Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How do?

So this is a thread where we can share the music that helped make us who we are today. It’s kind of a retrospective, without actually being retrospective,

What the effing flip do I mean? Well, I don’t want peeps to share music and albums they got into in later life. But the music that got you through your formative years.

My one is easy. On account I was going through my GCSEs (last bit of compulsory education in the U.K. at that point). And it was the only album I owned. But my god I don’t actually believe in? It. Is. Brilliant. And considering I listened to it on constant repeat (being the only CD I owned at the time) it’s definitely influenced me, and heavily so.

What is it?

Well, I tell you (he’s going to tell. He’s going to tell. He’s going to tell, he’s going to tell NO! NO! NOT LIKE THAT, NOT LIKE THAT!

It’s this’un......



As a culture cast out/cast off, this album really imprinted itself on me. All excellent songs, and a fantastic band. I now work as a mediator in financial complaints. And this album’s message of ‘little Man against the world’ quite possibly helped mould me into that role.

But what about you, fellow Dakkanauts?

Remember. This is about a snapshot in your life. Not the music you’ve since discovered and adore. Just that pint in your life where an album helped you through. The exact epoch of said life doesn’t matter. Just has to be your musical crutch at the time, whatever you were going through (and whatever you went through! The fact you’re still here, reading this well meaning drivel, I for one salute you!)

I thought I knew what music was. It was catchy stuff you moved your feet to and sang along with.

Then this happened:


I know it's cliché. A guy who grew up in the 90's saying how much this album means to them, but I can honestly say I didn't have a clue what music was until I heard this.

Haunting melodies, clashing discords, sometimes stripped down, pleading and assertive at the same time. The pop tunes are just the right side of catchy without sliding into bubblegum, the complex songs leave hooks that don't diminish with repeats.

The nearly 15 minutes from the start of Fitter, Happier to the end of No Surprises is an almost prefect audio representation of struggling mentally to survive in a maddening world.

It was only after this album that I learned music was more than just clapping along to pretty ditties.

(and Different Class - still a magnificent album)

Hey dude, we’re both pubescent of the 90’s!

So much excellent music manifested itself, it’s hard to pick just one

a really great album where every track was worth listening too

I’m having trouble deciding on a band, to then decide on an album from that band!

Great Big Sea was the inspiration for my first email account and my user names thereafter. Their East-Coast vibe, alternately upbeat and wistful is probably the front runner. Upbeat music was inspiring, wistful music was better for self-reflection.

Which is at odds with the Nihilist that was developing... but also part of that development in an antithetical way. Other, “heavy” bands were my other main listens, but at least one GBS CD was in our 5-disk changer at all times. Plus, a Queen Greatest Hit CD was usually in that changer too. The music has an “epic” quality that I haven’t seen matched by any other band.

I’ve got to figure out which GBS album has the song “Ordinary Day” on it. I’d say that song was my make-it-to-tomorrow song.

Ah-ha! The album was called Play! Ordinary Day and When I’m Up I cant get Down we’re a pair of pick me ups.



The Night Pat Murphy Died is a fantastically disrespectful song about a deceased person. It tickles me because I’d say that’s a song that gave me permission to be comfortable not caring about other people’s opinions on whatever. It gave me permission to be comfortable disliking someone, and being willing to express that and live with the consequences. In the end, we all die and the world moves on. Maybe my burgeoning Nihilist picked up on that.

Have a listen, it’s a couple of minutes we’ll spent!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Bsb-8pxG8

"They went into an empty room, and a bottle of whiskey stole. They put that bottle with the corpse, to keep that whiskey cold!"

"That's how they showed their respect for Patty Murphy. That's how they showed their honour and their pride. They said it was a sin and shame and they winked at one another, and every drink in the place was full the night Pat Murphy died!"

In the realm of cliche 90's...



I'm not sure this is the album that made me, but its certainly the one where I redefined how I consumed music. It was the album where I stopped mostly listening to the singles from the radio and really started digging into the album as a whole. Part of it is just the arrangement, where easy favorites like Nothing Man and Better Man are spaced out well with quirkier stuff like Bugs and Hey Foxymophandlemomma, That's Me. It's where I developed a love of listening for the deep cuts and shortly after its release I really started digging through B sides and researching influences to find artists across decades that I enjoy.

That album for me would have to be Misfits: Legacy of Brutality


A friend took an Amway sales tape, erased the tape, and made me a bootleg copy of this album. Looking back on that, I am surprised the Amway tape was long enough to fit this album on both sides or that this album was short enough to fit on it.

Looking back at the run time of the entire album, under 30minutes.

At the risk of jeopardizing my gruff exterior, I'd say it'd either be Born to Quit by The Smoking Popes, or Sugar by Tonic.

This is the album whom one could say shaped me, I listend to Norwegian black metal before it but this really made me a fan.

Hard to say. I was never big on buying albums growing up, most of my disposable income went into games and minis. I listened to a lot of radio. WQMF in Louisville Kentucky (I forget the numbers) Classic rock station in a southern-ish state. And my formative music years would be the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. Tom Petty, ZZ-top, Lynyrd Skynyrd and other “southern rock” will always trigger a bit of nostalgia for me. The first CD I owned was Classic Queen. But also as a child of the ‘80s, I listened to a bit of the eclectic mix of pop/new age/punk/etc. One of my favorite tapes, which I tracked down and replaced with a CD is Pop Goes the World, by Men Without Hats. But I’ve also got a lot of compilation albums, because let’s face it, there were a lot of one hit wonders back then. Artists I have the most extensive collections of would be Rush, Jethro Tull, and Depeche Mode.

Can't do one; best I can do is three records that I obtained at the same time and that stopped me listening to Bon Jovi and Def Leppard.

I can't get it all the way down to one album. Troublegum was a huge album for me back then. Nurse was almost as big a thing for me. As someone has already posted it though, I'll got my three other equally formative albums



I rarely listen to Mellon Collie anyomore, but it was central to my understanding of music. I saw them in about 2012ish, and the love all flooded back!



This I do still listen to occasionally. It moved me from Iron Maiden into grunge and the like.



This has been the central album of my life. I have never stopped listening to it, even as my music tastes have changed time and time again and gone from metal to dance to Bowie/Queen back to metal and then dance, etc, etc... Everything's Ruined has been my favourite song of always, with only Under Pressure rivalling it for how loudly and passionately I sing along to it.