Name (Ten) Musical Tracks That Changed Your Life

[Muse]

Em... I'll just throw ones out there that come to mind. Most of these are what hooked me on said band or bring memories of a certain period in my life.

Stairway To Heaven (from HTWWW) - Led Zeppelin (It just has to be there. It started me on music in general)

Friction - Television

The Night Watch - King Crimson

Echoes - Pink Floyd

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

Desolation Row - Bob Dylan

When The Music's Over - The Doors

Baker St. Muse - Jethro Tull

Only Shallow - My Bloody Valentine

Dead Souls - Joy Division

[bigstickbonzo]

Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan

A true classic.

[dig zoso]

oh wow...since there are way more than ten tracks that changed my life, here are just the first ten that come to mind, excluding repeated bands:

The Beatles - Within You Without You

Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks

The Clash - Revolution Rock

The Who - A Quick One (While He's Away)

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

The Zombies - Hung Up On A Dream

The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs

David Bowie - Eight Line Poem

Derek and the Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues

Bob Dylan - Ballad of a Thin Man

I always feel rotten after doing things like this, because it hardly scratches the surface. I haven't even gotten to touch on classical music or anything remotely current. Oh well.

[zero]

there's only a few really. the ones that grabbed me and got me interested in rock

as a little kid.

i remember hearing chuck berry at around 6 years old on the radio and it really was great to me i felt like i was the people/characters he was singing about in his songs.(especially since i was always in trouble)

----

i wana rock by twisted sister i used to write the lyrics all over my notepads in second grade

i remember this lunchroom worker lady who seen me doing this asking me about it.

"i wana rock? what's that mean?" i explained it and she's like "oh " anyways the

song epitomised my feelings at that point.

-----

and finally

carrots by: cabbage recycler

it showed me i could do and be anything i want.

Edited November 29, 2007 by zero

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

BUMP! I just have to contribute to this thread! Can't help myself!

I basically can't say that these songs specifically changed my life but it pretty much gave me my first exposure to some really amazing music genres like "psychedelic rock", "garage rock", "progressive rock" and "country" and made me explore the catalogues of some incredible bands and artists!

1. Purple Haze - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (my first exposure to psychedelic rock at the age 6. Thanks dad! )

2. Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen (my first Queen song at the age of 5)

3. Jumpin' Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones (my anthem when I was about 9 years old. I used to jump and dance to it! )

4. Guitar Boogie Shuffle - The Ventures (my first rock 'n' roll instrumental track and garage rock song when I was just 4 years old! Thanks mom! )

5. Light My Fire - The Doors (my first love song! )

6. Black Dog - Led Zeppelin (my first Zep song at the age 12! From then on, there was no turning back! )

7. Funky Town - Lipps Inc (my first exposure to disco! )

8. Let It Rock - Bon Jovi

9. Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley

10. Black Or White - Michael Jackson (my first song by MJ )

Edited October 20, 2010 by Kiwi_Zep_Fan87

[Janet]

Thanks Kiwi Zep for resurrecting this thread!

House of the Rising Sun - The Animals

Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin

Crossroads - Cream

Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young

Heartbreaker - Led Zeppelin - the greatest song by the greatest band ever

Take Me to the River - Al Green

Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Nirvana

Fell on Black Days - Soundgarden

Prisoner of Society - The Living End - this is one of the best songs ever!

Gas Chamber - Foo Fighters (Angry Samoans) - can't play this one loud enough

[Xtazy]

Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode -> the track that turned me on to music.

Joe Satriani - Super Colossal -> the first song I played on stage.

Led Zeppelin - Good times, Bad times / Night flight

Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze

AC/DC - Back in Black

Whitesnake - Here I Go again

Huey Lewis - Power of Love

Michael Jackson - Black or White

Eminem - Lose Yourself

Thin Lizzy - Whiskey in the Jar

I rarely listen to these songs anymore, but they had a deep impact on me.

I should also mention The Rocky Soundtrack, containing the standard rocking tracks like Eye of the Tiger and Burning Heart by Survivor(actually their whole Greatest Hits album meant a lot to me), No easy way out by Robert Tepper and Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty, and also the symphonic/orchestra tracks by Bill Conti (who is a genius).

