I can remember the first time I heard School by Supertramp. It just blew me away, the lonely start, the crescendos, the tempo changes, and perhaps my enjoyment was augmented by the herbal enhancement and the freedom of my life and relationships at the time. When I hear this song, I am immediately transported to a younger age full of possibility.
There are many songs that have resonated with my life, but this one is a sweet memory. What music blew you away the first time you heard it? Which songs take you back to a place and time of fond – or maybe not so fond – memories?
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I was going through some shit (which didn’t seem so bad looking back now) as a teen and dealing with depression for the first time. First song that captured what I was feeling.
@ManchuCandidate, you got where I was going tonight, how music can transcend space and place to encompass the “inner you”.
I had an older sister who had tons of 45s, and I remember being blown away by anything produced by Phil Specter. He was the first record producer whose name I knew (way before George Martin or Jimmy Miller). His records still blow me away.
@Luigi Vuoto
I see he died today, at 81. He was very young when he started the wall of sound stuff.
So many bands, so many songs but a few stick out. I was a psychedelic and metal kid but had a few really close friends that were punkers. I didn’t really understand punk rock because I was into heavy guitar but then I heard X.
and then when I got my first Oingo Boingo album, I couldn’t get enough.
Then when I discovered Fishbone, I wore out that cassette and they were the most life changing concert I have ever seen. I’m not a dancer but I couldn’t stop dancing for the entire 2 hours
Good choices, @Loveshaq!
Patti Smith
My best friend brought the record over and said, ” you have to hear this.” I was stunned,never heard anything like her before. My heart was beating so fast.
@Hannibal, I agree completely.
Richard Hell
Liz Phair
Heartless Bastards
@KeitelBlacksmith, Richard Hell and Liz Phair are both excellent choices.
“School” is such a great song. Really, just about anything from Supertramp. I once worked with a guy who was about 20 years younger than me who had never heard of Supertramp. One day I was playing “Bloody Well Right” in my office and he walked in and said, “Who is that? That’s excellent!” He instantly became a fan and started buying their stuff. So, I guess that band has a good capacity for blowing people away.
The first song I remember stopping and going “what is that?!” was “Barracuda” by Heart. I was six years old. My idiot brother, being the piece of shit that he was/is, immediately started making fun of the song for no other reason than I liked it. I didn’t care. Every time it played on the radio, I turned it up.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker Heart was unique for their time. I remember reading an article about the frustration of the Wilson sisters with the record company’s insistence upon sexing up their image when all they wanted to do was rock.
There have been a few but I remember vividly where I was when I first heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I was in my decidedly subpar kitchen in the shabby rent-stabilized tenement making dinner. This came over the radio. I remember thinking, “Well THIS is different.” It popularized or maybe initiated the whole Seattle/Portland grunge aesthetic, a way of dressing, a way of living even, which I hadn’t seen before. Soon the younger men in the office started showing up with longer hair, growing beards, flannel shirts, lumberjack boots, and the women in all kinds of strange thrift store finds. I am convinced this song single-handedly drove the final nail into the coffin of the 1980s. You, or at least I, still see a lot of this 30 years later.
Almost went with “Lithium” for this post. “Teen Spirit” was definitely the spearhead.
Have you seen the movie Singles? Amazing soundtrack of mostly Seattle music scene players of that time & fun film.
@CousinMatthew it takes just three chords to recognize that song. Excellent choice. Here in the county, that look has morphed into Brooklyn hipster refugee chic…with no change in attire, just a new label.
I think Brooklyn Hipster is more twee. The curly, Dali-like mustaches, for example, the obsession with fixed-gear bikes (whatever those are), and the strange food cults, like artisanal mayonnaise, pickling as if it hasn’t already existed for centuries (the Romans pickled), the widely mocked avocado toast, the small batch vinegars…
Not long before the pandemic hit I arranged to get together with a friend of mine who is a travel writer. He suggested we go to a place halfway between the two of us that he knew of. I looked up the menu online and saw that they had a brunch “starter” that was two slices of buttered toast for $11. Astonished, I felt compelled to call the restaurant and inquire further. “Yes, I know, it is two slices of bread and butter but the butter comes from [local-ish dairy farm] and the bread from [locally renowned bakery.] Then we grill the bread so that—” Click. I called the friend back and said, knowing that he is as bibulous as I am, “Did you know that places doesn’t have a liquor license? These three places are not new but how about if you pick one and we go there?” He had never been to one of them but had always wanted to go, so I made reservations.
Honestly. Can you imagine Kurt Cobain or Courtney Love giving a flying fuck about their toast, or even eating toast, because I think heroin is an appetite suppressant?
I was in middle school when this came out, heard it a lot in high school. When I finally listened to the lyrics, it blew me away in this sense: all the bullshit I was putting up with in school was not going to end when I entered the adult world. It was just going to morph into another version. So it made me grow up a bit.
XTC – Respectable Street
@MemeWeaver, another good band choice! And another recognizable unique sound.
I saw them live at the Park West in Chicago. I had to use a fake ID. They blew me away.
…it’s a good question…but I have way to many answers to it to fit on a single thread…so I’ll just go with a couple of relatively recent examples?
@SplinterRIP they are both powerful, especially like the second one!
I was at Camelot Music at the mall and ended up buying something just so that the guy behind the counter wouldn’t think that i was shoplifting like the year before,when this asshole who was probably the manager had when he confronted me at the store entrance in front of all the people passing by. (The guy behind the counter turned out to be a cool English guy, though, and even gave me one of the black Camelot Music pencils for free.
I had a couple of this band’s CDs and thought they were OK. I’d heard another one mentioned in an MTV Rockumentary and seen it listed in some list or another in Rolling Stone. But beyond that, I knew nothing about it. It was in one of those BEST VALUE longboxes, even though it cost $14.99*:
I ended up listening to almost every day for the rest of that year (and many more times to come) and later on bought the T-shirt, the poster, a used copy of the double album on vinyl and the anniversary reissue on CD about 11-1/2 years later. And it’s never once gotten old or felt like overkill.
*Oh, and I went back to Camelot Music a week or two later and found that they’d replaced the copy I’d bought with one that was in a generic Sony Music longbox. They’d also raised the price by two bucks as well.
Goddamn, we really need an edit feature again around here:
Fucking seriously. . . .
Don’t worry, @M. Perdido, it was worth the three-post build-up.