For me it was this record:



For years I'd listened to nothing but metal and rock music, it was becoming stale with every track sounding the same and usually with awful production quality.

Then one day, by accident I came across Oxygene and it totally blew my socks off, had never heard anything like it or even imagined such sounds and structures. Suddenly everything that I'd liked before was redundant, wasn't able to play any rock music really ever again.

This record opened my ears to a whole different world of music, from here I got into the likes of Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Marillion and have never looked back.


Was there an album that had a profound impact on you, and if so what was it and why?

Lots really.

Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division

Raw Power - Iggy & the Stooges

White Light, White Heat - The Velvet Underground

Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart

Black & White - The Stranglers

Replicas - Tubeway Army

All these have had different impacts on the stuff I listen to.

Yep.

Horses - Patti Smith

Master of the Universe - Hawkwind (one of my faves with Brainstorm & Orgone Accumulator, CD is in the car at the moment )

Although I discovered it in 2004 when I was 18 and not in 1974

First King Crimson album I heard and it pretty much introduced me to the rest of late 60's early 70's prog rock.

Agree with Orbital; I couldn't get enough of it!

Also Prodigys first album; opened my eyes to dance music.

And I guess Nirvana gets a shout as the first moshable album. Many nights lit up when the DJ stuck Lithium on.

I can think of two in particular.

The first one is:



Back in the day (late 80's) my mum had recently re-married, and my new step-brother was an extremely talented classical guitar player. Being suitably impressed, I'd asked for some lessons during which he showed me some basic blues chords and such like. Shortly after on a Saturday evening, me and a mate decided to have a beer and pizza evening and he hired a Led Zeppelin video (The Song Remains The Same) from a local video hire emporium. Page's blues-tinged playing was very impressive, if - for me at the time, a bit indulgent. Anyway. I thought I'd go and buy a Led Zep album; Zep I as it turned out. Two tracks impressed: You Shook Me and I Can't Quit You Baby. After hearing those tracks, I moved away from the classical guitar stuff that my step-brother was teaching me and immersed myself in electric Chicago Blues. 25 years later, despite dabblings with other genres, it's still electric blues I find most satisfying to play (along with Classic Rock such as DP and Sabbath).

The other is:



A mate at work loaned me this back in 1997, and after years of listening to (and playing guitar to) classic rock / blues / grunge etc. this was a revelation. I'd always enjoyed electronic stuff like Gary Numan / Visage and such like, but the level of harmonic complexity was eye-opening. The relentless rhythms were just a billy bonus. The following seven years saw my guitars gathering dust in lieu of Essential Mixes and *ahem* chemically-enhanced club experiences. Good times.

Olivers Army for me... 8 years after it's release when I was in the 6th form at school.... also Bowie's motion picture, Damned Phantasmagoria... all borrowed from the library at the time and gave me a personal insight into music rather then the top 40 ... which is at the time made me weird to my mates.. and yet these were no extreme leftfield bands

Argus - Wishbone Ash at about age 15 - set me on the way to a lifelong love of WA
Ice Pickin - Albert Collins - at age 18 - turned the embers of a liking for blues into a full blown fire.

Both were originally borrowed and subsequently quickly bought.

Probably about 1979, when I was 10 I found an old unmarked cassette and put it into my player in my bedroom out of curiosity. Turned out to be a taped copy of Beatles For Sale.

Now my parents had Abbey Rd, Hard Days Night and Sgt Pepper which were played and I was familiar with and liked a lot, but finding that cassette was like I was discovering a long lost tape of theirs that had never been heard before. Not by a long chalk their best LP, but had some cracking individual songs (I'm a Loser, I Don't Want to Spoil the Party, Baby's in Black, Eight Days a Week etc).

From then on all my pocket money went onto original Beatles LPs which led into an interest in Chuck Berry, Stones, Muddy Waters and other Chicago Blues, Dylan, Motown and many other genres that an initial love of the Beatles nudges you towards, which in turn led me to then unknown delights which I am still discovering...

PS - agree about Oxygene!