Childhood albums

Post the album covers of the five most important albums of your childhood (1-12) and tell us why they're so important!

1. Nirvana- Nevermind. I listened to this album so, so much as a kid. Kurt Cobain was a hero to me, and I remember singing every one of these songs while I was in school. I wanted to be a punk rocker, and this was the music I took along with me for the ride. I remember when I was about 4 and my brother and I were dancing around head banging, lip syncing and playing air guitar along to this album while my mom was painting the upstairs of our new house.



2. Green Day- International Superhits. I got this album for Christmas when I was in 4th grade and was soon obsessed with it. It was the first album I ever listened to over and over and read along to the lyrics sheet while doing so. I still have my copy of it, and the lyric booklet is torn to shreds from being read over so many times.



3. Eminem- The Eminem Show. This makes me laugh now, because Eminem is such a random artist to listen to growing up, but I went through a huge Eminem period in my life and this album was my favorite of his. I listened to it every.single.day. I still know half of the songs on it by heart!



4. Off Broadway- On. This is a lesser known, yet amazing band from Chicago. My dad is friends with the guys in the band so I've seen them live and met them a bunch of times. Anyways, I don't remember a point in my life where I didn't know this album. I remember being about 2 or 3 and dancing around and singing in my livingroom with my parents and my brother while this album played and being happier than even seems possible. There's a point in one of the songs where the singer yells, "Don't let go, let go!" and whenever my mom would be driving my brother and I somewhere, and that song played in the car, she would grab our hands and sing it to us. This album means everything to me.

5. Every album ever by Cheap Trick. I have the same kind of connection to Cheap Trick that I do to Off Broadway. They were always playing, and I was always singing along! Dream Police was always my favorite song by them, and it still is now! I saw them live when I was 8, I believe, and my dad bought me a t-shirt that was waaay too big for me, but I wore it all the time, and I still have it! And it's still too big for me, haha.

aww, i love your stories, Sarah!

Ages 1-12?

1. Madonna "Like a Virgin"
It was the first album I ever asked my parents to buy for me.

2. Guns N' Roses "Appetite For Destruction"
I literally overnight went from listening to Tiffany & Debbie Gibson to glam metal from Hell.

3. Dirty Dancing soundtrack
Opened me up to the world of oldies (50's & 60's) music, which I still love now.


If you're meaning grades 1-12, then I'd add in Jane's Addiction "Nothing's Shocking" because it was an intro to Alternative Rock, and I guess you can credit "Doggystyle" by Snoop Dogg for sending me off on a 4 year hip hop jag :O

There were definitely other albums I listened to constantly, but as far as anything that actually influenced me to go in a different direction, those would be the 5.

steph wrote:

aww, i love your stories, Sarah!

NeverTrustAJunkie wrote:

2. Guns N' Roses "Appetite For Destruction"
I literally overnight went from listening to Tiffany & Debbie Gibson to glam metal from Hell.

This made me laugh, hahahaa.

It's true. I was like "Now it's you! OUT OF THE BLUE!" right into "You're in the jungle baby! And you're gonna dieeeeee!!" Good times.

NeverTrustAJunkie wrote:

Ages 1-12?

1. Madonna "Like a Virgin"
It was the first album I ever asked my parents to buy for me.

2. Guns N' Roses "Appetite For Destruction"
I literally overnight went from listening to Tiffany & Debbie Gibson to glam metal from Hell.

3. Dirty Dancing soundtrack
Opened me up to the world of oldies (50's & 60's) music, which I still love now.


If you're meaning grades 1-12, then I'd add in Jane's Addiction "Nothing's Shocking" because it was an intro to Alternative Rock, and I guess you can credit "Doggystyle" by Snoop Dogg for sending me off on a 4 year hip hop jag :O

There were definitely other albums I listened to constantly, but as far as anything that actually influenced me to go in a different direction, those would be the 5.

No album covers?

