15 albums that changed you life

The Badger did this on his Facebook, and this was my reply. You have to nominate 15 albums that changed your life - not necessarily your favourite records of all time but records that changed the way you thought, acted, dressed, whatever....just set you on a slightly different course. Since doing my 15, I've noticed other people on the Facebook doing the same thing but with 20 albums, the bastards. But I was asked for 15, so here, in chronological order, they are:

1. Thin Lizzy, Live And Dangerous
2. Blondie, Parallel Lines.
3. Dead Kennedys, In God We Trust Inc
4. Sex Pistols, Never Mind The Bollocks
5. The Blues Brothers, soundtrack
6. Hanoi Rocks, Bangkok Shocks Saigon Shakes Hanoi Rocks
7. The Smiths, The Smiths
8. Jesus And Mary Chain, Psychocandy
9. The Pastels, Up For A Bit
10. Spain, The Blue Moods Of Spain
11. Tortoise, Millions Now Living Will Never Die
12. Belle & Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister
13. Sigur Ros, ágætis byrjun
14. Mum, Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is OK
15. The Avalanches, Since I Left You

Et tu?

1. The Police: Zenyatta Mondatta
2. Queen: A Night At The Opera
3. Pink Floyd: The Wall
4. David Bowie: Space Oddity
5. The Beatles: The Beatles
6. Blur: Parklife
7. Air: Moon Safari
8. Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue
9. The Byrds: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
10. The Beach Boys: Sunflower
11. Belle & Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister
12. Queens Of The Stone Age: Rated R
13. DJ Shadow: Endtroducing
14. Sparks: Lil' Beethoven
15. Architecture In Helsinki: In Case We Die

Still thinking

Copied from the same Facebook.
In a very rough order
1. Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen
2. Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material
3. The Jam - Setting Sons
4. Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk
5. The Smiths - The Smiths
6. Aztec Camera - High Land Hard Rain
7 R.E.M. Green
8. Teenage Fanclub - A Catholic Education
9. Wedding Present - Seamonsters
10. Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
11. Half Man Half Biscuit - Some Call it Godcore
12. Tindersticks - Can Our Love
13. Josh Rouse - Nashville
14. Broken Family Band - Cold Water Songs
15. Smog - A River Ain't Too Much to Love

What no Cure, no Fall, no Decemberists, no Low no B&S and no Joy Division - what am I thinking about! Can't pick just one.

Looking at the list - God I really am one dimensional - they're all white boys playing guitars

Mine, copied from faecebook, in no particular disorder.

1. The Go-Betweens: Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express
2. The Smiths: Hatful of Hollow
3. The Auteurs: New Wave
4. The Triffids: Calenture
5. Love: Forever Changes
6. Kate Bush: Lionheart
7. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions: Rattlesnakes
8. Various (Sarah Records): Shadow Factory
9. Sparks: Propaganda
10. Band of Holy Joy: More Tales from the City
11. Various (Creation Records): Doing it for the Kids
12. Belle & Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister
13. The Go-Betweens: 16 Lovers Lane
14. Galaxie 500: On Fire
15. The Housemartins: London 0 Hull 4

Tried to keep it down to those which had genuinely had an influence in terms of making me take a major turn musically (Liberty Belle, New Wave, More Tales...), a major emotional impact (Hatful of Hollow, Sinister, Calenture), changed my thinking in some way (London 0 Hull 4) or were "important" musically (Shadow Factory and DiftK were must have's when I was 15/16). I think one or two of mine have crept in because I like them, even though possibly not my favourites, and played them a lot at some point. On reflection I should perhaps have made space for Volume, Contrast, Brilliance by The Monochrome Set. But I do think rather than 15 being limiting (as a friend suggested), in terms of genuine, significantly life-changing works, 15 might actually be too many.

ooooh, fifteen LPs:

Motorhead - Ace of Spades
The Cure - The Head on the Door
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
Sonic Youth - Sister
Big Black - Atomizer
Soft Cell - Non Stop Erotic Cabaret
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Velvet Undergound and Nico - The Velvet Underground and Nico
Neil Young - After The Goldrush
Various Artists - The Best of Pebbles - Volume One: The Originals
Flying Saucer Attack - Chorus
The Delgados - Domestiques
Prolapse - The Italian Flag
The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
Guitar Wolf - Jet Generation

That's a tough thing to choose. They're not my favourite 15 LPs - but each one of those has kick started something for me at some point in time.

