I’m sure I’m not the only one who got “hit” by a challenge from someone on facebook to list ten significant albums recently. The meme asks for them to be posted without comment, which I did, but I just felt like following up with an article with those comments present. I found the term “significant” interesting, and as a result not all (though most) of the albums are rock or metal… but each stands out in my life – going back quite some distance in most cases.
Note that this is not a “favourite” list, nor is it a “best of”. That would be nigh on impossible, and a far longer collection! Having said that, there’s not one in this article that I’d not listen to today. These albums have been picked because they’re important to me and bring back some important memories.
Richard Clayderman – The Magic of Richard Clayderman
An odd choice for the editor of a rock and metal publication, but actually the first one that sprang to mind when I saw the word “significant”. It’s the first album I ever owned, bought as an xmas present for me by my parents one year – this seems to be 1982 based on a bit of online research. I saw it d on TV and, indeed, it was sold mail order by “Telly Disc” – a company that sold albums by using what we now call infomercials. I even that it arrived early, but when my dad checked it, it was damaged so they had to ship it back for a replacement.
I played it to death, but as far as I’m aware I still have it. All my vinyl is in a box in my wife’s garage and I no longer have a record player. One day I’ll dig it out again!
Hits 3 – The Album
Released at the end of 1985, this actually has a hell of a collection of tracks on it (including Prince when he was still called Prince, Springsteen, Paul Young, The Cars, ZZ Top and The Cult) and – as far as I can recall – the first album I ever bought with my own money. Again, it’s still in the garage and I’d definitely still give it a spin if I was able.
I can always throw on the Reel Big Fish version of the opening track, A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, though Denise LaSalle’s “My Toot Toot” really needs a thrash cover done of it. It’s a great snapshot of an era when pop music was actually pretty good, and rock artists were charting alongside the more mainstream ones. Those were the days!
Bon Jovi – New Jersey
An album that some people would class as a “guilty pleasure”, this and Slippery When Wet were my gateway drugs into the worlds of rock and metal. I picked this one as I getting a copy off a friend at school and playing the hell out of it, over and over. I still listen to it – it’s a great album.
OK, so Tommy and Gina featured on a different album but this one still packs in “Lay Your Hands On Me”, “Bad Medicine”, “I’ll Be There For You”, “99 In The Shade”… hell, the whole album’s good. This was Bon Jovi about as big as they ever were or were going to be and it’s just brilliant. I’m writing this now and thinking I might just fling it on again. It’s actually one of the limited number of albums I’ve put on my phone for playing in the car – over thirty years old and it’s still a fairly regular listen.
Def Leppard – Hysteria
Again, I could possibly have picked another album here (Pyromania), but this was the first one I got hold of. I bought a second hand copy off a friend at school and played it so much I actually wore the tape out to the point where it snapped. Many argue that it’s over-produced, but this wasn’t something I cared about at the time.
The sheer scale of tracks like “Gods of War” (probably the first song I can that made such impressive use of stereo), “Rocket” and “Animal” just blew me away. Then there was the cheesy catchiness of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and the (comparative) balls-out rock of “Don’t Shoot Shotgun” and the grossly underrated “Run Riot” which still ranks as my favourite off the album.
It took me almost 25 years from first getting hold of that album to finally seeing them live. A shame that evening was so disappointing. I wish I’d seen them on the original Hysteria tour.
Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Again, they’re a huge band with a great back-catalogue and I could have picked any of their albums. However, this one is significant as being the first one I ever got hold of (Number of the Beast followed, along with Killers before I rapidly gathered the remainder). “Can I Play With Madness” was actually getting airplay and appearing on Top oof the Pops and the t-shirt was the first by any heavy metal or rock band that I ever bought. My parents picked it up from Makro for me and I literally wore it so much (over many years) that it fell apart.
I didn’t get to see the band on that tour, sadly. My first experience was the first round of the No Prayer on the Road tour at Newcastle City Hall, and though I’m not as big a fan as I once was I absolutely stand by their earlier albums – many of them – as very significant to me in of my musical tastes and who I ended up falling in with friendship-wise as a result.
Megadeth – Rust in Peace
And then the descent into thrash metal began… I can’t recall which albums led me down this path – it could have been Sacred Reich, Metallica, Maiden, Slayer, Exodus or many, many others. But Rust in Peace absolutely blew me away and still does with its technical precision. I’ve gone through the whole thing in retrospective articles before (here), so I won’t retread old ground too much.
