going to happen

opps Edit: Ablum you say.

probbly Orb UF-ORB 92 or Beloved Blissed out

happy time

 

[charlotte]

the sun is often out - longpigs

it just encapsulates any emothion you will ever experience. its one of those records that you pick up and put on when your upset or lonely or happy or angry and it fits perfectly.
when i was about 11 my mother brought it home and put it on the cd player. it was on for exactly one playthrough before i took it up to my bedroom and squirreled it away.
the songs range from heartfelt bittersweet love songs - my love for you goes on and on - to singalong indie classics - she said - to indefineable songs like sally dances. crispin hunt has a voice which ranges from gravelly sexy to an angst ridden whine - neither of which can be described as a bad thing.
it was the album which brought me and my boyfreind together - after hanging around in the sidelines for years i lent him the cd and 5 days later we were going out

 

[Solidarnosc]

"Dig your own hole" by The Chemical Brothers.

"Dig your own hole" by The Chemical Brothers.

Not only did the brothers work it out, they saved dance music.

There has always been some anomisity between fans of the Chemical Brothers and fans of MSP ever since Nicky Wire called them "twats". Now I think that's a piss-poor way to thank two people who lovingly remixed your work at your request, and this and the fact that I love the Chems makes me think that the twat here is Nicky Wire (apart from the fact that the Manics suck).

But anyway, that's not the reason why "Dig Your Own Hole" is The Greatest Album Ever (Not Just In The Opinion Of Solidarnosc). At the time when the Chems formed in the Acid-dominated days of Madchester and the Hacienda ("The only reason why we chose to study at Man Uni was because of the Hacienda" - Ed) the Dust Brothers, as they were then called, managed to create a fusion of acid, electronica, rock, psychedila AND managed to make it not sound like a pile of shite. "Exit Planet Dust" was, for it's time, a milestone in the emerging breakbeat scene. But for their finest work, we look to "Dig Your Own Hole".

This is not some random house party music. This album is something to be savoured. Like Congac.

From the first track, "Block Rockin' Beats" you are taken into a musical wonderland, with Tom and Ed acting as the cheshire cats, leading you deeper and deeper through the rabbit hole. "Block Rockin' Beats" is the best first track I have ever heard for an album, as it's uncomprimising guitar riffs and riotous SFX and that vocal make it the perfect, if not misguided, introduction.

This album is best described as a schizophrenic - as you leave the chaos of the first tracks and enter the "first quarter" zone of "Dig your own hole", "Elektrobank" and "Piku". The pace is slower but the paranoia and darnkess is stregthened - as if the Prozac is starting to kick in.

It's probably worn off by the second era - "Setting Sun" (the video to this is one of the best of all time), "It Doesn't Matter", "Don't Stop The Rock" and "Get Up On It Like This" are like the part of a rollercoaster when you've just finished the big drop. It's frantic, it's hard, it's dark, and I love it.

We wind down with the final part - "Lost in the K hole", "Where do I begin" and the epic "Private psychedelic reel" - the after taste of the congac, if you will. Regret, remorse - and a slight dig at Maggie Thatcher ("Iron Lady" on "Lost in the K hole") make this album pure ectasy for the ears.

A must for any music fan.

 

[davey]

Embraceable You - Billie Holiday

Basically, this double album I bought in 1987 was a re-issue of some Verve sessions recorded in 58 or 57. I'd had most of the recording on cassette for three years and just last year bought another version on CD as the vinyl had worn out.

In 20th Century popular music, I would say that, without a doubt, this woman was the greatest singer. She may not have been the greatest voice but she used her voice like Miles Davis used his trumpet or Charlie Parker his sax. She was an amazing musician.

By the time this recording was made, Holiday's voice was rough and raw, torn by smack and booze. She'd lost her license to perform in New York and less than two year later would be dying with a police guard standing over her bed. I can't separate the woman and her recordings, her life and what it did to her voice or the way she uses it. And she is surrounded by great musicians. Ben Webster especially on tenor sax is the perfect foil - his velvet tone and soft breath envelop the jagged edges of Holiday's voice and hold it because it's so delicate now. I once played the title track to a friend, not a great jazz fan, after a spliff and when Webster's sax comes it, he said "Holy Fuck!" the richness of tone just hit him between the eyes.

Alongside them is Harry "Sweets" Edison who brings along a humour and sexuality expecially on "Comes Love".

These track aren't the best know that Billie Holiday recorded, they don't include "Strange Fruit" or "Fine and Mellow" or "God Bless the Child". Some think it's too sentimental and some think the voice is too far gone. But I'll never stop playing and laughing with it and crying along to it.

It is amazing to me that a woman who had lived through such ugliness could record something of such beauty.

 

[Clintons Cat]

Soul Archive Released By Windmill Records.

