consciousness-altering songs or albums

[JRA]

i think i'd have to identify with those who find it too difficult to peg just one album as "consciousness-altering" because there have been so many --- and it continues to the present: i find (mostly referred to me) mind-blowing music constantly. reading all of the posts = i can see/hear why the references are so important to the posters...they're important to me, too.

consciousness-altering: when it's all said and done: it's the "B's" for me:
beethoven - 6th (pastoral)
brubeck - time out
brown - papa's/cold sweat
beatles - sgt. pepper

each album/tune made me "see" and hear something that twisted up my previous frame of reference, early enough in life that i continue to seek the same 'lift'/blast/"whoa" from both newer and older music. for me: it's probably about discovery.

 

[elberon]

Seriously I could go for days posting stuff that changed my vision of the world.
Here's one that did on a musical level. Erik Satie's music.
Oh, so it means you're allowed to go straight to the bone and put out instrumental music that's raw emotion, with little regard to flourishes and formal beauty. Just emotion.

Check out a book called "The Banquet Years" by Roger Shattuck (sp?). There are four mini studies of european artistic figures of the late 19th/early 20th century avant garde. One of them is on Satie, interesting and very quirky guy. It's a great read.

 

[r_bnks]

 

[The Mogpipe]

As a 6 - 8 year old in the early 70's, my dad had already turned me onto the Beatles. But as for kids finding their own music, I was into the Jackson 5.
I had a brother who was 6 yrs older than me that turned me onto Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies! Wow! Whole new world!

 

[db59]

my browser does put red underlines when it feels i should use caps. i ignore it

Heck yeah!!!......breaking the law

 

[Green Knight]

Gabriel 3

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

Nothing that I listened to changed how I see the world but there are pieces of music that have made the world a much more enjoyable place for me. These come to mind immediately - All the Beatles albums, Ennio Moriconne’s soundtrack for Once Upon Time In America. The list could go on and on - so much wonderful music to grow up with.

 

[BassBrass]

great thread! I can't think of a bigger paradigm shift than normalcy to Zappa and Beefheart, for me it was more incremental... I had classical and NewOrleans jazz from my father's stereo and record buying hobby, but the first time I heard "Miles Smiles" was as big as they come, but many others have been mentioned here. Walking into a full performance of Orff's Carmina Burana (orchestra, adult choir & children's choir both above and behind, full ballet in front enacting parts of the text) probably changed my musical direction permanently, just how he combined driving rhythm with melody, using harmony just as occasional magic.
Sun Ra's "The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra" was the most powerful consciousness altering record.

 

[bassdude51]

Musically, this album. Spiritually, I'm not sure which song or album. I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, at age 12, this was the very first record I ever bought. Even today, says it all about my favorite genre of music.

....................................................................................................................

The list of inspirational songs for me is very large. Off hand, here are two. The 2nd one in a way is my theme song in life. It is not as stupid or corny as it might seem. It's about respect and recognition.

Dark Is(Was) the Night (along with other songs) is on the Voyager out in space somewhere for aliens to listen to. This is Ry Cooder's version which is 100% faithful to the original...... the original can be looked up on YouTube.

 

[Winslow]

I don't know that I can nail down just one, but I have some that have made significant impressions on me.

The first, heard end-to-end through headphones in the ramshackle house of a family of local misfits/miscreants. While the rest of the house was engaged in all manner of chaotic ne'er-do-well-isms and nonsense all around me, I was in a soundscape bubble inside my own mind. This was so unlike anything I'd heard before, I flipped the record back over, and listened to it end-to-end a second time:

Two others that became favorites for their remarkable cohesion of overall sound, style, and impact:

And there's no way in the world I can pick just one of this fellow's, but for all his impact, on my life, he deserves to be mentioned anyway:

 

[petch]

 

[Aqualung60]

This album, and Jethro Tull in particular, had a big impact on me as a teenager in the 70's that's still with me today.

 

[tr4252]

Rimsky-Korsakov........Scheherazade
Jimi Hendrix......Electric Ladyland

Tom

 

[ellipsis]

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

 

[Winslow]

Oh, and another one worth noting, for the way it transformed the source material into something familiar, yet radically different...

 

[NortyFiner]

I grew up listening to the radio (usually tuned to the relatively tame local radio stations or WSM for the Grand Ole Opry) and my parents' record collection (a broad selection of classical, Dixieland, country, bluegrass, folk, and 50s-70s rock). Then one day as a young teenager in 1982-83ish, I accidentally found a radio station out of Nashville that played rock and metal -- Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Alice Cooper, Van Halen, Motley Crue et al. It was transformative, and I've been chasing music ever since.

 

[Pings Bass]

Beethoven's Ninth - somebody gave me a recording of this in third grade and I wore the record out, and I had to get another version. I'm still obsessed with this composition.

Dylan's Blood on the Tracks - spoke to me like no rock album before or since

Monk's Misterioso - my first real intro to jazz, opened my ears to harmony and true spontaneity

Coltrane's Giant Steps - had to study it before I got it got it but then there's no looking back

Poncho Sánchez Cambios - what can I say, So Cal's finest latin jazz ensemble led by charismatic conguero, singer and band leader Sanchez, backed up by one of the great brother sets on bass and timbales, Tony and the late Ramon Banda, a hot horn section, Papo Rodriguez on bongos the late David Torres on piano, with a guest showing by Freddie Hubbard on trumpet. My first turn on to latin jazz.

 

[Tom Kinter]

This Album really floored me at the time (1970?)... my summer job in college was working on pipe organs, I was just getting heavy into jazz, and I was also doing some rudimentary electronic music, so it was all here. and haunting acoustics!

 

[monkeyfinger]

The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein - Wikipedia

 

[Zoffy]

Growing up, I was friends with a guy named Anton Barbeau (who is now a pretty well-respected and well-known musician in Europe). Anton and I were in the local used record store and I saw the Grateful Dead's "Go to Heaven" album and I bought it. That did it for me - I was hooked on the Dead from that moment on. Haven't unhooked in 40 years.