(don't want to get in trouble for posting naked chicks)
(but don't know if this counts as a naked chick as it appears to be a dog in a thong)

Gosh-
Virgin
Destruction
DIrty
Shocking
Doggystyle

I'm sensing a theme...? I feel like I should post a Charlotte Church cover for balance.

haha, i was gonna say, wasn't that Jane's Addiction cover censored??

but umm, yeah, that procession of albums i suppose correlates with your level of virginity! nice analogy!

steph wrote:

that procession of albums i suppose correlates with your level of virginity!

NOT!

i could probably post you backstreet boys'discography.

When I first got into music I was actually listening to my parents' record collection. I remember my mom showing me the Beatles records and my dad showing me his Dylan records etc. Good times.

Then when I got into skateboarding and the Tony Hawk video games I started listening to alot of pop punk/punk rock/skate punk/ whatever you want to call it.

During that time I had little interest in music, so most of the music I encountered was either my parents' or my siblings'. Nevertheless:



These and practically every other Live album. I heard those guys so often back when I was small and it still takes me back every time I hear them. I love it.



BLØF is a Dutch band that hails from my region. My father used to get piss drunk with the lead-singer (before I was in the makings) and their songs remind me of home, of Zeeland (my province)

They recorded a song with the Counting Crows a few years back: https://youtu.be/yzQtEk9CzCA



Strangely enough, I used to dislike this album. I thought it was a bunch of noise and I didn't think it was awesome at all, yet it was played a lot at home since my dad and my brother and sister loved it. How wrong was I when I listened to it again in high school and all of the sudden realized it was in fact one of the greatest hard rock records of the period.

I'm sure there are others but a list of the most essential albums after I was 12 would be more interesting anyway since I only really started to discover music then.

1 The Cult - Electric
Stripped-down, bad-ass rock n' roll.

2 NWA - Straight Outta Compton
Stripped down, bad-ass hip-hop.

3 Cypress Hill - Cypress Hill
Fresh-sounding, bad-ass hip-hop.

4 Lou Reed - New York
Made me want to visit which I did in 1992 before the place was cleaned up.

5 NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
A really cool, different-sounding record for me.

Yo, you're supposed to put the album cover in there and explain WHY that album matters to you.

Metallica - S&M (San Francisco symphony orchestra with Metallica)

This was released in 1999 when I was 9, and in the summer of 2000 my family and my cousins' family would gather at our summer place and blast this record on full volume every night. Not only is this a great record with top notch performances from both Metallica and the orchestra as directed by Michael Camen, it also served as a stepping stone leading me towards heavier music in my teen years.


Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

Released in the summer of 1999, this is an album that resonates deeply with me, my brother and my father. It's slightly less great than Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but I discovered the latter album's splendor far later. Either way, this is the album we'd listen to during road trips through the country side, it really reminds me of happier, more innocent times.


Limp Bizkit - Chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavored water

Laugh at me all you want, but I got this album when I was 10 and I fucking loved it. It was the first music I listened to that made me feel like my parents wouldn't approve of it at all, what with all the cursing and whatnot. I later found out they didn't give a shit because they're rad as hell, but either way this album turned out to be the first album I could listen to in its entirety. I wouldn't just pick one or two songs and ignore the rest, I really loved every single song, knew every single word (I'd rap the words on my way back from school to pass the time) and it also accompanied me through my first breakup when I was around that age (We had been dating for weeks, shit was serious).


KISS - Great KISS

My uncle gave me this record for my 8th birthday, and not only did it introduce me to amazing rock and roll classics like Black diamond, Detroit rock city, Love gun, Strutter etc, it opened my mind and soul to rock music as a larger than life kinda phenomenon and helped establish that genre as the most important thing in my life.


Hammerfall - Crimson thunder

I bought this album on a snowy December night in 2002 when I was twelve years old, and I spent that entire winter playing Zelda and listening to that album. Its theme of valiant knights, courage, raging firestorms and vanquishing evil resonated perfectly with my interest for fantasy movies and books, and I just felt like I could lose myself in it entirely.