what a nice idea, though!
Here is my list, roughly in order of their original release date. The order has nothing to do with when I discovered any of them. And I am sure I forgot some, but these 15 were the first that came to my mind:

01. Dead Kennedys - Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables
02. Joy Division - Closer
03. Depeche Mode - Speak and spell
04. The Residents - The tunes of two cities
05. The Borodin Quartet - A recording of Aleksandr Borodin's String Quartet #2
06. The Chameleons - Script of the bridge
07. The Durutti Column - Another setting
08. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Nocturne
09. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
10. The Smiths - The world won't listen
11. Creation Records Compilation - A palace in the sun
12. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
13. Sarah Records Compilation - Glass arcade
14. This Mortal Coil - Blood
15. Tindersticks - The first Tindersticks album

Deeply disagree with the notion of "changed your life": I find that deaths, marriage, children and so on do a better job of that. But 15 albums that have been important - have affected the way I have thought about music, or affirmed my feelings about something, or reflected my life, or - on rare occasion - have motivated me to do something ...
In roughly chronological order (of me hearing them) ...

1/ AC/DC - Powerage
2/ Billy Bragg - Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
3/ The Fall - Perverted by Language
4/ The Smiths - The Smiths
5/ Ramones - It's Alive
6/ The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers
7/ REM - Fables of the Reconstruction
8/ The Wedding Present - George Best
9/ Various: Nuggets Vol 3, Punk Pt 1
10/ Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
11/ Big Star - Radio City
12/ Frank Sinatra - Songs for Swinging Lovers
13/ Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story
14/ Fountains of Wayne - Fountains of Wayne
15/ The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday (I have listened to some part of this album at least five days a week for at least the past two years)

Blimey. Maybe I've lived a shallower life than you, your Dukeness, but I can think of instances when an album has changed my life. "Psychocandy" had a profound affect on what I become interested in, the direction my life took, even on the way I dressed, everything really. I think it's fair to say that it had as big an affect on my life as becoming a parent.

I'm with Ian on this - music can be life changing - some on my list have changed the way I appreciate music - but a handful changed me - the clothes I wore, the way I thought, the friends I chose. Maybe it's a teenage thing.

Yes, I think that's true.

I think it's probably true that I am much deeper - spiritually, intellectually, ethically, morally, philosophically - than anyone else here, so that must be taken into account. And I think it's also true that the whole "life changing" thing is a teenage trope (in my list, I heard the first 11 albums in my teens, the next two in my early 20s, the next one was the soundtrack to my honeymoon so it's all bound up with that, and only the last comes from within the last 12 years.

But I think you need to define how your life was changed - maybe it would turn out that we're referring to the same phenomena, it's just I'm not calling them life changing. For instance, I don't think an album leading to you wearing black clothes is life changing. If it persuaded you to take up a lifelong heroin habit, I'd accept that. But I'd also think you were an idiot for becoming an addict because of an album.

So, to take the last of the albums on my list ... In the past few years I have done things I would not otherwise have done as a result of hearing it and falling in love with that band. I have travelled to Norway and to New York and even, yes, even to Leeds to see the Hold Steady perform live. I have engaged in conversations with complete strangers from whom I would normally have a run a mile. But I don't consider any of that life-changing, because the broad course of my life has remained unaltered.

The one musical event of my life that was, I think, definitely life-changing was going to HDIF for the first time, as I've told Ian before. Because it thoroughly revived my passion for music and led me to pursue some professional ambitions that maybe would otherwise have been left unexplored.

"Psychocandy" set me on a course that resulted in me becoming a music journalist. So I think it's fair to say it changed my life.

Fair enough. Every Picture Tells A Story led to me becoming a professional footballer. Oh, hang on ...

Right, without wanting to enter the whole debate about 'life-changing', the following albums have either turned me onto a particular type of music or have pointed me in the direction of new music. And yes, the majority of these I heard in my teens and twenties.......(and some aren't even proper albums - so shoot me)

1. David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
2. Japan - Tin Drum
3. The Clash - Combat Rock
4. Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever
5. Aztec Camera - High Land, Hard Rain
6. Billy Bragg - Life's A Riot With Spy v Spy
7. Various - Pillows and Prayers
8. The Smiths - The Smiths
9.Lou Reed - Transformer
10.Nick Drake - Way to Blue (An Introduction to Nick Drake)
11.Pulp - Into
12.Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
13.Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
14.Various -Kids at the Club
15. Jens Lekman - Nights Falls Over Kortedala