Tirugondar

I got to thinking the other day about the albums that I’ve listened to in my life. I’m not talking about music exactly. I’m talking about albums. I grew up in the days of vinyl, and there was nothing like the satisfaction of holding a record and putting it on the turntable and setting down the needle. You tended to listen to the entire album in those days. It was just too much work to pick up the needle and figure out which track on the record was which song and then put the needle precisely there. So you set down the needle and let the record play. When that side was over, you flipped the record over and listened to the other side.

Then came cassette tapes. And even then, the focus was still on albums rather than songs. It was almost a monthly ritual to head to the store and buy a 10-pack of Maxell 90-minute tapes and then start recording my favorite albums. One album would fit pretty much exactly on one side of the tape. One tape would therefore hold two of my favorite albums. I’d throw that cassette into my walkman with auto-reverse and then listen to those two albums from beginning to end over and over and over again. I tended to find an album that I liked and then listen to it endlessly. I remember as a teenager lying on my parent’s couch in the living room with my giant headphones on listening to my latest Led Zeppelin album. Over and over and over.

So I was thinking about this, and I started making a list of all the albums that made an impression on me in my life – albums that went into the rotation and to which I listened hundreds of times. This is the list I came up with. It doesn’t really represent all the music that I’ve listened to. For example, I love Bob Dylan’s music, but there was never an album of his that grabbed me as an album and that I listened to over and over again. I listened to his songs, but not to his albums. This list is of the complete albums that, for whatever reason, found their way into my life.

Many of these albums have even come to represent certain segments of my life. I went tree planting for a summer, and for whatever reason, I had a cassette tape with Green Day’s album Dookie on one side and August and Everything Else by the Counting Crows on the other. That was the only tape I listened to for months, and now I can never hear these albums without thinking about tree planting. Once while traveling in Indonesia, I came across a cheap cassette copy of Midnight Oil’s album Diesel and Dust. I didn’t seek it out exactly. It just happened to be there in the store. I didn’t even know who Midnight Oil were. I bought it, and that album, along with the soundtrack to the Killing Fields, became the soundtrack of my trip through Indonesia. While working at a ski resort, I listened to Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. Now whenever I hear that album, I am transported back to sitting in the gondola going up the mountains to Sunshine Village ski resort. A couple of times, a friend who has far better taste in music than I do recorded some albums for me to take on a trip. For a long cycling trip in Africa, he gave me a tape with Tegan and Sara’s album This Business of Art on one side and Nick Drake’s album Pink Moon on the other. Those albums now take me back to Africa.

Most of the albums below have similar stories about what I was doing at the time in my life when I came across this or that album. I’ll admit there’s a certain randomness to it all. I rarely sought out music at the record store. Rather, I was a garage sale hound, and I often thumbed through milk cartons of old records grabbing anything that looked interesting. Once in Korea, I found a cardboard box on the street that was jammed with someone’s collection of old cassettes. I assumed it had belonged to someone teaching English as I was. They were going home and had thrown away their collection. In that box, I came across George Michael’s album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1. I don’t think I’d ever have gone into a record store and purchased that album, but having found it, I listened to it endlessly as I rode around on the buses and subway of Seoul, and it became the soundtrack of another period of my life.

In any event, here is the list of the albums that I could remember. I’m sure there are many that I’ve forgotten and many more that are too embarrassing for words (ie, Love Will Keep Us Together by Captain and Tennille which I will forever associate with flying kites). As more albums occur to me, I will add them to the list.

Achtung Baby – U2

After the Gold Rush – Neil Young

Against the Wind – Bob Seger

Ain’t I a Woman – Rory Block

All that You Can’t Leave Behind – U2

Amadeus – Soundtrack

American Woman – The Guess Who

Appetite for Destruction – Guns N’ Roses

Arc of a Diver – Steve Winwood

August and Everything After – Counting Crows

Back in Black – AC/DC

Bad Company – Bad Company

Bat out of Hell – Meatloaf

Best of BTO (So Far) – BTO

Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi – Camera Obscura

Blondes Have More Fun – Rod Stewart

Blue Valentine – Tom Waits

Book of Dreams – Steve Miller Band

Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen

Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen

Boston – Boston

Brandenburg Concertos – Bach

Breakfast in America – Supertramp

Brothers in Arms – Dire Straits

Centerfield – John Fogerty

Central Reservation – Beth Orton

Cheap Trick at Budokan – Cheap Trick

Cold Weather – Brenda Weiler

Conspiracy of One – The Offspring

Court and Spark – Joni Mitchell

Crime of the Century – Supertramp

Damn the Torpedos – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Dangerous – Michael Jackson