When my parents bought me my first Second hand Record player this was one of the albulmns that they picked up amongst a bulk lot of old dusty albumns,Most of them were Pick of the Pops style. But this albumn stood out featuring the following tracks,

Letter Full Of Tears Gladys Knight and the Pips
Love Is Strange,Betty Everret And Jerry Butler
The Shoop Shoop Song,Betty Everret
Oh What A Night,The Dells
Dance By The Light Of The Moon,The Olympics
Stay In My Corner-The Dells

Let It Be Me,Betty Everret And Jerry Butler
Church Bells May Ring,The Willows
Steal Away,Jimmy Hughes
You Talk To Much,joe jones
every beat of my heart, Gladys Knight and the Pips
Say that you love me,the impressions.

Listening to it then,i was aware that here was an albumn unlike anything i had ever heard before,I was to ignite a passion for Soul Music that burns in my heart to this very day,
Jackie Wilson,Otis Reading,Smokey Robinson,James Browne,Sam Cooke,Martha Reeves,Commodores,four tops,temptations,edwin star,curtis may,Isley brothers my love for all your records stems from this source.

 

[ion]

Less Than Jake

The year is 1997, I am only a young kid (somewhere between 9 and 11 ish, hehe.) but I am already turning into something of a fan of "alternative" fan. When everyone else was listening to the spice girls, I was listening to Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and Stone Roses. Sorta wierd I guess, but thats what you get when you have a family like my own. My dad has always been a rock fan, loving classic stuff and being contendor for worlds biggest Meatloaf fan, and my Uncle has always been a punk, following local bands in the 70s etc etc.

Anyway, so I'm getting bored of indie by now, I know its a step in the right direction, but its just not far enough. What follows im 100% positive was fate.

I'm browsing some crappy local record shop, which sells everything really, like HMV but crappier. It has only one stand with the headphones to listen to music before you buy. As I am entering the fine establishment I see some young guy with a really cool set of piercings pop the headphones back on the stand and walk out. Being as how I was looking to expand my musical experiences, I went over the look at what he had been listening too. I picked it up, read the name "Less Than Jake", thought "thats wierd" then left the store having never even listened to them

So now, its 1998, Little fish-big pond (secondary school) and I am once again looking for new music. One day after school I head down to another crappy local record shop, while scurrying though various records, I see the name Less Than Jake. It being as wierd as it was, stuckin my mind. I bought the CD on the spot, it just felt right. I hadnt ever heard it before, and only "ska" I knew was 80s two-tone stuff my dad had showed me. Needless to say, I got home and loved the CD. I bought more and more, eventually ending up with a few vinyl, a few rare cds, lots of imports and then the usual albums. This band changed my life.

I started dressing more like a punk, started hanging out with punks, and made a new best friend. I introduced her to LTJ, and she fell in love with them too. Being the "on the road" band that they are, it wasnt long before they were round my way. I experienced my first real concert thanks to them, and by coincidence it was my birthday (the only way my parents would ever let me go). My best friend managed to get me the best present ever, she found a place we could hide and when the place was empty we came out and met the band while they were packing up. The band were great, I got to meet my idol, Roger, the bassist and they all signed loads of crap. What a day.

Well anyway, this has already been far too long, but anyway, me and the friend now arent friends at all. She hates my guts because I had a disagreement with her boyfriend, and then she picked him over me. So there is some heartache there, but the album still reminds me of some of the greatest times of my life, and of a friend who I wish I'd never lost.

Actually bring a tear to my eye, but anyway, thanks Less Than Jake, and thanks for reading folks.

(Apologies for any spelling / grammer. Its late and I've had a week of exams)

- Ion

 

[poet]

OK Computer by Radiohead, for being so deeply, deeply ambivalent. Perfectly captures feeling depressed about not knowing how you're feeling.

 

[Nibbs]

Van Morrison's 'The Healing Game', takes me straight back into the deep pain, sorrow and fear I felt when I realised that my past had been a complete and utter calculated deception. My parents were not the people I had been lead to believe they were. If I wanted to live I had to cut all ties with my mother, father, younger brother and all the others connected with them. As I write, the pain of that time comes flooding back. The one person who stayed with me throughout that unbearable time, guided me to 'The Healing Game' to help me through. The words in the album seemed tailor made to my situation and so I felt less alone, knowing that someone else had clearly felt that plethora of emotions: vulnerability, fear, aloneness, despair, loss and so on. Most importantly, a genuine sense of hope resonated from the music.