I travelled to Glasgow to see the band play on the associated tour (with some band called Pantera opening), then went to see them again in Newcastle a few nights later – after attending an album g at one of the record shops in Eldon Square. I want to say HMV but I can’t quite . I used to have a bootleg of the Newcastle gig that I bought from a dodgy stall at the Quayside but I think all those tapes sadly went into a skip some years ago.
With blistering pace, melody and technical brilliance Rust in Peace took me away from my old mindset that “thrash is trash” and opened my ears to a whole new genre of music.
Slayer – Decade of Aggression
And here I have to it a little bit of editing. In my initial facebook posts I opted for Seasons in the Abyss, but on reflection it’s undoubtedly this classic live album which was more significant to me. I still rank it as one of the best live albums of all time, by one of the best live acts of all time. My CD copy is signed and I owned it (and played it to death) on cassette before that.
Again, this is a tour I managed to attend and I still – I think! – own the bus shelter-sized, fluorescent and orange tour poster from Newcastle City Hall that one of the security staff let me pinch the day before the gig. If I ever manage to own a house again, that’s getting framed and hung in the living room along with the similarly-dimensioned 2000AD poster!
If I correctly, I had Live After Death before this so it’s not the first live album I ever owned but it’s got so many memories linked to it that it had to take a position on this list.
Little Angels – Jam
Despite getting well into the thrash and, gradually, death metal scenes I didn’t stop liking the more commercial music. To whit, this number one best-selling release from Scarborough’s Little Angels. By the time it came out I was at university and a silly amount of my student loan was spent on gathering various editions of the multiple singles. I saw them at a g in Newcastle with some friends and (again, I think) still own a piece of the backdrop that they ripped down and signed for me as I had nothing on me at the time.
They were a great band, lovely guys and still are, and I was gutted when they announced they were splitting up. But what a way to go with a sell-out final few dates culminating at a packed Royal Albert Hall on a hot summer day. I hitchhiked to the final three gigs in Leeds, Nottingham and London, sleeping in motorway toilet cubicles and train station benches. Because rock and roll!
Again, this is an album I still listen to and it was a joy to hear Toby Jepson rattling off acoustic versions on his facebook page the other day. I was also lucky enough to catch them on their reunion tour a few years back that I went to with my wife. The first time I saw them was with my second girlfriend (and was the first gig I ever got backstage to via press access). So many memories earns this album a place on here.
The Wildhearts – Earth Vs The Wildhearts
I had to have something by Ginger and company on here and what better than their classic massive release filled with absolute punk rock belters? I played the hell out of this at university and it was amongst the first CDs I bought as I moved away from cassette.
I snagged an interview with the band at Bradford Rios, I think the first interview I ever did, using my huge portable stereo to record it. Their attitude was similar to the Little Angels in of single releases, if not moreso – give value to the fans. For every release, if you bought all the formats you’d end up with an album-worth of new songs. Not covers, alternative versions and so on but brand new songs which were every bit as good as the ones on the LP.
As time went on, the band had big downs and big ups, and Ginger is now a huge spokesperson for mental health awareness, being very public with his own issues. I respected them as entertainers and musicians back in the day, and as human beings now. Plus, they’re Geordies so they’ve got a bonus going for them with that. All these years later and their gig with Gun last summer (when we were allowed to go to gigs) was one of my highlights of the year.
Alice Cooper – Trash
Chronologically, this one’s well out of whack, but it came to me as the meme drew to a close. The very first gig I went to was to see Alice on this tour. If that’s not significant, I don’t know what is.
Again, a classic release from a well-established artist and packed with popular tunes from the days when singles were a “thing” and a way for people to hear the songs. His live show is legendary, and Whitley Bay Ice Rink was packed with Britney Fox and Great White opening (no indoor fireworks back then, thankfully).
Bubbling under
There are other albums I could have included for some reason or other. Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven, for example. The first pressing has my name on the inlay as I had one of two Pantera websites on the web when it was released. Pocketful of Kryptonite by the Spin Doctors was gifted by someone very important to me at the time, so it holds good memories. Joe Satriani’s Surfing With the Alien let me know that a good rock/metal album doesn’t need to have songs on it… and in a way reawoke my appreciation for the Clayderman album way back at the top of this list.
The infamous St Anger is significant in its mediocrity, but that counts. It’s the first album I laughing out loud at because it was so bloody bad. That’s not me being mean – it’s actually true. Conversely, I wish I had made space for Lawnmower Deth’s Ooh Crikey, It’s… because that one made me laugh for all the right reasons. And the first ever time I stage-dived was at the Newcastle Riverside date on that tour. I jumped too far, went over the crowd and landed on my shoulder. Ow.
There are so many albums with so many reasons for picking any one of them. But it’s been nice digging through the memories!
