Computerwelt and Remain In Light, both from 1981, set a standard for what music would become. They’re the future before the future had arrived - looping arrangements, repeating sounds, aiming for a very “assembled” type of music.

And yet, they’re captivating for me for being so far removed from what modern music has become at the same time. These albums aren’t assembled in a DAW, they’re entirely crafted in the analogue world, almost perfect but imperfect. They’re great albums from a songwriting perspective anyway, but I always wonder if the fact they spawn from this exact moment in time is what makes them so perfect for me.

The other is The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy. This one is harder to explain, if you try to break it down it isn’t hugely experimental, influential, groundbreaking or even that popular in the wider sense. But something about it is so utterly of its time and timeless at the same time.

And, maybe it’s just the people I know, but I have friends and family who remember and cherish this album. You could play someone certain tracks and they might enjoy them, but something about putting all the tracks together and listening to the album just creates that classic special journey.

Interested in what other albums have special meaning for people, even if they’re not entirely sure why.

top 5 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Highway Companion.

Its not Tom Petty's finest. Noted. But that doesn't matter for me. I was going through alot at the time. I came back from tour 2 in Afghanistan, was struggling to cope with what I'd been through and just lost. I would get in my wrangler, take the doors and top off, and just drive. For hours. The album had released for about a year but times were so messesld up for me that I missed releases or concerts for most music I used to listen to. I was just checked out from the things I loved. So one day when I saw this at the PX I grabbed it. It just hit me at the right time.

It was the only thing I'd play on those drives. Things got better for me and this was the album that was part of that experience. First to recognizing the ills I'd been a part of. Then to healing and buddhism. To trying to be a better human, accepting my past, and building a now that was beyond my self. 20 years later, I still use this when I'm needing to reconnect with the world and myself. Now it's while I am biking or walking, but its the mood and the lack of a destination that make the setting. It really and truly lived up to its name for me, a highway companion on l the freeway that is my life.

[–] WamGams@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeezus.

No song alone reaches a 10/10, except maybe 1, but taken as a whole, the album is a 10/10 experience. The album is essentially alone in it's own subgenre of hip hop. Everything that came after has been influenced by it, or more accurately, influenced against it. Often regarded as a work of minimalism, but that is a mistaken notion. The album has more in common with architecture, specifically brutalist architecture.

Lyrically, the album is unfinished. Almost all of it is first drafts and sketches of lyricsz but Kanye seems to have taken influence from Thom Yorke here in the sense that the words don't matter, only the sounds they make and how they fit into the sonic realm he and Mike Dean were creating. Kanye would never make as good an album again, and while being a perfect album, everything released after expanded only on the albums weaknesses and not his strengths. He has not released a single album I rank higher than a 7/10 since, and I am incredibly doubtful he is capable of making anything this good again. But he still made this album.

Some people say this was his response to EDM and dubstep, and while I think that it may be true, at least in the sense that it foretold he was moving in the direction of responding to trends instead of creating his own, the album is too alienating for people looking for a dance record. This is not that. The EDM conventions are distorted and then stripped away to reflect an unquiet suffering mind. This is not an ecstasy trip, it is a memory of an ecstasy hangover.

[–] Zozano@aussie.zone 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Artist: Of Mice and Men

Album: The Flood

Genre: Metalcore

Year: 2011

Why I love it:

This album is fucking angry. Other bands/albums are heavier, but none feel as fucking pissed. Even The Calm intro song doesn't sound as calm as it should, it feels off...

The into song it leads into, The Storm, is so personal, and you can hear Austin's (the singer) voice break from getting choked up during the recording.

It somehow keeps it up throughout the album, it feels so polished and raw at the same time.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Speaking of David Byrne (yes, Remain in Light is brilliant), Uh-Oh is such a masterpiece. Catchy upbeat tunes, with some of the darkest most cynical lyrics, while being very progressive at the same time (the opening track is a celebration of being transgender - in 1992!). I've listened to it thousands of times and am still not tired of it. Sometimes I'll listen just for George Porter Jr's bass lines.

[–] remington@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

IMO there are too many to list here. Some honorable mentions are R.E.M. - Murmur, The Stone Roses, The Cure - The Head on the Door.