I vividly remember being absolutely blown away by this when I first saw it on TOTP. I think I can just about say that it was life-changing. And for me, it's aged beautifully - it still gives me a buzz 50 years later. It seemed like an unbelievable blast of energy at the time.
Listening to it now, it has so much more balls than the likes of Sweet and Suzi Quattro, whom they were competing with in the charts.
My first proper "album experience" - where you listen to the whole thing as a single artistic statement, an aural "journey" if you like - was Help! by The Beatles. I loved the pics on the back cover. My brother's copy didn't have the "Help Mini-Documentary (Insert into computer to view)" of course.
(https://i.ibb.co/GFxJVYk/helpbackcover.jpg)
Over the Christmas holidays at the end of 1976 (I like to think it was the end of December, but it might have been the beginning of January) I called in on my friend Arthur. His mum showed me to his bedroom and he was playing this on his record player, on the floor.
(https://i.ibb.co/fFjBzFg/Rush-ATWAS.jpg)
It was a three phase thing for me really;
Pre-teens
T:Rex - Slider (their next album Tanx left me a bit cold).
Teens
Queen - A Night At The Opera: I became fanatical about the band for several years.
Adulthood
Rush - Permanent Waves. Obsessive consumption of their back catalogue and desperation for new releases thereafter. There's nothing that will ever come close to my love for this band.
Hearing Hemispheres on a proper stereo record player - my first experience of a turntable hifi player - some point in 1978?
Hearing Nirvana's 'Smell like Teen Spirit' in our price and thinking Wtf is this - I'll be honest, December 1991. My housemates at the time had seen them at the Mayfair a few months before but I completely ignored them.
Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral in May 1994. Never heard anything so abrasive and melodic and so in tune with my own feelings at that moment.
Jeff Buckley's 'Grace'
Was given it as a gift in August 1994. Didn't like it. Slowly it started to make sense. Has been an obsession ever since.
Those are the 4 that immediately spring to mind.
Utopia RA... which I seem to recall my brother borrowed from one of his pals.... anyway was instantly intrigued by the cover and the back cover having the band members dressed up in Egyptian garb.. also the make your own pyramid insert... that was the starting point of my musical journey with Todd Rundgren ...
Another album my brother borrowed which I then managed to grab a listen was Rush A Farewell to Kings and so started another journey
One more that sticks in my mind was ELP Brain Salad Surgery
My initiation into Jazz in my 20s was brought about by a sort of pincer movement. On one side, Jeff Beck's
Blow By Blow and
Wired and the Mahavishnu / McLaughlin records. But also the likes of Anita Baker and Mica Paris. I loved this album, actually I loved all her records.
Mine is probably hearing A Farewell to Kings for the first time.
A mix tape put together by a friend at school, Simon. On one side 'Just Supposin' by Status Quo, which even though I enjoyed, turned into a bit of a dead end. Other than that it had the likes of Deep Purple 'Highway Star', Wishbone Ash 'Blowin Free' and 'A King Will Come', Fleetwood Mac'Go Your Own Way' and 'I'm So Afraid' and Lynyrd Skynyrd 'Free Bird', 'Was I Right or Wrong'.
To a 15 year old who only knew what the charts were offering up to that point, this was revolutionary stuff!
A few that spring to mind that whetted my appetite for music, specifically rock, from a very early age (8-10):
Fleetwood Mac - Albatross (I'd never heard such haunting sounds)
Quo - Mean Girl (had it on a Ronco compilation in ours)
Focus - Sylvia (immediately entranced by the sound of Jan Akkerman's guitar)
Interestingly 2 of them instrumentals, guess I was always destined to be a Prog-head! 😁
That Sylvia record was a big one for me, probably not life-changing but I loved it. I did go on to buying Focus albums a few years later. But Hocus Pocus was probably the catalyst for that.
Focus 3 was the one for me and Moving Waves
Quote from: pxr5 on October 04, 2022, 12:03:53 PMMine is probably hearing A Farewell to Kings for the first time.
One of my life mysteries is buying this, not liking it particularly, swapping it for Rainbow - Down To Earth and then just a few months later, falling in love with it and everything else Rush.
I think I'm fortunate in that my first Rush experience wasn't A Farewell To Kings. For me, it would have put me off listening to any more of their stuff. Just personal taste.
A couple of moments spring to mind, but I know there were others.
Seeing, and more importantly
hearing, Tubeway Army's hypnotic
Are Friends Electric? on Top Of The Pops - I assume 1979 as that was when the album was released. I had never heard sounds like this before. Who cared what the lyrics were about?
Rush's almighty
The Spirit Of Radio, which I got on the 'album of the month' in my mail order record club (remember them? Britannia Music or something I think it was called). I don't know who the editor of the club was who chose
Permanent Waves, but I will be forever thankful to you for enriching my musical life.
I was genuinely gobsmacked by both of these. One indeed was genuinely life-changing, leading to a lifelong interest and devotion to Rush and later in life bringing me into contact with the lovely folks on t-n-m-s.
whilst I cannot say quite the same of Tubeway Army and Gary Numan, the 2 albums (both released in 1979!)
Replicas, followed by
The Pleasure Principle, will always be somewhere close to hand as I frequently dip into these. The powerful synthery (just made that word up) still has the power to get under my skin and thrill me. Dark, powerful, stirring, and catchy.