December – George Winston

Déjà Vu – Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

Diamonds and Rust – Joan Baez

Diesel and Dust – Midnight Oil

Dookie – Green Day

Double Vision – Foreigner

Dreamboat Annie – Heart

Eve – Alan Parson’s Project

Fly Like an Eagle – Steve Miller Band

Foreigner – Foreigner

Frampton Comes Alive! – Peter Frampton

Graceland – Paul Simon

Guero – Beck

Happy Nation – Ace of Base

Harvest – Neil Young

Heroes – David Bowie

Highway to Hell – AC/DC

Hotel California – The Eagles

Hysteria – Def Leppard

I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got – Sinead O’Connor

I Robot – Alan Parson’s Project

I’m Telling You For the Last Time – Jerry Seinfeld

I’m the Man – Joe Jackson

In Through the Out Door – Led Zeppelin

Indigo Girls – Indigo Girls

IV – Led Zeppelin

Jagged Little Pill – Alanis Morissette

Jonathan Livingston Seagull – Neil Diamond

Learning to Crawl – The Pretenders

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin II – Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin III – Led Zeppelin

Les Miserables – Soundtrack

Let Go – Avril Lavigne

Let’s Get Out of this Country – Camera Obscura

Listen without Prejudice Vol. 1 – George Michael

Little Creatures – Talking Heads

Little Queen – Heart

Look Sharp – Joe Jackson

Love Will Keep Us Together – Captain and Tennille

Low Budget – The Kinks

Music – Madonna

Nazareth Greatest Hits – Nazareth

Nevermind – Nirvana

New York – Lou Reed

Night Moves – Bob Seger

Ninth Symphony – Beethoven

Now and Zen – Robert Plant

Olivia Newton-John’s Greatest Hits – Olivia Newton-John

Out of Time – REM

Physical Graffiti – Led Zeppelin

Pink Moon – Nick Drake

Point of Know Return – Kansas

Purple Rain – Prince and the Revolution

Pyramid – Alan Parson’s Project

Rattle and Hum – U2

Ray of Light – Madonna

Rumours – Fleetwood Mac

Rust Never Sleeps – Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Scarecrow – John Cougar Mellencamp

Simple Dreams – Linda Ronstadt

So – Peter Gabriel

So-Called Chaos – Alanis Morissette

Songs from the Big Chair – Tears for Fears

Speaking in Tongues – Talking Heads

Stealing Fire – Bruce Cockburn

Stranger in Town – Bob Seger

Supposed Former Infatuation Junky – Alanis Moriessette

Surrender – The Chemical Brothers

Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Alan Parson’s Project

Tapestry – Carol King

Tea for the Tillerman – Cat Stevens

Teaser and the Firecat – Cat Stevens

The Beach – Soundtrack

The Cars – The Cars

The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd

The Goldberg Variations – Bach (Glenn Gould)

The Grand Illusion – Styx

The Jazz Singer – Neil Diamond

The Joshua Tree – U2

The Killing Fields – Soundtrack (Mike Oldfield)

The Stranger – Billy Joel

The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies

Throwing Copper – Live

This Business of Art – Tegan and Sara

Touch – Eurythmics

Toys in the Attic – Aerosmith

Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman

Trailer Park – Beth Orton

Transformer – Lou Reed

True Stories – Talking Heads

Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield

Tunnel of Love – Bruce Springsteen

Tusk – Fleetwood Mac

Under My Skin – Avril Lavigne

Under Rug Swept – Alanis Morissette

Van Halen – Van Halen

Well-Tempered Clavier – Bach (Sviatslav Richter)

Who’s Next – The Who

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd

World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots – The Flaming Lips

You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can’t Tune a Fish – REO Speedwagon

You Were Here – Sarah Harmer