The MamaPop Roundtable: Influential Albums

Nee! And Huzzah! And welcome to this week's MamaPop Roundtable, where the MamaPop writers answer enmass a single challenging, thought-provoking, or otherwise engaging question. We then ask that you, the reader, contribute your response to the same question in comments.

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This week's Roundtable question was submitted by the curious and question-y reader Jessica Darko, who doesn't appear to have a URL for us to pimp out, but does have the coolest last name ever, lucky girl:

Q: What albums have had a huge influence on you, and why?

HeatherB: John Legend's Get Lifted and Randy Newman's Bad Love. The former has my wedding song as one of the tracks. The latter has a track that will forever remind me of my first love. I seem to be a bit of a romantic. I think I might throw up, it's that sweet.

Dana: Crosby, Stills, and Nash Deja Vu. The soundtrack of my childhood. It was released eight years before my time but growing up in the 80s it was a staple at family reunions and on the long trips up and down the highway, bouncing between families after my parents' separation. Many of those songs spoke to what I was going through, as best as a kid could reason, and the harmonies and warm acoustics provided the perfect sonic accompaniment to my 70s-yellowed childhood. There are bands out here now [cough]FleetFoxes[/cough] that try to mimic the hazy artistry of the CSN, but none come close. Songs from this album are the only non-rock or metal songs in my top 25 most played iTunes listing.

Sarah: This might sound idiotic, but Death Angel's Frolic Through the Park had a big impact on me as an individual. The album itself is just okay, but I went out and bought a thrash metal album when it was something that none of my friends were listening to. My two best friends thought I was crazy, but my 16 year old self had just realized that it was okay for me to like things that were different from what my friends like. It was an epiphany thanks to Death Angel.

I bet I'm the only person who has ever uttered those words in that order.

Miss Banshee: Tom Waits Heart of Saturday Night. I wore out the tape, I bought the cd, I listen to it on my iPod all the time. The concept of the barroom ballad, the idea of a raw voice over breathtakingly beautiful music. I think Waits is a genius, he's my favorite musical artist, and even though I could have picked several albums, this is the one that jumped to mind, and I wouldn't want to mar my love for it by choosing other albums (although I certainly could.) It showed me that beauty and rawness can live together in amazing harmony.

Catherine: Anything by Johnny Cash. My parents were huge fans when I was a kid, and his music - everything from Fulsom Prison Blues to The Gospel Road - formed a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood. I bought Songs From My Mother's Hymn Book when I was in Nashville recently, and put it on whenever I need a good nostalgic cry.

Tracey: I'll try not to get carried away here and stick with the 90s and earlier.

The Beatles Abbey Road. At age 7 this opened my brain up to the idea that pop music could - nay, should - be more than vapid variations on a love song theme. 

The Smiths (self-titled). At age 13, it gave a warbling, intelligent, thoughtful voice to my newly blossoming teen angst.

Throwing Muses (self-titled). At age 16, it made my heart feel less alone in the world.

The Pixies, Come On, Pilgrim. At age 17, it breathed life and fire and laughter back into me.

My Bloody Valentine, Isn't Anything. At age 18, I was an adult, suddenly. And this album -- 110% sex, bare white skin branded with a painful kind of knowingness -- was everything I needed.

Talk Talk, Laughing Stock. At age 21, I was reminded there's such thing as pure, untainted beauty.

Pavement, Slanted & Enchanted. At age 22, Guitar rock seemed new, fresh and alive again.

Nirvana, In Utero. At age 23, I understood, finally, what all the fuss was about.

Superchunk, Foolish. At age 24, I had my anthems, and drove fast, singing at the top of my lungs.

Pavement, Wowee Zowee. At age 25, it helped mend my broken heart.

Belle & Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister. At age 26, it made me nostalgic for a place and time that never existed, but that I wished had.

Elliott Smith, XO. At age 28, someone broke into my apartment, stole my diary, tore it to shreds, and recorded an album using random scraps of it for lyrics.

Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. At age 28, I finally felt understood.

Jenn: I'm sort of embarrassed by my answer because I'm not that musically cool. So, here are the top five albums that have influenced me, but you can also title this the five albums I love that you probably won't.

1. Greenday's Dookie -- I know, I know. It's just that this was the first CD I owned, and so it reminds me of coming of age and finally choosing my own musical likes and dislikes apart from my parents. I spent hours memorizing the lyrics to every song on this album (favorites: "Basketcase" & "She"). Greenday just announced a summer tour and I'm insisting my husband take me. I'm sure we'll be oldest and lamest people there. Bring it.