I still listen to all these albums regularly. They've stood the test of time for me.
Honorable mention to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones for being the first bands I liked.

The Ramones - Rocket To Russia

I've always been a die-hard Ramones fan, and my dad got me really into them. In fact, all of these bands probably came from his suggestions.


Phantom Planet - The Guest

The OC was (...is) a guilty pleasure of mine, and it had the greatest soundtrack too. I never get sick of this album, and it makes every day feel like Summer. Amazing sense of nostalgia behind this record.


Blink 182 - Enema of the State

I think The Simpsons got me into them after I saw them in an episode with Tony Hawk where Bart gets emancipated and starts hanging out with skater-punks. They're the first pop-punk group I really grew to appreciate. I still love them.


The Zombies - Odyssey and Oracle

Oh man, my dad played this album all the freaking time, and it always reminds me of him. This album is nothing but hits, basically, and every song is unique in their own special way. This album is one of my favorites.


The Beatles - Help!

This album has just about every one of my favorite Beatles tracks. We watched the film a lot when I was a kid, too, so there are a lot of great memories behind this record. When I was thirteen, I went and saw McCartney for the first time as well, and that was my first legitimate concert too. *sigh*

Blink-182 - Enema of the State
and
The Offspring - Americana

in fact, it wasn't until I turned 18 before I listened to other, better, music but I still love those 2 albums, so much nostalgia

This album was my childhood. I probably listened to The Beach Boys Greatest Hits a thousand times before I turned 13. Growing up in CA, the Beach Boys represented all the things I loved about where I lived - the beach, cool cars, and warm sunny days. No matter what's going on in my life, I can turn on this album and instantly feel better. Plus it has my favorite song from when I was a kid, Kokomo.



Before the Backstreet Boys and Nsync, there was New Kids on the Block, the original boy band! I discovered their music when I was six in 1988 and I went crazy over it. I can probably still sing along, word for word, to every song on Hangin' Tough. I loved New Kids, and not only did I have their tapes, but I also had music videos, magazines, beach towels, t-shirts, you name it. I loved them from about the ages of 6-10, then I realized that I was way too cool for their music and moved on.



Paula Abdul was so cool! I remember making up dance routines with my little sister to Straight Up, Forever Your Girl, and Opposites Attract when I was seven or eight years old. I just loved her. She had fun songs, awesome clothes, cool dance moves, and she had been a Laker Girl, which I guess I thought was totally rad at the time. And I have to say, I still like her. I heard Forever Your Girl on the radio recently and it's still a sweet, simple song that I wouldn't mind hearing every once in a while. I'm not ashamed to admit it! Well, maybe a little.



Everybody cut footloose! This has always been one of my favorite movies, and these songs used to play constantly on the radio when I was a kid. I even have a home movie of me dancing to Footloose in my kindergarten dance recital, which I'm sure my parents took just to have something to embarrass me with later. This album had some of the best pop music of the 80s, and just hearing it makes me feel like I'm six years old again. I used to love to sing along to Footloose, Let's Hear It For the Boy, Holding Out For a Hero, and Almost Paradise and run around the house dancing like I was in the movie. Good times.



My mom was a big Eagles fan when I was growing up, and I have loved them since birth. I remember hearing the songs on Hotel California so much as a child, and they never get old. This album is home to me. Whenever I start really missing California, I just turn on this album, and bam! I'm back in L.A., the sun is shining, awesome music is playing, and all is right with the world. Another reason this album is so important to my childhood is because I listened to it about a couple of dozen times in the car while my family drove across the country when we moved to Virginia. I can't hear New Kid in Town without thinking of driving through the desolate towns of Arizona and New Mexico heading toward the East Coast, wondering what it would be like to be the New Kid in Town again.