Edited October 21, 2010 by Xtazy

[Footsteps of Dawn]

1. Alan Jackson - Midnight in Montgomery

My parents took me to see him in concert when I was about 10. I already liked this song a lot, but when he played it live with the fog machines and the eerie lights (hey, I was 10; I was easily impressed), it made it 10 times spookier, and it was the first time I can think of that music had a "holy crap!" hit-you-with-a-ton-of-bricks effect on me.

2. Blink 182 - What's My Age Again?

Don't laugh, but this is the song that got me listening to rock music. See, from about 1996, when I first started listening to something besides what my parents listened to, until about 1998, I listened to what I'd call alternative-lite, like Third Eye Blind, Alanis Morissette, Everclear, Sister Hazel, Savage Garden (lmao...I'm looking at the "1997 in Music" Wiki page...I'd forgotten all about them), crap like that. Then the face of pop music kind of changed, and it veered toward R&B groups and boy bands. I sorta went with it for a while (even went to an N'Sync concert), but it eventually became clear that this stuff just wasn't my style. For a while I wasn't sure what to do, but then I heard that arpeggiated guitar intro to "WMAA" on one of the pop stations and was blown away. Lame, I know, but for someone who'd never heard anything more guitar-driven than Everclear before, that intro and what followed was seriously a revelation. I loved the production on that album; the guitars were deliciously crunchy and the drums sparkled. Weird that I noticed that kind of thing when I didn't know diddly-squat about music, but there you go...that guitar sound is basically what made me want to play guitar, no matter how embarrassed I am by that fact now.

3. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Step up from Blink. Taught me the importance of honesty in music.

4. Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

Yeah, yeah, but it's the first Led Zep song I heard. Used to post on a Star Wars forum, which for some reason had a bunch of metalheads on there who were big LZ fans. Figured I ought to see what the ruckus was about, so I downloaded it off of Napster (ah, the bad old days!). I can still remember myself sitting there at the desk in the front room with headphones on, my eyes bugging out of my head about as far as they could, getting my mind blown to pieces. I remember sitting there mouthing, "Holy sh*t!" to myself over and over. Blink taught me what rock music was, but Zep taught me what GOOD rock music was. It was like aliens had descended from Planet Zep and enlightened my poor human pea brain with their ray guns of sound.

5. Sublime - Summertime

This is probably one of the bands I've liked the longest and still listen to on a halfway regular basis (along with AC/DC). There are a lot of ska/punk bands out there, but these guys are just in their own class...they're just different from any other band in the world and can't be duplicated. Weirdly enough, they also opened me up to more "urban" music and made me give rap a chance. My friend burned me Dr. Dre's "Chronic 2001" sometime after I started listening to Sublime...I still like that album, and I doubt I would've given it a chance had it not been for Sublime. Hehe, hi, my name is Footsteps, and I am the whitest kid you know.

6. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

Expanded my vision of what you could do with music, from the concept albums to the awesome guitar solos to the subject matter of the lyrics to the song structure.

7. Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

One day I woke up and thought, "Hey, you know what? I should really listen to the Stones more!" so I did. Yeah, this one doesn't have any big significance, really; it just started me appreciating the Stones a lot more than I had before. I REALLY didn't realize what a great live band they were, especially with Mick Taylor, so I'm glad I found that out...Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out is one of my all-time favorite albums now. Suppose it might've led me to Skynyrd, now that I think about it...it kinda transitioned me into listening to twangier-sounding music.

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Saturday Night Special

Kinda took me full circle back to country, and opened me up to some new things like the Drive By Truckers. Came just in time, too - I was getting REALLY bored with music right before I started getting curious about them. Now I have some really great memories of driving up to Alpine (in East County) and back with this song blaring out the speakers. It makes a really great driving song for some reason.

9. Jamey Johnson - In Color

Gave me hope that country music, and music in general, isn't dead. Finally, somebody without overproduced arrangements who just tells it like it is. Outlaw country lives.