2. Pat Green's Live at Billy Bobs -- Pat Green sort of spearheaded the genre of music known as "Texas country." It's music that stems mostly from Austin and the surrounding cities and is blasted out of dusty dancehalls throughout hill country. There are fiddles and lots of lyrics declaring loyalty and love to the Lonestar State. I live here, but I'm not from here, so even I find it annoying how Texans think the sun rises and sets over this state alone, but there is something charming about this place, too. I discovered this CD when I was a senior in high school. Falling in love with totally wrong-for-me people and terrified about the next chapter in my life. I listened to this CD on repeat for a solid year, and it absolutely saw me through.

3. Blue October's Consent to Treatment -- When I met my now-husband, this was the first CD he played for me. This band (also from Texas but now mainstream with their hit "Hate Me" & "Calling You") produces songs that sort of stun me with their honesty and beauty, and they will always remind me of him. And this, to me, is their best CD. (Listen to "Balance Beam," "Breakfast After 10" & "The Answer.")

4. Wideawake's Bigger Than Ourselves -- I'm sure no one has heard of this band, but they wrote the song that inspired my personal blog's name, She Likes Purple, and every other song on this album is great. (So is their follow-up album, "Not So Far Away")

5. Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits -- My dad is the real music lover in our family, and he likes all the really good stuff I could never spend the time to understand. But I always liked when he played this album. This came out after my parent's divorce and even though it took me years upon years to forgive my dad, we always found common ground when singing "Born to Run

BHJ: What immediately comes to mind is King Diamond's Them and Suicidal Tendencies' How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today because those are 1988 records and I was 16 and I hated your guts. When I was 16 I needed music in order to live another day and to maintain the heat of my irrational hatred of everything. But then Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking destroyed my life and reconfigured all the bones in my body. It's like I transformed from a jean jacketed hate monger to a weird artsy kinda dude all because of 11 tracks. And I still stand by Pearl Jam's Ten. "Alive" was blowing up mainstream just as I was getting sober so that song resonates with me in a serious way.

Kurt: AC/DC's Back In Black. When it came out I was like 10 and I had no idea what the hell any of the innuendo meant, but was pretty sure that if a girl could "keep my motor clean" than that was a good thing, and also I'm not sure what my motor even was, but riding around on bicycles with my best friend we came to the conclusion that it probably had something to do with our naughty bits and why the hell a girl would want those, or why she would want to clean them was beyond me, but that guitar riff was awesome, so who cares.

I must have listened to Side 2 of that album so many times that it altered my psyche forever and possibly my DNA because now every time I hear "Rock N Roll Ain't Noise Pollution:" I black out for 15 minutes and maybe when I wake up I've committed a felony, but usually I'm just sitting in a fetal ball on the couch and crying a little. That was a lie.

What IS true is that after hearing that album I went out and slowly collected their entire back catalog of music and pretty much devoted my high school experience to heavy metal thus totally ruining my chances of ever getting my motor cleaned until someone later turned me on to Depeche Mode which totally didn't talk about motor cleaning but chicks dug them way more.

Whit: When I was a kid I would spend hours, which turned into days, then years and so forth and so on, listening to the same albums over and over.   Also, over.  Those records were Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, Between the Buttons by the Rolling Stones and Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys.  Two of the three are still in my rotation today.  Between the Buttons gave way to a greatest hits album. Sorry, Mick.

In between I listened to a lot of KISS, Ramones and DeBarge, but not really DeBarge, and lots of OMD and the like. Today I listen to Seu Jorge and Miles Davis.  Influences are funny things, just don't drive under them.

Schmutzie: The Dead Milkmen's Big Lizard in My Backyard. I bought the album the summer before I moved away from home to start my grade eleven year at a religious boarding school. The day I moved into my dorm room, my roommate and I went through each other's cassette tapes. When I saw that, aside from one other tape, her collection consisted of every Amy Grant tape ever produced, I knew we were in trouble.  She paused over The Dead Milkmen in my collection and told me that, due to the fact that she was keeping Satan out of her life and had burned most of her music that summer, I couldn't listen to my albums while she was in the room. It was at that moment that I understood that music could be a powerful political and social force, and I made it my goal to bring my roommate back to the devil's music. I'm sure that she spent many a night praying for my soul, but, by the end of the year, I had her yelling along to "Bitchin' Camaro".

Jodi: remember listening to my parents Annie and A Chorus Line soundtracks on 8 Track.  (Yes, I am that old.)  I would make up little dances and performances and force my parents to watch.  This spurned a lifelong love of musical theater and performing.  I did musical theater for years.

I also think this translated into my litigation career.  Because litigators are really just frustrated actors at heart.

Amber: Early life: Depeche Mode - Violator
My older cousin was a huge Depeche Mode fan. For a while, we lived together, and I remember vividly listening to the first track from that album through the wall we shared and feeling as though I had been awakened. I became aware of music that day. I also worshipped my older cousin, and I just knew if we bonded over Depeche Mode we would be best friends. But it turns out high schoolers don't really like hanging with 6th graders.

High School: The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
After my love affair with Depeche Mode (which never really ended), I listened to a lot of awful bubble gum crap to fit in with girls who were popular. I was a good singer, and I thought since I could hit those dog whistle notes that Mariah Carey could, maybe the A list girls would like me. Yeah, I dunno.

When that failed to happen, I discovered grunge and alternative rock through my best friend, who had an older sister. While Nirvana and Alice and Chains are both unbelievably important to my adolescent development, I was most devoted to whiny, bald Billy Corgan. I can't hear "Today" on the radio without thinking of summers spent sneaking out of my bedroom window to drive 45 minutes west to the beach in La Jolla, where I'd swim in the phosphorus, watch the grunyan run, and long to be kissed by the boy who really loved my best friend's older sister.

Post High School - Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over the Sea
The first boy I ever loved who loved me back introduced me to a lot of music. So much, in fact, that I was tempted to add "The Mix Tapes of Dan Pereira 1998-2000" to my list. Through those tapes, I discovered The Olivia Tremor Control, Yo La Tengo, The Flaming Lips, DJ Shadow, Jets to Brazil, and a ton of electronica. But Neutral Milk Hotel was my own discovery. That album probably means more to me than any other single album I own, because it represents the time when I stopped trying to impress others by getting into the music they loved. I loved that album without having to be told it was good by someone whom I desperately wanted to fall in love with me.

Kelly: Massive Attack - Mezzanine
I liked it quite a bit when it came out, but it wasn't until I had my son that this album really got a hold of my brain. My husband and I would listen to it at night a lot when we went to bed and during those first few months of our son's life, when I was still getting up to nurse him, it would still be playing during a feeding. For awhile, it worked out that every time I would sit down to nurse, "Teardrop" would come on, and I would have these amazing minutes where it was just me, my baby, and that song in the middle of the night. 

Nina Simone - After Hours
Nina Simone is obviously before my time, so I never really had a proper album of hers. I really hadn't even heard of her until I saw this slightly crappy assassin movie in the mid 90s called Point of No Return and Bridget Fonda's character was obsessed with Nina Simone. I bought a couple "best of" CDs and really started listening to them when I started college. Aside from her music being absolutely divine, I was really struck by how precisely she captured loneliness and I felt like she sang the murky things that I felt. 

Maxwell - Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Aural sex. 

Fugees - The Score
This is pretty much the soundtrack to my senior year of high school.
It's hard to overstate how universally loved this album was by everyone in my school. And it's appropriate the Fugees and their individual members never really duplicated the formula that made The Score so perfect, since it is SO rare for 1,000 high school kids to all love the same thing. 

Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1
This is part of my soundtrack to the 2000-2001 period where my future husband and I were falling hopelessly in love, so I'm a little biased. However, empirically it is a perfect R&B/Soul album. 

Tom Waits - Closing Time
With a few exceptions, this is excellent sad bastard music and I find myself turning to it when I'm all sad-bastardy. "Martha" KILLS ME. 

Radiohead - Kid A
I always really liked Radiohead, but Kid A blew everyone away. It came out at a weird time where a lot of people were trying really hard to dismiss all "electronic" music as "just pushing buttons." Not only was this an excellent album on its own, it was a hearty "fuck you" to rock fans who insisted that their gee-tars were the only way to go. 

Weezer - Blue Album
1994 in a bottle. Absolutely never fails to make me want to don my old man sweaters and belt out "My Name Is Jonas." 

J Dilla - Donuts
Totally amazing instrumental hip hop album, created while Dilla was on his deathbed. It's filled with both longing and optimism and the unique artistic wisdom of someone who faced his own mortality far too young. I also love it because it's one of the first albums that my son really loves and appreciates all on his own and it's so SO cool to see your offspring developing their own musical tastes (that don't suck). 

Rockers Soundtrack
This movie is amazing and absurd and features some of the biggest reggae stars ever. The soundtrack just owns and now that the weather is warming up it will be on repeat. 

Dr. Dre - The Chronic
Yeah, it's kind of an obvious choice, but I don't think you can really deny this album. And for a nerdy, awkward, 14-year-old suburban white chick, this album was totally different than the stuff that the kids
that I knew were listening to. It also screams "SUMMER!" to me. 

Biggie - Ready to Die
Another obvious choice, sure, but another undeniably awesome album. 

Mazzy Star - So Tonight that I Might See
I'm moody and this album is good for that. I just love Hope Sandoval's voice and how she sounds kind of...high. 

Violent Femmes - Add It Up
Okay, yes, another music dork sin of having a "best of" album, but all of the songs on this album OWN. 

Nirvana - Unplugged
Because all I have to do is think of the look on Kurt Cobain's face and the way he drew in his breath as he sang the last notes of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" and I get chills. 

Hole - Live Through This
I will not be hearing any negative things about Courtney Love or "But Kuuuurrt"s because this album rocks and when you are the aforementioned nerdy, awkward, 14-year-old suburban white chick, you have some angst and this is good for being screamy. 

D'Angelo - Voodoo
More aural sex. Also, D'Angelo had something of a musical breakdown after this album because of the success of the video for "Untitled" and has yet to really recover. I hope it doesn't go down as his artistic epitaph. 

Underground Resistance - Inspiration/Transition
I had an existential crisis because of the B-side...and that's all I'm gonna say. 

Gah! I'm running out of time and am getting slammed at work, so I'm just going to list the rest of them. 

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Madonna - Like a Prayer
Janis Joplin - Cheap Thrills and Pearl
Cesaria Evora - Cesaria Evora
Erykah Badu - Baduizm
Carole King - Tapestry

Comments

[LovelyLayla]

I think it's so fascinating how music/pop culture has such an influence on our lives ( mostly music) so that's why I had to ask that question.
Abbey Road has had the biggest influence on me, I remember my dad playing it around our apartment as a child, and I was instantly hooked on the Beatles. I find it so interesting how 4 guys who were inseperable for so long, and so creative ended up despising who and what they were and stood for, but pulled together to create such an amazing last album. Every friggin song is just awesome. Also, my baby boy who is going to be born in July has been named Maxwell James. (James is Paul McCartney's real first name)

Most people hate on him, but Jimmy Buffett's Changes in latiudes/Attitudes is also amazing. I left my ex of seven years ( fiancee of 3) after a brutal relationship, taking off on a plane to Washington state and I put my I-Pod on shuffle and the title song was the first song that played. I love the lyrics
"Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder,
So I can't look back for too long.
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me,
and I know that I just can't go wrong"

I haven't looked back since.

[BaltimoreGal]

You all just blew me away with this list. My childhood was CSN, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, and Motown.

My teenage years were The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Suicidal Tendencies, Jane's Addiction + the post-punk/new wave/ska thing out of Manchester. LOVE.

College/early 20s was Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Belle & Sebastian, Sarah McLaughlin other alternagrungeish stuff that still stands.

Late 20s was Nina Simone, Etta James, Radiohead's Kid A (BEST of Radiohead, Kelly!!!), Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright and other eclectics.

I seem to be going back to basics now. We'll see.

[TwoBusy]

Wow. Great topic.

Sarah: Why am I not surprised? Oh, right — because you tricked me into listening to a 45-minute Iced Earth song today. Damn you.

Tracey: That's the best description of XO I've ever heard. Also, it makes me sad for the 28yo you. (Also also, I'm partial to Spirit of Eden. Don't hate me. Also also also: Isn't Anything over Loveless? That's just unnatural.)

Everyone else: really interesting stuff. Except for DeBarge. Which is just embarrassing.

[steff]

YES YES YES. -----> Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I saw Amanda Palmer's (Dresden Dolls) theatrical interpretation of the album at her high school alma mater this past weekend outside of Boston. The album is amazing in itself, more than words can say really, but I was introduced to an entirely new level of awe when accompanied by a truly haunting piece of stage play. WOWZA. If you haven't listened yet, it is a MUST.

Jeff Buckley - Grace. This will forever be my favorite all time album. His voice is incomparable & he is a wickedly talented musician to boot. BONUS - he was a bigtime hottie, buy the album open the insert and commence with lustful gaze.

Beastie Boys - Ill Communication. Introduced me to Q-Tip & Biz Markie and for that I am a cooler, less rhythmically challenged white girl.

Sublime - 40 oz. to Freedom. Ok, this might be my favorite album ever. For sure, it is definitely one of the best "summer" or party albums. Bradley Nowell has such amazing vocals & no other band has ever blended rock/punk/reggae/dub quite like they did it.

