The Music that Has the Most Meaning for Me

I have been a music nut for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I grew up listening to tapes of everything from Men at Work and Wham to Eazy-E and Public Enemy. Starting in the early 90's, I started listening to CD's of newer music such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine and older music such as Jimmy Buffett, Led Zeppelin and Simon and Garfunkel. Today, it has moved to MP3's of newer bands such as Keane, Mutemath and the Silversun Pickups as well as the classics such as Tony Bennett and Lindsey Buckingham. Music truly has been a part of my life, almost a soundtrack. With the advent of MP3 players it is now possible to bring along your entire collection along with you, which is fantastic.

Music to me is a reflection of what is going on in my life at the time. There are a few albums, that when I listen to them, take me back to the time when I was first listening to the album and remind me of the meaning that they hold for me. There are so many albums that I love and that really define a certain time for me that I won't be able to cover them all, so what I have done is break it down into just a couple of key albums.

For myself, I grew up with tapes and CD's where you usually listened to the entire thing. With the advent of iTunes, etc, you can now just buy a single song (which you could back then as well, it just wasn't as easy as today). While there are a few songs out there that I love, it has always been albums that have defined a certain time of my life.

Pearl Jam's Ten album is quite possibly the defining album for my life. The album was released in 1991 when I was a freshman in high school. At the time, I was heavily into Hip-Hop/Rap music. Everything from Ice-T, BDP, The D.O.C., Geto Boys, etc. I had copies of and listened to. However, when my brothers came home from college with bands such as The Cure, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and R.E.M. my life changed. It was Pearl Jam's Ten album that really defines that era for me. To me, the album signifies a change in my entire persona and musical influence. While listening heavily to this album, I also joined a rock band and played the drums. I essentially learned to play a drum set while in the band and getting into a new form of music. The entire band was influenced by the album, shown by the fact that we played 9 of the 11 tracks at least once, and the songs Even Flow, Alive, Black, Jeremy, Porch and Release were in our sets at shows off and on for over 11 years. It is this album more than any that define the change of my life from Hip-Hop/Rap to Rock-n-Roll and into a band that changed my life. I stayed in the band for 11 years, recorded two albums, moved to Nashville to work with producers and learned more music than I ever would have thought possible (consequently, you can check out some of our music at our MySpace page as well as the lead singers MySpace page). And it all comes back to Pearl Jam's Ten album.

The Killer's album Sam's Town is another defining album for me. The reason for this is essentially where I was with music. While in the rock band I was always listening to new music and being exposed to great artists. Once I quit the band I really regressed with new music. I wasn't being exposed to new music at all and was almost in music purgatory. It was my exposure to bands such as The Killers that have changed it all. The Killer's album Sam's Town reminds me of a change. Before listening to that album, I was just going back to my old albums and re-listening to music I had already memorized because I had listened to it so much. After that album, I have gotten into so much new music it is almost baffling. Bands that I have recently gotten into include Death Cab for Cutie, Mutemath, Keane, Vega4, and the Kings of Leon. While I actually listen to some of those artists more than I do the Killers, to me, that album signifies my awakening of new music and new artists. I didn't want to become that guy who thinks the best music was when he was in high school and tried to relive the glory days. That is why that album holds so much meaning for me.

There are so many other great albums out there, Chris Isaak's Forever Blue, Jeff Buckley's Grace, Pink Floyd's Division Bell, U2's Achtung Baby, Death Cab for Cutie's Plans...just so many that it is hard to just identify two albums. However, the two that I talked about mark such a shift in my music listening that they hold that much meaning for me. They are the reason I love music and will continue to have a soundtrack to my life. Now all I need is a laugh track.