My friend told me to trust him, that I would survive the pain I felt at the horrific truth before me and although I was on the edge, I remember listening to the words through tears of despair 'If you love me you will find the key'. I felt totally unloved and totally incapable of trusting anyone but my friend and the music, offered me my only lifeline. Very heavy times, still not right but the power of the reassurance in the words contained in that album were able to reach my soul and to reach the part of me that wanted to live and to keep on fighting. I played the album over and over and I was able to grasp that these feelings would pass and that healing would gradually help me to a better place. I am in a slightly better place and as I listen to the album now I feel the words warming me. I am glad I now know the truth about my past but it hurts severely. I just wish that I had had parents who were able to offer me one memory of being wanted and loved. Not much to ask. I found the comfort I needed, through the music in this album, it kept me half sane, it helped me wanting to be alive. I am alive and I deserve a decent quality of life, just as others do in a similar situation to me. My friend is still helping me get through, the kindness in his heart is breathtaking. I won't give up now.

 

[hitechlolife]

FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON - LIFEFORMS.

 

[Traitor Ohio]

Metallica - Ride The Lightning

First off...Metallica, rock on boys!

I'll start like this. There was a boy who went to his friends house, there he tasted first hand the sublimity of Metallica...S&M to be precise, then the his father lent him his first ever Metallica album...The Black Album/Master Of Puppets tape...it was loved and played religiously even copied for his own listening pleasure...that boy is/was me.

Soon Metallica became a BIG part of my life, every day the same tape would play over and over...until on day I purchased Ride The Lightning...then things changed for the better.

The floors shook. Ceilings wobbled. Windows broke. Glass shattered. But still I played Ride The Lightning louder than the CD player would allow. Finally ears bleeding, eyes running, sweat pouring it went back in its case forgotton about, until one day it was stolen and I realised how much I loved that album, and only recently have I replaced it. And now its the only music I will listen to. For Whom The Bell Tolls has become my anthem, my song my favourite ever.

By this time Metallica were my life, my entity, my only reason for living...my love continued to grow as rare items began to be purchased (my prized possesion is my Harvester Of Sorrow LP Single)...This album...Ride The Lighning...has become my album that has relaxed me, hyped me, quietened me, understood me, listened to my rage filled version of F.W.T.B.T. and is the only object/possesion to be ranked in my number 1 spot of all time greatest lifetime purchase. I love thee Metallica!

*Wipes away a tear*

Traitor Ohio
---------------

"This is your life, and its ending one minute at a time..."

 

[the scouser]

Back in 1978, a mate passes me a record - a single by crass called 'shaved women' - and told me knowingly they were 'anarchists' He played it and then pulled out an LP called 'feeding of the 5000' - to a 15 yr old rebel without a cause it seemed to actually say something to me - I'd never heared a record with so much political content - and soon got myself a copy and became a 'fan' of the band.

The record may sound dated to some nowadays - but for its time it was original as fuck - they even had a rythm guitarist tuning his guitar to an open E chord - i was impressed. They used distorted guitars - and had two or sometimes 3 female singers with 2 blokes who sang - or more shouted!. They also had a video technician at gigs and someone to run tapes with samples.

Feeding of the 5000 opened up with what was alledged to be blasphomy - then went into a song called 'Do they owe us a Living' the chorus of which was the catchy refrain of 'Of course they fucking do' - Crass swore more than any band i'd heard! Classic tunes included General Bacardi - '

The generals sip bacardi whilst the Privates feel the pain'

The robbers round here liked a song called 'Securicor' -

'I walk around with a big alsation
I'll rearrange you with no provocation
I'm the bugger who has got the lead
And you'll have to be smart if you wanna get past me

Securicor care
Securicor care
Securicor scares the shit
Ouf of you
do you wanna come closer?'

Crass were smart fuckers - way ahead of the times - they were using samples of radio and political commentary and Feeding of the 5000 has lots of this between tracks.

Remember - this ws 1978 - just 3 years before the unemployed exploded with anger and frustration in the riots/uprisings of 81.

Below is from Reject of Society

'You give us concience money
now you start to worry
The Frankenstein monster you created
turned against you now your hated'

And who can forget

'Coronation street is on TV again
Grey puke fucking shit
The army say they seek peace in Ireland
And they'll see to it.'

(from Angels)

I loved that LP - played it to death and knew all the lyrics off by heart - it was great to hear a band to say Thatcher sucked - and worse! - it made me think about politics and later on i was pretty active, from a rebel with no cause, to one with at least a reason to give for being so.

Crass got a lot of stick mainly due to them being pacifists - but each to there own - They stood up and said more than most - there anti war stance was excellent and they always sold there records way cheaper than the major distributors. Gigs were cheap and an unforgettable experience. What Crass started - other groups picked up on - Crass used video and some simple yet stunning light shows with an energetic performence to put across a political message.

Crass took punk to another level - away from the commercial arena and in a way they succeeded for a short while - having given hundreds of bands and artists the chance to perform live or be released on record. What money they made was ploughed back. They done tons of benefit gigs.

