An Album that altered our Musical direction

[tea for two]

What I was trying to say here, is that originality is everything, it’s not even up for discussion, IMO.
We should always be trying to do new things, in any way we can, even though most of the time, we don’t succeed, if at all.
Also, along with this goes self criticism, hard self criticism, as artists, if we don’t have this ability, you risk being "average" at best, and at worst, just a another disillusioned fish in a very big sea of mediocrity.

I would say where we place music in terms of importance in our life has a say in how we wish to make music.

Where would we place music with food, shelter, health, care for and from friends family, love for and from an animal, a partner.

Perhaps we are making music to provide food shelter health bills.

A gorgeous song needn't be original to be gorgeous (of course one person's gorgeous is another person's roll eyes).
Similarly a song with a message, a Song that means something to us, makes us feel something, none of these are required to be original.
They can bring something lyrically, instrumentally.
They can be brilliant, inspirational just as they are.

I'm not even sure about this originality since thousands of Songs sound different, bring a different ingredient, they all could be considered original.

[merlyn]

Philosophy, eh? Watch out for the ontological feedback.

If we take "It's all a construct" that means a construct is a construct. We're getting feedback.

Originality? It's been done.

Nothing wrong with a bit of arts faculty hand waving as long as you're aware that's what it is.

[Arpangel]

Philosophy, eh? Watch out for the ontological feedback.

If we take "It's all a construct" that means a construct is a construct. We're getting feedback.

Originality? It's been done.

Nothing wrong with a bit of arts faculty hand waving as long as you're aware that's what it is.

It’s very easy to dismiss things, but to face up to them and do something about them is very hard.
A lot of artists go to great lengths to make excuses, you meet them all the time, the ones who keep telling you how good they are at what they do, and you know the opposite is true.
I have no answers, I have no idea about what I do, what I am doing is questioning everything, and challenging everything, musically, personally, even if life is actually worth living, or not, as John Cage mentions in his book Empty Words, about Thoreau.
And Tea For Two, music was the most important thing for me, more important than family, relationships, food, anything, that’s why my first marriage broke down, and I spent nineteen years in an unheated damp flat living on little or no money recording all day.
This all means nothing, my music will probably end up in a skip after I die, but music is still the most important thing to me, second to my partner, who is "now" my focus, but music is in my head, you can’t take that away from me, everything else, everybody I’ve ever loved, up until now, has been taken away from me, but you can’t touch my music.

[merlyn]

Coming up with your own philosophy could be tricky.

Something that you may find interesting to ponder :

Is originality a construct?

You may not, which is fine. Make music instead.

[OneWorld]

"Album that altered our Musical direction"

erm.......

'Learn to Play Guitar in 10 Easy Lessons' available on CD and DVD

[tea for two]

I don't think any person on Earth can even begin to make a call on whether anyone's music is so called "unoriginal" "mediocre", particularly as we ourselves are limited, are within our confided cage.

These two words"unoriginal" "mediocre" have No connection with Music, zero zilch nada.

Were any person no matter if it's Wynton Marsalis or Stockhausen, to make such a call, it would show their lack of awareness for the existence of music, lack of awareness for the source of music.

::

Anyways I'm done with this. My flub to get drawn in.
I prefer to return to the thread discussion.

[tea for two]

"Album that altered our Musical direction"

erm.......

'Learn to Play Guitar in 10 Easy Lessons' available on CD and DVD

Love it.
So much so I've just looked this up.

[Oneal]

Monkey Business by the Black Eyed Peas just made me question everything about pop music. That album is genius.

[tea for two]

Monkey Business by the Black Eyed Peas just made me question everything about pop music. That album is genius.

O'Neal, I smiled so much seeing your video The Meal.
https://www.entegrityrecords.com/
Your humour reminded me of humour on Sisqo Thong Song.

::

O'Neal, I listened to every track on Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business album because of you.

It is Brilliant.

From the opening Dick Dale Misirlou sample to later Sting English Man in New York Sample Branford Marsalis Saxophone sample, to the last track : quirky instrumentations, imaginative arrangements, hurmourous fun.

I really like the Sparseness on many tracks : don't have to fill a song with instrumentation, Sparseness can work ever so well.

Union is my favourite track because of the lyrics.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rT_-Ln7eWpw

[Oneal]

Monkey Business by the Black Eyed Peas just made me question everything about pop music. That album is genius.

O'Neal, I smiled so much seeing your video The Meal.
https://www.entegrityrecords.com/
Your humour reminded me of humour on Sisqo Thong Song.

::

O'Neal, I listened to every track on Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business album because of you.

It is Brilliant.

From the opening Dick Dale Misirlou sample to later Sting English Man in New York Sample Branford Marsalis Saxophone sample, to the last track : quirky instrumentations, imaginative arrangements, hurmourous fun.

I really like the Sparseness on many tracks : don't have to fill a song with instrumentation, Sparseness can work ever so well.

Union is my favourite track because of the lyrics.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rT_-Ln7eWpw

Thank you! Your compliment means so much because my music is currently stressing me out and The Meal was actually inspired by the Thong Song! It was literally the song I told my engineer to mimic when he was mixing The Meal for me. The Thong Song music video was also INSANE.

Union is one of my favs too! Will.I.Am is the "brain" of BEP and I've learned sooooo much from him.

[tea for two]

I hope you keep believing in your music keep believing in yourself.

Will. I. Am, was listening to him talking about tech innovation, tech entrepreneurship. Also he mentioned when he was little, his mind was into so many different things that his Dear Mom encouraged.

I definitely picked up something from the Sparseness of the tracks. They made me realise something, which I hope to put into a future track/s.

[The Culprit]

Enjoyable read here chaps (and chapettes?). Some opinions that resonate and some that are way above my scope of reasoning. Great stuff.

I've loads of albums that I love but the one that has impacted me more than any other is The Stone Roses' debut. Came across it at a house party when I was 16 (a few years after they split) and while reading the back of the cd case I was taken right back to being 6 years old and everyone and their granny being obsessed with them at that time. A truly magical impact for a lad who had spent the last few years learning guitar via Oasis songs.

Since we're on multiple suggestions, another art-of-the-possible album for me was Radiohead's The Bends.

Great to see this album getting a mention drew, still in my top 5 of all time. Some phenomenal work on this record...Nice Dream, My Iron Lung, title track, Street Spirit...fantastic shout sir

[Sam Spoons]

Two albums that spring to mind though neither singlehandedly or dramatically changed my musical direction (that has always been a slow evolutionary process in my case). The first was when I was `round 14 or 15 was "Turning Point" by John Mayall, absolutely loved it and still do, the second was "Alivemuthaforya" recorded by a fusion 'supergroup' "The CBS Allstars" led by Billy Cobham and including Tom Scott, Mark Soskin, Steve Kahn and Alphonso Johnson at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1977. Both are well worth a listen.

[ManFromGlass]

I always come back to -
Mary Margaret O’Hara - Miss America. Brilliant + deeper with each listening

Extrapolation - John McLaughlin. The raw energy of youth pushing the envelope.

[Terrible.dee]

KISS: "DESTROYER"

The Sex Pistols: "Never mind...."

The Ramones: "Ramones"

The Rolling Stones: "Some Girls"

The Velvet Underground: "White light..."

Primal Scream: "Evil Heat"

[ManFromGlass]

I also find it interesting that there are albums I would never listen to now mostly due to lyrical content. Not the curse words but narrow-minded concepts of violence and negativity. In the teenage years I was clueless to “deeper” meanings. I just wanted tunes I could play loud.

[redlester]

For me this happened three times in my life.

Age 13: The first one - A school friend found out I had two (mono) cassette recorders at home, and asked me to make a copy of a tape to (I think) impress a girl. The tape was Tarkus, by Emerson Lake & Palmer. Prior to this my record buying was limited to comedy stuff like Monty Python and the Goons. Hearing Tarkus blew my young mind and even now makes me feel like a young teenager when I hear it. Also opened me up to the world of prog rock and ensured I was addicted to Alan Freeman's Saturday afternoon Radio 1 show for years, until it was sadly replaced by the heavy rock dirge of Tommy Vance. I still like some of the more tuneful prog stuff to this day, just last week on a drive to Manchester I listened to Keith Emerson's piano concerto followed by Five Bridges by The Nice.
https://youtu.be/WKNOlDtZluU