10. Eminem - Not Afraid

This is kind of where I am now. I've pretty much worn out everything on my iPod and am just looking for something I haven't heard a million times before, and somehow Eminem showed up on my radar. Not Afraid isn't my favorite song of his, but it's the one that made me finally take notice of him after all these years. I did like Stan in high school, but it never went much beyond that...now I'm going back through all of his stuff. It's weird, but I kind of see him and Jamey Johnson as different sides of the same coin - WAY different types of music, but still painfully emotionally honest in a way most people just can't manage to express.

Edited October 23, 2010 by Footsteps of Dawn

[ally]

I can't really give you 10 songs but I can give you one that led me from the Beatles to a harder based sound

Edited October 23, 2010 by ally

[Magic Fills the Air]

I'm going to make a list, but need some more time to think about it so I make sure I get it right!

Edited October 23, 2010 by Magic Fills the Air

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

While talking to my mom yesterday, I found out something very interesting about myself which suprised me! I was apparently into rock 'n' roll even before I was born!

You see, when my mom was pregnant with me, starting from the 6th month of her pregnancy, whenever my dad played songs by Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream or The Rolling Stones, my mom could feel me kicking!

Mind you, I used to be quiet at all other times (even when my dad played music by other bands)! But the moment something by Cream, Hendrix, The Stones or Zep came on, I used to start my ummm.."kicking sessions" (as my mom calls it )

And the two songs which got the biggest kicks, according to my mom were "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)". In fact, until the 8th month of my mom's pregnancy, my parents thought that they were going to have a son!!

In fact, my dad nicknamed me "Flash" before he knew I was a girl!

Looks like my folks knew that I was truly going to be a rock 'n' roll baby!

Edited October 24, 2010 by Kiwi_Zep_Fan87

[ally]

2 of 10

[ally]

3 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqNaSM3xqcU

[ally]

4 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PczW76rpTbM

[ally]

5 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UyooPeFbkQ

[ally]

6 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO2qO9FaIWU

[ally]

7 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy7vnwXgH0Y

[ally]

8 of 10

[ally]

9 of 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7dnH5lYHFE

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

BUMP!!

Ally, those are some excellent choices there!

Love the ones by Hendrix (especially "If 6 Was 9"), the one by "The Seeds", Zep and Cream!

Where's number 10?

[dazedcat]

Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream

Revolution - Beatles

Purple Haze - JHE

As a young kid in the latter 60's these three tunes told me what rock music was all about. You actually could turn on your transistor radio and listen to music like this, constantly. Imagine?

I've never fully recovered either.

[redhairedqueen22]

here are the five songs that changed my life

1. beth by KISS just because it's my all time favorite song from KISS

2. reason to live by KISS because that song helped me and kept me strong through some of my toughest times in my life and taught me what doesn't kill you, will make you that much stronger

3. she's gone by steelheart because you can hear the guilt and emotion coming out of their lead singer's voice and he's begging the love of his life to come back to him

4. fighter by Christina Aguilera because she handled the vocals like a boss and she's telling the person that stabbed her in the back that she's had enough of their bulls**t and won't take it anymore

5. a millon to one by KISS because paul Stanley taught me that person that stabbed me in the back and broke my heart that they'll never meet another person like me ever

[tomloge]

Can't really think of 10, but can definitely think of one that stands out:

It ain't what you do, it's how you do it-J. Geils Band-first time I got stoned. Seems like yesterday, and it was over 40 years ago!

[Plantpothead]

To be honest, no song I have EVER heard has changed my life, they are just words compiled by another human being, regardless of how good they are. I can relate to songs, but they are not life saving.

[DropDown]

The reason why I chose the following songs is because the first time I heard them, I was like, WTF just hit me?

Besides WLL and Heartbreaker, the rest are:

Good Times - Chic

Smoke on The Water - Deep Purple

Tom Sawyer - Rush

Planet Earth - Duran Duran

Crazy on You - Heart

Give It Away - RHCP

Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club

Young Americans - David Bowie