Political Crossfire Forums

Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang

Eric B and Rakim - Paid in Full

My introduction to the music of my parents' generation.

Birth of a Nation: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack

This is my youth.

Siamese Dream
Dark Side of the Moon
Ænima
OK Computer
Superunknown
Nevermind
Ten

These are the albums that impacted me the most in my youth.

The one-two punch of Goodie Mob "Soul Food" and Outkast "ATLiens" in '95 and '96 literally changed my whole life, musically and mentally. Before I heard those two albums I was basically just listening to Doggystyle, DJ screw tapes, and whatever was on the radio at that time. I don't think any two albums have ever had as big an influence on me before or since. It just opened my mind to high art, I guess you could say. It was poetry in a pretty literal sense.

There was a moment of time, maybe in 96 or 97 when I could have easily went the punk route. The hood where I lived was mostly black and mexican, but there was a good amount of white kids as well. A lot of skate culture going on, and at that age (pre-teens) there really wasn't any huge separation between races. It wasn't clicked up. It was a big jumble of everything. Hip Hop, skateboarding, punk rock, gang culture..........it all seemed like part of the same thing. So while we were listening to Outkast and Spice 1 and UGK and Geto Boys and Twista, we were also listening to Fishbone and Bad Brains and The Descendents and Suicidal Tendencies, etc. I ended up gravitating more to the hip hop side of things, but all that early punk influence stuck with me. As an adult in Austin I never stopped going to $5 punk shows and following the hardcore scene. I still do to a degree. I just saw BackTrack a few months ago. My next tattoo will probably be a Bad Brains "PMA" piece, since I listened to "attitude" almost every single day on deployment and it really helped keep me grounded.

Notable mentions, at least in terms of causing major shifts in my personal musical tastes:

Coltrane- Giant Steps
Radiohead- OK Computer
Slayer- Reign in Blood
The Shins- Chutes Too Narrow
Queens of the Stone Age- Queens of the Stone Age
Air- Moon Safari (Specifically the song "Le Femme de Argent")
TV on the Radio- Entire catalogue

those are all great albums to have alter your musical taste.