in maybe 1970, i was a fairly normal middle-class 13 or 14 year old who played a little guitar, never cut class or smoked anything, and listened to KHJ radio, the beatles and a lot of single releases.
i was in a local neighborhood record store when an album in the clearance section caught my eye. the cover seemed at a glance to be a woman climbing out of a grave, the entire thing colored in pinkish. i've never impulse-bought an album before or since, but i grabbed it and took it home.
well, that cover doesn't show a woman coming out of a grave, and the album was zappa's hot rats, and believe it or not, it changed me.
coming from "normal" radio friendly music starting with the monkeez and with a background of classical, folk and jazz music courtesy of my parents, hot rats was an eye opener. not only was the music freeform, skilled and completely different than anything my middle-class ears had yet experienced, but it taught me several new words and concepts (i was unfamiliar, for example, with the word "pimp" till then), and lead me to check out captain beefheart, the singer on willie the pimp. in that same clearance bin where i found hot rats, i found trout mask replica.
for me, although i didn't realize it at the time, hot rats - the songs, the musicians, the longer format, the lyrical concepts when there was lyrics, even the cover - changed what music could be for me. it also changed how i saw the world, although i didn't realize it then or even for many years later. everything didn't have to follow a format, lyrics and poetry could be about literally anything and could be snarky. everything didn't have to be G or PG rated, and it didn't have to be something the average person would understand. the album literally caused a paradigm shirt for me that opened up - well, everything.
so, how about you - has a single album or song changed the way you see life and the world?
i was in a local neighborhood record store when an album in the clearance section caught my eye. the cover seemed at a glance to be a woman climbing out of a grave, the entire thing colored in pinkish. i've never impulse-bought an album before or since, but i grabbed it and took it home.
well, that cover doesn't show a woman coming out of a grave, and the album was zappa's hot rats, and believe it or not, it changed me.
coming from "normal" radio friendly music starting with the monkeez and with a background of classical, folk and jazz music courtesy of my parents, hot rats was an eye opener. not only was the music freeform, skilled and completely different than anything my middle-class ears had yet experienced, but it taught me several new words and concepts (i was unfamiliar, for example, with the word "pimp" till then), and lead me to check out captain beefheart, the singer on willie the pimp. in that same clearance bin where i found hot rats, i found trout mask replica.
for me, although i didn't realize it at the time, hot rats - the songs, the musicians, the longer format, the lyrical concepts when there was lyrics, even the cover - changed what music could be for me. it also changed how i saw the world, although i didn't realize it then or even for many years later. everything didn't have to follow a format, lyrics and poetry could be about literally anything and could be snarky. everything didn't have to be G or PG rated, and it didn't have to be something the average person would understand. the album literally caused a paradigm shirt for me that opened up - well, everything.
so, how about you - has a single album or song changed the way you see life and the world?