Age 17: The most life-defining one - (two singles rather than an album) - I was by now an avid reader of both Melody Maker and the NME each week, so naturally gravitated towards John Peel's show, 22.00-00.00 every week night. By now I had two hi-fi cassette decks so could make compilation tapes from the tracks I liked. Peel was by now playing a mixture of hippy stuff, folk stuff, reggae and this new "Punk" thing, which really just seemed like a daft fad to me. Until the night he played London Lady/Grip by The Stranglers for the first time, followed by Oh Bondage, Up Yours/I Am A Cliche by X-Ray Spex. I was spellbound by both of these and they became my first "New Wave" purchases the following day. From that I was totally ensconced in the scene and my mind opened to the bands/artists who provided the soundtrack to my life; Joy Division, New Order, The Fall, Buzzcocks, Magazine, Wire, The Undertones, Talking Heads, Ramones, Gang of Four, etc., etc. My choice of friends and acquaintances from then on, which shaped my adult life from that point, would have been totally different without that 'Eureka' moment provided by the Stranglers and Poly Styrene. Plastic's real when you're real sick.
https://youtu.be/zrzENjzd7Mg
https://youtu.be/aTfgWegud7o

Age 56: The most expensive one - I spent 30 years solidly resisting the idea of "dance music" as a thing of merit. For me, music was for listening to. I dismissed everything to do with Hip-Hop and everything which came after including House and Techno. I was very closed-minded. Having spent most of my adult life listening to the music I fell in love with during my late teens/early 20's, with just a few more modern exceptions allowed to creep in, by now we had the internet and I had discovered this app called Soundcloud which seemed interesting. For some reason one of the tracks it was suggesting me to listen to was something called "Fanfare (Marc Romboy moving Atoms Mix)" by Emerson Digweed and Muir. The artists name, being redolent of Emerson Lake and Palmer from my youth, made me click on it and give it a listen. What followed was another epiphany which, to cut a long story short, has sent me into my 60's on a great journey of discovery of the wonders of all sorts of electronic dance music and also re-kindled my love of ambient/electronica from my prog rock days. It also resulted in my reviving my love of recording (after last dabbling with a Teac 4-track in the early 80's) and led to where we are now - a Mac Pro with a massive library of plug-ins, various hardware synths and a growing Eurorack fetish which I see as the thing which will keep me occupied well into my retirement.
https://soundcloud.com/marcromboy/emers ... ving-atoms

[Martin Walker]

Age 13: The first one - A school friend found out I had two (mono) cassette recorders at home, and asked me to make a copy of a tape to (I think) impress a girl. The tape was Tarkus, by Emerson Lake & Palmer.

That might be wishful thinking, as I've personally met very few girls that got their heads around Tarkus (as much as I loved it)

I do however remember taking my LP into school and playing it, gaining grudging admiration from several 'blues only' blokes who previously had seen little merit in prog.

Martin

[tea for two]

I've loads of albums that I love but the one that has impacted me more than any other is The Stone Roses' debut. Came across it at a house party when I was 16 (a few years after they split).
A truly magical impact.

This brought a smile. 2013 when The Roses did their Finsbury Park return gig, a tout offered me 10squid tickets I couldn't belieeeeve it.

::

Since we're on multiple suggestions, another art-of-the-possible album for me was Radiohead's The Bends.

Great to see this album getting a mention drew, still in my top 5 of all time. Some phenomenal work on this record...Nice Dream, My Iron Lung, title track, Street Spirit...fantastic shout sir

Thom said the audience want to hear Street Spirit, yet they don't realise how much of a toll it takes on him. I get it as it was one of my songs in a certain point in my life.

::

"Alivemuthaforya" recorded by a fusion 'supergroup' "The CBS Allstars" led by Billy Cobham and including Tom Scott, Mark Soskin, Steve Kahn and Alphonso Johnson at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1977. Both are well worth a listen.

Tom Scott was my first intro to Jazz on a record.
I hadn't heard of Alivemuthaforya I shall have a listen like the Whistler's Mother painting as album cover I only know this from Mr Bean filum lol.

::

Primal Scream: "Evil Heat"

I was reading a recent guardian interview with Bobby Gillespie where he talks about Andrew Weatherall producing Screamadelica. That was a record and a half.
V festival 2002 I think. First thing Bobby said to the crowd including me " F YOU. " Lol.

::

I always come back to -
Mary Margaret O’Hara - Miss America. Brilliant + deeper with each listening

Gotta check this out.

I also find it interesting that there are albums I would never listen to now mostly due to lyrical content. Not the curse words but narrow-minded concepts of violence and negativity. In the teenage years I was clueless to “deeper” meanings. I just wanted tunes I could play loud.

Same here there's stuff I won't listen to now becuase of lyrical content, that I listened to in my youff.

::

Age 56: The most expensive one - I spent 30 years solidly resisting the idea of "dance music" as a thing of merit. I was very closed-minded. For some reason one of the tracks it was suggesting me to listen to was something called "Fanfare (Marc Romboy moving Atoms Mix)" by Emerson Digweed and Muir. The artists name, being redolent of Emerson Lake and Palmer from my youth, made me click on it and give it a listen. What followed was another epiphany which, to cut a long story short, has sent me into my 60's on a great journey of discovery of the wonders of all sorts of electronic dance music and also re-kindled my love of ambient/electronica from my prog rock days. It also resulted in my reviving my love of recording (after last dabbling with a Teac 4-track in the early 80's) and led to where we are now - a Mac Pro with a massive library of plug-ins, various hardware synths and a growing Eurorack fetish which I see as the thing which will keep me occupied well into my retirement.
https://soundcloud.com/marcromboy/emers ... ving-atoms

Dance Music is one of the best things musically for Not going gently into the good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light with Dance Music.

[ManFromGlass]

I have a half baked theory in the back of my mind about dance music. It is loosely based on what I heard Phillip Glass say in an interview. He said when he started out there was an entrenched style of music that composers could rebel against.
Based on his comment I thought that early dance music (before it became mainstream and just a formula) was rebelling against one of the few remaining areas to rebel against and deconstruct, namely the drum rhythms. Stripping rhythm down to the primal drums and making them huge, processed, electronic etc etc.
Could be a total crap theory but that’s all I got for now!

[Martin Walker]

I also find it interesting that there are albums I would never listen to now mostly due to lyrical content. Not the curse words but narrow-minded concepts of violence and negativity. In the teenage years I was clueless to “deeper” meanings. I just wanted tunes I could play loud.

I've recently had a most intriguing experience in this vein (and I'm not talking about my Covid jab )

Forty years ago my musical collaborator Mitt wrote some weird and convoluted lyrics and created a song with them in his late teens (to give you an idea, the title was 'Mathematic Hero Cage'. He recently dug these lyrics out and and sang them to a track that I'd created without hearing his original version. I then concentrated on the final production aspects after we'd drafted in a guest drummer and guitarist.

I deliberately didn't listen to the 40-year old version until our new one was finished, but when I finally did hear the original song (identical words, but completely different tune) it was really poignant to hear the difference in attitude to life from both of us in the ensuing forty years. His early version was weird and wonderfully fresh, while the new version sounds aggressive and world-weary in delivery, and of course his voice has dropped significantly in pitch.

Strange how the same words can result in a totally different message across the years!

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Strange how the same words can result in a totally different message across the years!

Martin

Kodachrome, by Paul Simon in 1973, has the line "everything looks worse in black and white" but when he sang it at the concert in the park in 91 he changed it to "everything looks better in black and white". Which I thought was very interesting in a similar way.

[Martin Walker]

Strange how the same words can result in a totally different message across the years!

Martin

Kodachrome, by Paul Simon in 1973, has the line "everything looks worse in black and white" but when he sang it at the concert in the park in 91 he changed it to "everything looks better in black and white". Which I thought was very interesting in a similar way.

Indeed - the most profound change in a track I've ever heard was Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi', from the bright environmental concerns of her original 1970 version, to a chilling orchestrally-accompanied version much more recently, sung with an older, wiser and sadder voice at a lower pitch and a slower tempo.

Wish I could find that later version again

Martin

[Murray B]

Is that the version on Shine? released 2007

[Folderol]

I've puzzled over this thread for some time, and have come to the conclusion that there is no individual album that altered my direction. It's rather a case of a slow tiny little nudges from everything I've heard and enjoyed.