Quote from: Slim on October 02, 2022, 01:48:01 PMMy first proper "album experience" - where you listen to the whole thing as a single artistic statement, an aural "journey" if you like - was Help! by The Beatles. I loved the pics on the back cover. My brother's copy didn't have the "Help Mini-Documentary (Insert into computer to view)" of course.
(https://i.ibb.co/GFxJVYk/helpbackcover.jpg)
First LP I bought - from Boots of all places with a Christmas Gift Token. Probably about 1972 I'd guess when the Beatles films had been shown on TV... Still very much a favourite :)
This wasn't life-changing, but it was the first LP that I bought. I assume I do still have it, in the loft probably.
(https://i.ibb.co/bs81fFY/totp72album.jpg)
If you Google "totp albums" as an image search, some pleasing results turn up. I liked this one:
(https://i.ibb.co/ckpmbcG/totp-bum.jpg)
How spooky. The top thirty UK singles chart for October 1972 popped up in my Facebook feed today. I recognised just about every song on there and still remember many of the lyrics. Yes, I know, Mouldy Old Dough didn't have too many. I bought a few of these compilations back then after I got over the initial shock of them being covers. Some renditions were quite good but many were awful. I think a TOTP LP was 50p at the time so that was an attraction. I still have a couple somewhere. Definitely one with a red swimsuited young lady. They definitely played a big part in my very early day discovery of music.
My sister and I were also used to hearing the current hits through these cover LPs. 'Hot Hits' was another similar series.
My first album of originals would have been K-Tel's 40 Super Greats from 1975. Not sure it was life-changing, that would probably have been ELO's A New World Record
I recall my sister getting one of those TOTP records and my disappointment of both her and I when we realised the songs were not by the original artists. It's so easy these days to get whatever music you want at the tap on a button. In our time it was a matter of watching TOTP or recording the Sunday charts; and in my case a mate loaning me a couple of Rush albums that set me on my music life.
First single I ever chose to buy was the Legend of
Xanadu by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick and Tich, can't say my life changed too much, but perhaps there was a portent of things to come...
Was a while before I acquired a second single, but this did set me off on the way to HELL RAISING RAWK AND HEAVY METAL ROLL
The B Side was no slouch either, the Immigrant Song rip off
Burning. Of course Slade were doing it for me back then too and my ROCK antennae were being turned on by seeing Alice Cooper and Hawkwind's Silver Machine on TOTP.
First album I bought to help me on the HEAVY METAL pathway was
(https://i.discogs.com/PfC-1Dn8vzpyMfFBWC5QMOUTYQTr0FuYIbeo6iH3nM8/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTg2NTM5/NS0xMTY2OTQ0MjM2/LmpwZWc.jpeg)
Dude Queen were METAL back then, maybe not as METAL as they had been, but hey, I wasn't to know that back then. I enjoyed being a big QUEENIE, well until about 1979, I'd found Rush by then. Without the aforementioned I might not be where I am now though.
A similar path to me. I remember the B side of Blockbuster was particularly good. Just Googled it as my memory failed me. Need A Lot Of Lovin', a sort of early Def Leppard sounding track. Sheer Heart Attack is magnificent. Rock, pop, ukulele solo, you name it, it's in there. I'm so grateful I got to see them live before the arena and stadium days arrived. I even named my dog after one of the band.
Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on October 14, 2022, 09:57:22 PMA similar path to me. I remember the B side of Blockbuster was particularly good. Just Googled it as my memory failed me. Need A Lot Of Lovin', a sort of early Def Leppard sounding track.
Sweet got themselves (or their manager did) into a strange situation where their single releases were bubble-gum, glam stompers written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman but the B-sides showcased the band's real leaning towards hard rock (Desolation Boulevard is a great rock album).
I recall now the thrill of listening to Little Willy over and over.....and over again (I think my sister bought the single). That may be the first song to have hit me like that, where the feeling of excitement of the first play could be repeated.
I just had a bit of a read online about Sweet's singer Brian Connolly. He had a lot of misfortune in his life. I'd completely forgotten however that he was the adopted (at birth) brother of Taggart (Mark McManus).
The first single I bought was Take on the World by Judas Priest and the first album was Killing Machine on red vinyl, the second being Down to Earth by Rainbow. I had those 2 albums on constant rotation until I could afford to buy more stuff
Been thinking about this and have to say it was ESL. I grew up with two older brothers who were into all the big classic rock and prog bands in the 70s, so that music was the soundtrack to my formative years.
But, for some reason, I dug out Rush and Yes albums from their collection far more than the others (AC/DC, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis etc) and I remember ESL was the first album I properly got into (I was eight years old at the time).
I listened to it endlessly, miming Geddy's bass and keyboard parts throughout, the latter on the "music centre" which played the records, its base and transparent plastic lid serving as a bank of two keyboards.
When the VHS video of ESL came out, I played the first track Limelight every morning before I went to school for months.
Simpler times...
The release of that video was huge in my life.
Gentle Giant Playing the Fool
Return to Forever Where Have I Known You Before
Quote from: Fishy on October 16, 2022, 08:06:54 PMGentle Giant Playing the Fool
Return to Forever Where Have I Known You Before
Wow, you went deep early there Fishy.