What are your top 10 most influential albums?

[dwillis45]

Care for Me- Saba
Mothership Connection- Parliament Funkadelic
Raise- Earth, Wind, & Fire
Around The World In A Day- Prince
Who Is Jill Scott?- Words and Sounds, Vol.1- Jill Scott
blkswn-Smino
Save Rock and Roll- Fall Out Boy
Straight Outta Compton- N.W.A
The Velvet Rope-Janet Jackson
H.E.R-H.E.R

+1 on reviving the dead thread. Some threads are worth bringing back to life. Some deserve a horrible cruel fate and a premature demise. But not this one.

1. Ruff and Ready in Outer Space-Uknown
2. Clouds (single)-Judy Collins
3. Freewheeling'-Bob Dylan
4. Tonights the Night-Neil Young
5. Send Me A Lullaby-The Go Betweens
6. Pink Flag-Wire
7. Unknown Pleasures-Joy Division
8. Eye-Robyn Hitchcock
9. Telephone Free Landslide Victory Camper Van Beethoven
10. Stephen Malkmus ‎– Stephen Malkmus

 

[Dawnee]

Marvin Gaye What's goin on
Prince Controversy
Frank Zappa Roxy and elsewhere
Deep Purple Made in Japan
Led Zeppelin I
The Beatles red and blue album
Stevie Wonder Talking Book
Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication
Best of Santana

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Abbey Road - Beatles
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band - Beatles
Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Blood Sugar Sex Magic - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Curtains - John Frusciante
The Empyrean - John Frusciante
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Night At The Opera - Queen
Alma Flamenca - Grisha Goryachev
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

 

[rob aylestone]

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Secret Agent - Judie Tzuke
Brother in Arms - Dire Straits
Made in Japan - Deep Purple
Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - Rick Wakeman
Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Alan Parsons
Snowflakes are Dancing - Tomita
Still Got the Blues - Gary Moore
The Glory of Gerswhin - George Martin and Larry Adler

The last one very strange - but hearing people like Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora do Gershwin is very interesting

 

[grimtraveller]

I have lots of influences, and none of them influence my mixing or production ideas. Writing? Sure. But I can't pick 10 albums that I give a shit enough about production-wise to list them as production influences. I like things that range from slick and polished to a tape recorder in a bathroom.

That's how I feel. My mixing is such that there's no artist from any era that it's going to sound like ! Equally, I like the sound of a lot of albums {and singles} from the 50s onwards, but any influence, if there is any in a mixing sense, would be either unconscious or really obscure.

 

[Mickster]

Come on man......I can't pick a top ten. In my lifetime there have been dozens of albums that changed my thinking and direction in some way or other.

The very first one to do that?

Meet The Beatles

I was 11 when they hit the Ed Sullivan show. Right after....the album came out...as I recall.

That was it. Baddabing....done.....on my way to being a musician.

Mick

 

[grimtraveller]

influenced my playing.

That's a strange one for me. I took up the bass guitar, partly because it had less strings than a 'guitar' guitar. The first bassists I ever really noticed were Roger Waters on Pink Floyd's first two albums and Bill Wyman/Keith Richards on some of the Stones '66~'69 output. And I'd seen 3 bass players live, before I took it up. One was my then new friend George Reid {his was the first bass I ever touched}, one was the bass player of the band Talisman {he played with just one finger} and the other was the bass player of Black Slate. But none of them influenced my actual playing.

That was influenced by a mistake I made, the night after I bought my first bass. I tried to play "Rain" by Status Quo and just followed the guitar part, thinking that's what the bass should do. It was how I then took on the part of bass. It was 7½ years before I consciously listened to the bass part of "Rain" and discovered it bore no relation to what I'd played that first night ! But my style was born and endured.

My instrumental approach is rarely influenced by a player of the instrument I'm applying the influence to. For example, I might like what a whacky sax player is doing and apply that thinking to the piano, or like what a percussionist did on a particular song and apply that to the acoustic guitar. The same goes for songs and albums. I might hear something on a jazz piece and apply it to a folky song or take a soulful harmony and apply it to a heavier rock piece. In the middle 8....

 

[grimtraveller]

There was one album that influenced my desire to attempt to write/record solo, in my own home studio...and that album would be Paul McCartney's first solo album...and then also his second, one, "Ram"

Although at the time, I didn't think in terms of solo recording, I did have a similar epiphany {although I didn't realize it at the time} back in 1980 when I was 17 with Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti." It wasn't particularly the songs {although "The Wanton song" - which I often thought of as "they want our song" when I'd glance quickly at the sheet - was influential from a bass point of view and, "In the light" was influential from a harmony vocal point of view}. It was the production credit on the album. I noticed that Jimmy Page was the producer and I noticed there was a "Page" listed on the credits of each song as a writer. By that point, I also knew he was the guitarist and seemed to be something of a guiding hand in the band.
It was the first time I consciously took note of the fact that a person could actually be involved at every level of a record's creation. I wouldn't be a home recorder were it not for that. So if you think I go on a bit long at times, blame Jimmy Page !

Keep in mind, there was NO home recording yet at that time

Such a thing didn't even occur to me in 1980. I still thought in terms of record contracts with labels and studios like Decca and EMI. Yet interestingly, within a couple of years, with no guidance, I'd started making home recordings. Stick a mic near the guitar that my friend Andy was playing, plug my bass into the crude amplification set-up that I rigged up thru my tape deck, and away we go.

That primarily opened my eyes to the possibility of a solo artist doing multitrack recording, and layering it/blending it all together into a finished product.
I was like...oh, so I don't need a band...

Even then, I still thought in terms of a band. When I started actual multitracking in 1992, I still didn't think of it in terms of a one-man show. I still don't, although I know it's more than possible.

 

[jimblonduk]

Isao Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing
Jeff Wayne - War Of The Worlds
Bob Marley - Exodus
ELO - A New world Record
ELP - Brain Salad Surgery
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
Beatles - Rubber Soul
Eric Clapton - Unplugged
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

And of course, anything by Abba .. all produced to perfection

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

black crows shake your money maker( only crows album i liked too)
G'N'R appetite for Destruction
Jeff Lynne Armchair Theater
ELO Out of the Blue (and every other ELO Album)
Traveling Wilburries Handle with Care
Dave Mathews Band Under the Table and Dreaming
U2 Achtung Baby
Soundtrack movie GREASE
Soundtrack Movie XanaduX

Eric Johnson A Via Musicam

10's not enough...Ac/Dc , Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Half the 80's hair bands..

 

[Dadhead82]

Resuscitating just for a minute —
In no particular order
1. Matt Flinner Quartet - Walking on the moon
2. Grateful Dead - Mars Hotel
3. JGB - Cats Under the Stars
4. Pavement - Crooked Rain x2
5. Bill Frissell - Nashville
6. John Scolfield & MMW - A Go Go
7. Phosphorescent - Heres to Taking It Easy
8. Tim O’Brien - Traveler or Cornbread Nation
9. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born, YHF or Being There
10. Darrell Scott - Long Ride Home

Honorable mentions:
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Lemonheads - It’s A Shame About Ray
Anything Hank Williams Sr, Bill Monroe, Jerry Garcia, and the late great Thomas Petty

 

[WWLaidback]

All of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin
followed by Beatles, AC/DC, Stones, Pink Floyd
Here are some of my singles favorites: