Name a few albums which helped determine your musical tastes


How about a short list of albums that shaped your listening from early on in your life?

Not just albums that became favorites (though they could be now). Let's call them historical turning points for you that shaped you as a listener, now.

Me:
  • Quadrophenia or Who's Next
  • Sgt Peppers Beatles
  • Floyd, Wish you were here
  • Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick
  • Metheny, Offramp
  • Glenn Gould, Goldberg variations
  • Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark
GO!
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...then as a young man in high school DSOTM WYWH and Animals by Pink Floyd. Also “The Yes Album” and “Genesis Live” and “This is the Moody Blues”. Not to mention “The White Album”. Also DSMIOTPP by Elton John.
In college lots of new influences. “The Outlaws”, “Brothers and Sisters” by Allman Bros. “The Cars”, Sex Pistols “NMTBHTSP”, and Talking Heads 77. Country rock and emerging new wave was big.

Also had a lot of exposure to “The Kingston Trio” as a kid.   Lots of good stuff!
Lots of great choices so far. Here's a few others worth considering:

Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced
Love - Forever Changes
The Doors - The Doors 
Renaissance - Turn of the Cards
Roxy Music - Siren
Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
XTC - English Settlement

1967-68 - The Byrds, the 45, “Hey, Mr. Spaceman”:  my first purchase of music, at 7 or 8 years old, at The Grande Place in Brussels, Belgium.  I was the youngest of 4, didn’t have my own record player at the time, but by God I was gonna keep up with my older siblings.

1972 - Emerson, Lake & Palmer, “Trilogy”:  ok, definitely not my style now, but it was my first lp (as a Record Club of America member).

1973 - Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon”:  My family stayed for a week at the beach in Bethany Beach, Delaware.  The condo had a record player and one lp.  We listened to it a lot!  I think this may have been the same week I experienced my first serious kiss, and my first beer; the kiss was great, the beer was awful - a Colt malt liquor, and warm to boot.

1975 - Jeff Beck, “Blow by Blow”: It would take me about 30 years to recognize it, but this was a harbinger of my future passion for jazz.  

1977-78 - Elvis Costello, “My Aim is True”; The Cars, “The Cars”,; Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”: A collective delivery from disco hell.

1978 - Mighty Joe Young: Not an lp, but my intro to chicago blues, freshman year (at a frat party of all places!), and definitely life-changing.

1989 - Lyle Lovett, “Lyle Lovett and His Large Band”: Was in grad school, and saw him perform “Here I Am” off that lp on Austin City Lights.  Jazz, blues, country and even a little rock all in one place. Opened my eyes not just to the possibilities of country, but bluegrass and roots music more broadly.

1991 - Bonnie Raitt, “Luck of the Draw”: didn’t really happen until 1995, but “Something to Talk About” off that lp became a little bit of a soundtrack of my life as I wooed my future wife (the love of my life)

1996-99 - Bob Marley, “Legend”:  Ok, so this was released in 1984, but as my soon-to-be wife (1999) and I blended our 5 children into one family, this CD played frequently on the cd player in the 7-seat Mitsubishi Montero (nicknamed “the beast”) that we hauled the kids around in - much dancing in seats ensued whenever we put it on: “No woman, no cry....”

2013 - Pachelbel, “Canon”:  This was the piece my ex-wife and I listened to frequently at lamaze class when she was pregnant with my oldest son in 1984-85.  We played it at the celebration of his life after he died in June, 2013.  

Jimmy Reed
The Troggs
Paul Revere & the Raiders
The Animals
James Gang - Rides Again
The Band - II
The Brandenburg Concertos - Rampal
Beatles - White Album
Who's Next
Tull - Aqualung
Hendrix - Smash Hits
CSNY - Deja Vu
Miles - Kind of Blue
Stones - through '72
Pink Floyd - through '77
The Crusaders
Spirit - 12 Dreams
Weather Report - Black Market
the list goes on and on.......
Grand Funk 'Closer to home'Supertramp 'Crime of the Century'Beatles 'Sgt Pepper'Van Morrison 'Veedon Fleece'Joni Mitchell 'Blue'Beach Boys 'Pet sounds'Klaatu 'EST'Aretha Franklin's greatest hitsSinatra 'September of my years'Cloud Cult 'The meaning of 8'The Shins 'Whincing the night away'Hendrix 'Rainbow Bridge soundtrack & first album'Tull 'Aqualung'Wishbone Ash ‘Argus’Stones 'Flowers'