Defining musical moments

[JK]

Everybody has at least one defining musical moment, usually early on in life. I'll restrict mine to the key four (the Boys would have to wait!):     

Sabre Dance----Aram Khachaturyan
This discovery in a library book of piano arrangements convinced the five-year-old JK that there was more to music than boring old piano lessons

Runaway----Del Shannon
Pop music taken to (for me at the time) unheard-of heights

Capriccio Espagnol----Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakoff
This and other albums given to me by a villager introduced me to the magical world of orchestral music

Louie Louie----The Kingsmen
My all-time favourite 45 and the musical moment with the biggest impact...

[KDS]

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody - Being a child of the 80s, I'm one of probably many who were really turned on to this song by the 1992 movie Wayne's World.   I bought a cassette single of this song during the summer of 1992, and became a fan of Queen.  By listening to my father's CDs, Queen became the first band whose catalog I ever delved into.  Thus, a music geek was born.

Pink Floyd - The Wall - Per chance, in the summer of 1996, I saw the movie Pink Floyd The Wall on basic cable.  Over the previous years, I'd really gotten into classic rock as grunge and alternative rock had taken over the active rock station I used to love.  But, I never paid much attention to Floyd.  I would wind up getting a copy of The Wall on CD that Christmas, and Floyd eventually replaced Queen as my favorite band.  In 1999, I was delighted that Roger Waters was going back on the road, and my 2nd concert ever was a Roger show. 

Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man - In the spring of 2000, this (at the time) new Maiden song was on the radio.  At this time, I was starting to get into heavier music, and Maiden became my favorite metal band, and if you ask me, are the best live band on the planet. 

The Beach Boys - In My Room / Don't Worry Baby / Surfer Girl - In the summer of 2006, I wanted to explore the lighter side of rock and roll.  I got myself a copy of Sounds of Summer based on my fondness for this trio.   Over the years, I'd listen happily to my Beach Boys compilation.  In 2012, I bought a ticket to see the C50 show, and I became a diehard fan.  Late summer / early fall, I met the woman I'd marry, and we bonded a lot over Beach Boys music, so it seemed that the C50 show prepared me for that.

[RangeRoverA1]

Louie Louie----The Kingsmen

What it is about this version that you like better than the Richard Berry? I just listened to it again & it's really boring in compare with cool original. Richard Berry's "Louie Louie" is definitive.

[JK]

Louie Louie----The Kingsmen

What it is about this version that you like better than the Richard Berry? I just listened to it again & it's really boring in compare with cool original. Richard Berry's "Louie Louie" is definitive.

I like several versions of "Louie", including Berry's original and the stonker by The Sonics, but for me The Kingsmen's version knocks spots off all of them for sheer atmosphere (see my avatar, haha). In fact it was only meant to be a try-out while the engineer set the levels in the control room. But producer Ken Chase (who should be canonized) heard the magic in it.

[RangeRoverA1]

Sounds fair. Not to make this general Kingsmen thread but do you like anything else by them?

[JK]

Sounds fair. Not to make this general Kingsmen thread but do you like anything else by them?

To cut a long story short, drummer Lynn Easton shuffled the band soon after and shuffled singer Jack Ely out the door.

So everything after that sounded, well, different----new but not exactly improved.

That said, I'm quite fond of some of their other things. Definitely the best of the bunch is another great double-sider ("Louie"'s B-side was the instrumental "Haunted Castle"): "Little Latin Lupe Lu" b/w "David's Mood". They're both worth checking out...

But their "Louie" still reigns supreme!

[SurfRapGrungeFiend]

westside connections-gangstas make the world go round single cassette, was giving to me by my uncle who moved in 96 down south and i remember playing it over and over and i still have the cassette

[the captain]

From my parents' record collection (circa 1976-1982):
 - The Beatles Hey Jude collection of non-album singles (later more or less released as Past Masters Vol. 2
 - A Buddy Holly collection
 - An Elvis collection
 - The Chad Mitchell Trio, Live at the Bitter End
 - The Smothers Brothers, Live at the Purple Onion

My first (and only?) record (circa 1983):
 - The Muppet Movie soundtrack

My older cousin's influence (circa 1984):
 - Motley Crue, Shout at the Devil
 - Eddie Murphy, Raw
 - Prince, Purple Rain
 - Quiet Riot, Metal Health

My first self-purchased cassette (1987):
 - Europe, The Final Countdown

And then Poison, KISS, Guns n Roses, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai, Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Miles Davis, WA Mozart, Franz Liszt, P Tchaikovsky, I Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, the Mountain Goats, the Fiery Furnaces, Iron & Wine, Kacey Musgraves, Courtney Barnett, Beyonce ... I am glad to say I keep having those moments. Maybe not with the same intensity I got from the cheesy-ass synth of "The  Final Countdown," or the Muppets' "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along," but sometimes pretty damn close.

[JK]

I am glad to say I keep having those moments. Maybe not with the same intensity I got from the cheesy-ass synth of "The  Final Countdown," or the Muppets' "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along," but sometimes pretty damn close.

Same here. I wasn't expecting it to happen. It's most encouraging!

What I do find is that I generally tend to wait until an interesting new artist or album is no longer the domain of the youngest generation (no longer "the latest thing", so to speak) before checking them or it out. Perhaps that's silly, but there you are...   

[the captain]

That's actually what I've tended to do, as well. For example, the latter two-thirds of the '90s passed me by because I just wasn't willing to accept that anything good was happening at that particular moment. In hindsight, I've found plenty that was great but that I just totally ignored at the time. I have consciously tried to listen to more new music as it is released in these past 5-10 years, especially actually popular music (since in the previous decade, I was listening to new music, but only certain indie subgenres), to see whether I can enjoy the particular zeitgeist of the stuff.

[KDS]

That's actually what I've tended to do, as well. For example, the latter two-thirds of the '90s passed me by because I just wasn't willing to accept that anything good was happening at that particular moment. In hindsight, I've found plenty that was great but that I just totally ignored at the time. I have consciously tried to listen to more new music as it is released in these past 5-10 years, especially actually popular music (since in the previous decade, I was listening to new music, but only certain indie subgenres), to see whether I can enjoy the particular zeitgeist of the stuff.

I think the one artist I did that with was Alice in Chains. I dismissed them a bit when they were around the first time, but really grew to appreciate them in the early 2000s, particularly Jerry Cantrell's guitar playing