No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom. This album was influential in all sorts of ways. No one else sings or dresses like Gwen. I have been sucessfully failing at trying to be just like her ever since.

[Sweetney]

XO is still my favorite album of all time, so maybe you should feel sorry for the 39 year old me too?

Isn't Anything was the first album of theirs I heard... actually I heard "Cigarette In Your Bed" on a Creation's record comp before the LP came out... anyway, thing is, I met them on that tour and became good friends with Bilinda, so it has this aura about it -- that year, that time, that album. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetney/2235800610/ (I know, art school B&W, sue me.)

[tonya]

Junior High was Metallica & AC/DC.

I listened to The Doors, Nirvana, & Pearl Jam all through High School. Also, a dash of Enya, Mazzy Star, & Snoop Dogg.

College was Melissa Ethridge & Jimi Hendrix.

[Whit]

Ah, Grace, that got me through many a late night of wine and women and I mean that in the best way possible.

[Whit]

DeBarge takes your hate and turns it to glitter and LOL cats.

[Jennie]

Man, I've got to start listening to cooler music. But I love when people choose music based on what they were going through at the time. Going through something hard, happened to hear a particular song during that period and boom, that song is forever important to you. Even though the music is different for everyone, the experience is universal.

[Snarky Amber]

I forgot to add this about Neutral Milk Hotel: I really love that album so much, I know I couldn't fall in love with anyone who didn't at least appreciate it. I knew I could spend my life with my spouse when, after repeated listenings and initially kind of hating it, he declared it amazing.

[Amanda of Shamelessly Sassy]

Blind Melon's Blind Melon. I loved it. I still love it, although I can't pin it all down.

Anything Queen. I remember sitting to listen to it with my older cousins and thinking it was so cool. I still like Queen. I'll always like them.

I have to agree with Dr. Dre's The Chronic. I listened to it until my CD broke in half. Then I mourned the demise of the CD for days.

Other embarrassing things, I loved TLC. Mostly, I loved Left Eye Lopez's attitude. Her boyfriend cheats on her. what does she do? Burn the motherfucker's house down. Left Eye was my kind of girl. I also mourned her death.

All things Rolling Stones. I could go on for days. I'll stop here before I embarrass myself by mentioning En Vogue.

[Palinode]

I missed getting my choices onto this list. For the record, they're pretty much the same as Tracey's. But with more Tom Waits in my 20s and 30s, and more Sex Pistols and Suicidal Tendencies as a teenager.

[Maria M]

NOFX Punk in Drublic. "Oh, I do like punk a lot."

[Backpacking Dad]

Moxy Fruvous, Demo
Barenaked Ladies, Demo
The Arrogant Worms, Demo

I liked comic bands. And demos. Didn't like anything from Seattle. Wished Wagner and Tchaikovsky were writing rock music. Huey Lewis and the News are still perfect.

[DianaCLT]

DeBarge takes your hate and turns it to glitter and LOL cats.

*SNORT!!!*

[DianaCLT]

Ahhh. Don't be embarrassed by En Vogue. They had a good run there for a while (my freshman year of college, that is). Free Your Mind! ;)

[Kathy]

I really only have three albums that I could consistently name as "the record that changed my life," or whatever And I don't know if I'd even go that far. Changed my taste in music, or what music can be? Yes, definitely.

Tom Waits - Rain Digs
Richard & Linda Thompson - Shoot Out The Lights
The Replacements - Tim

[Lindsay]

I would be remiss if I didn;t start with GRACELAND, Paul Simon- always a go-to for me, teh rock of many different phases of my life.
Also, Peter Gabriel's Passion, and So.
Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes
anything by Simon and garfunkel
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Come on Come On
Beastie Boys, Ill Comm. and Check Your Head- those were such bookends for me
John Coltrane's a Love Supreme
Bob Dylan's Bootleg sessions
I'll just lump all my 90s that I never really grew out of: Pixies, Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure (pretend that's in big ALL CAPS) The Gogos, Bauhaus, Violent Femmes, FUGAZI. 13 songs (grew up 20 miles out of DC, I cut my teeth on Fugazi at Ft. Reno- and it was my son's 1st show post-utero at 2.:) Bad Brains, Toota and the Maytals.
And I would add the Clutch self-titled CD- it was my fave as a pregnant college sophomore, a gift from my baby's dad. Didn't know 4 years later I'd marry the bass player. So yeah, that changed my life.:)

[BaltimoreGal]

Awesome. Graceland and So are albums I still listen to!