Name the most recent album that has shaped your musical world


Every now and then, sometimes when you're least expecting it, an album comes along that shifts, develops, and extends the shape of your music world.The album/artist/creation doesn't have to be a sea-change from your previous taste, but it does have to add a flavor to that taste palette that was missing before.

In the past few years, creations like M83's "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming", TV on the Radio's "Quartz", and Wye Oak's "The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs" have all done this. But most recently, Janelle Monae's "Dirty Computer" eased me into a new musical shape, itself populated by Erykah Badu, Dominique Fils-Aime, and others I wouldn't have discovered had it not been for Monae's brilliant, game-changing release.
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Gary Numan - Savage
Amazing mix of Middle Eastern harmonies with an industrial/metal anchor. Real "ear opening" stuff. Made me look into more of his stuff and his influences (Trent Resnor). So what it did was make me explore outside my usual box. And I discovered........ another sound I now seak out.
Puscifer’s ‘Existential Reckoning’.  Released last month.   Quite a great album.  
Jamie Cullum- Twentysomething CD/SACD (Verve) 2004
easily became my Reference disc upon purchase.
Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball. I'm working on getting all her albums now and have found I like some traditional country music, and bluegrass too, enough to actually acquire some. Having grown up near New York City where Country and Western was almost anathema that certainly represents a shift. No danger of going to any NASCAR races though.

Mike
skyscraper, don't miss her musical partner Rodney Crowell. Listening to him made the same change for me into (some) country music. Together with Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. A showstopper.