It isn't often an album grabs me by the scruff and shakes me.  It used to happen fairly often in my youth.  I grew up in the 70's.  Started paying attention to what was playing on the radio, maybe American Bandstand or Soul Train, but that was the extent of our exposure to music back then.

This isn't a list of greatest albums.  Not trying to start a discussion about what constitutes a greatest album.  I'm simply logging what happened to me. There is no, "You missed one" discussions here...if it didn't happen, it didn't happen.  To qualify, it has to have taken over my listening experience for days or even weeks at a time, with the vinyl or cassette or 8-track or CD on loop, playing over and over and over.

Anyway, without further ado, here is a list of the albums that sent me over the moon, in chronological order:

1977 Pink Floyd - Animals
        ...ah she was my first, my first love, the first album that ever grabbed my soul like that...
1977 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
        ...what can I say about this album...maybe the most finely crafted pop album I've ever heard.
1977 Steely Dan - Aja
        ...changed my life....didn't realize you could do that with chords....
1978 Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town
        ...I was 16 at the time...talk about an album that appeals to teen angst...I've still never heard such an outpouring of emotion on an album...
1978 Rolling Stones - Some Girls
        ...probably an odd choice, in retrospect, but I still love Love LOVE this album..."when the whip comes down..."
1979 Joe Jackson - Look Sharp!
        ...this made me pick back up my guitar after years off and start back up again....love this post punk stuff...
1981 Rush - Moving Pictures
        ...a masterpiece.  Enough said...
1983 The Police - Synchronicity
        ...the swan song of the band, but may favorite of theirs....
1991 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
        ...woah...now that was a new sound....
1994 Toadies - Rubberneck
        ...I'm sure this gets some head scratching from the crowd, but this is the band I literally wanted to be in...Texas punk...
1994 Green Day - Dookie
        ...just a super great album...
1994 Weezer - The Blue Album
       ...nerd rock, being a nerd, totally appeals to me....
1996 Tool - Aenima
         ...finally someone was doing progressive right....
1996 Soundgarden - Down On The Upside
        ...holy cow, what an album.  Songwriting, playing, and it sounded really good, and old school....
1997 Radiohead - OK Computer
        ...the last of a fine run of albums in the mid 90's...

At this point, music hit a lull for me....I had a really hard timing finding music to listen to. Part of it was that WHFS closed up shop.  Part of it was just life.  It wasn't until I signed up for RP in 2005 that things started falling back into place.

2005 Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
        ...more progressive....
2012 Muse - The 2nd Law
      ...OMG, what a finely crafted album.  Huge sound....
2014 Spoon - They Want My Soul
      ....Been a fan of them for a long time, but this album, wow.  Start to finish....

So there you have it.  My musical life, in a nutshell

iglam