'Yes thats right punk is dead
It's just another cheap product for the consumers head
Bubble gum rock on plastic transistors
Schoolboy sedition backed by big time promoters'

Punk is dead from feeding of the 5000.

No-one can deny this band had a major impact on the UK music scene and the world in many respects.

 

[feyr]

Infest, Papa Roach

it may not be the best written album in the history of music, but what it may lack in skill,it certainly makes up for in passion. it appeals to the angst ridden,death obsessed teenager in me. i was living away from home, in a place i didnt know well, juggling college,a job and all the things that come with living in your own home, at an age when most of my mates were still bumming around, enjoying the lack of responsability that comes with teenage living. the first time i listen to the album, i cried. i felt i could relate to every song, the anger and optimism of 'infest', the despair of 'broken home', the scared bravado of 'last resort'. but it was 'binge' that really got me.
"All I need is a bottle ,
And I don't need no friends, no
Wallow in my pain
I swallow as I pretend
To act like I'm happy
When I drink till no end, no
I'm losing all my friends
I'm losing in the end

when i heard those lyrics, i could keep it in any longer. i sat on my bed and cried. everything that i'd been keeping inside, all my worries,all the pain and anger, all the hate that i had towards myself just poured out. i cried until there was nothing left. then i found a bottle of JD, and put the cd back on. i drank, i jumped around my room, i screamed along to the lyrics. it felt great! for the first time in ages,corny as it might sound, i felt truely alive. 3 years on, i'm still juggling uni,a job and now a family too, but now i know how to stay in control. everyday, i stick my papa roach on the cd player, and scream along to it, as i do my chores. so ok, its not exactly rock and roll, but i love it.

 

[sojourner]

Mythical Kings and Iguanas by Dory Previn

Originally posted by unclekellan
The mythical kings and inguanas album spoke clearly to my state - and those that know of it, let alone own it - are a little club all of their own.

woofuckinhoo!!me eyes nearly popped out when i read this! my boyf introduced this album to me, and i fell in love with it immediately. i only know of 3 people who have heard it, us 2, and one of me mates...i never ever get tired of listening to this, wow!

 

[Dazy Boy]

<b>Talking Heads – Fear Of Music</b>

I’ve listened to this album I don’t know how many times. I got it back in around ’95 after finding it listed in one of those “Top 50 Albums Of All Time” compilations in some magazine. I had some of their other stuff and liked it, and the first few listens I thought “yeah, this is ok, but what’s the fuss about?” Then it just grew on me, like all great albums do.

There was something about its’ overall sound, a kind of disconnectedness from normality and the mundane that really put a hook in me. Even the title is a contradiction – I love music, why should anyone fear it? But crazily sometimes I do. Then there’re the tracks. “Cities”, with the repeating lyric “I will find myself a city to live in” spoke directly to me in my indecision and excitement about where to go and what to do with my life. In “Mind”, the lines “science won’t change you” and others evoke for me the contemporary cultural dilemmas of living in the modern world.

The whole album is about concepts that are rich in content and challenge traditional thought, and there’s nothing else that gets my mind buzzing in the same way. I didn’t get laid to it, or drop my first tab listening to it, but it’s there in my head, and when I put it on I feel like I am doing a trip without the aid of chemicals. On that note, the last track, titled “Drugs” is one of the most purely sublime, eerie songs I’ve ever heard. It perfectly captures the inherent weirdness of drug experiences, and is almost trance-like in affect.

I’ll mention one other line, in “Life During Wartime” David Byrne sings “Transmit a message to the receiver, hope for an answer someday” – doesn’t sound much, but to me it has a perfect symmetry about it, a tautology in that the only person you can transmit a message to <i>is</i> the receiver. It’s touches like this which bring me back to this album again and again. Intelligence in music is rare, and this album has got it all for me.

 

[ninthcouncil]

ViolentPanda got there first but....

When you look for your favourite album, your favourite anything, you have to empty your mind. Get rid of all the intellectual shit, get rid of all the received impressions, get rid of all the things that people have told you ought to like and you believed them. Lose the technique, lose the politics, lose it all. What is still there, what won't go away, what is part of you and can't be erased?

Yeah. I can't lose "Unknown Pleasures" either. It's part of me, and I'll never lose it without becoming someone else. I don't need to play "New Dawn Fades" ever again. Every little granule of it is burnt into my brain, along with the rest of the album and a few other things, like the bassline to "A Forest" by the Cure, or my partner's sleeping face. (Am I getting too sentimental? Fuck you. Some things matter.)

The only other record that comes close is "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits, another record I need never play again....

 

[Dubversion]

about once a week i have a look at this thread and decide it's really time i gave it a shot.

but i just can't bloody do it. total mental block. both about what the record would be, and what i'd find to say about it.

totally tongue tied.

which isn't terribly in character

 

[chazegee]

Surely a Chumbawumba noomber Dub