(ORIGINALLY POSTED: 5/22/03)

LifeShapers : My Favorite Albums [1-5 of 10]

I get alot of questions about what kind of music I listen to, and what influences me to create my own work, etc.

As an avid music fan myself, I’ve listened to countless albums in my life, and MANY albums have influenced me over time, but only a few have truly altered my perception of music and forced changes to occur in my thinking. THESE are the albums that I prefer to write about here.

As you’ll see…most of the records aren’t hip-hop albums. Sadly, even though I make an effort to buy hip-hop albums, most hip-hop records bore the shit out of me. I’ll have 3 hip-hop records a year that I enjoy listening to, (and peep most albums 2 or 3 times to get a feel for em…and they don’t click for me). It’s a shame too. Because I’ve basically LIVED hip-hop my whole life, and as I’ve gotten older and smarter, I’ve realized how much bullshit is out there even more. It’s prolly a bit of fuel as to why I make music to begin with. But, as with any artist, we can’t change the world, we can only influence it with our work.

Anyway, here are some of the albums that have helped me find my way into my own style. Check em out, they’re all great.

1) Tori Amos – Under The Pink

This record is by far my favorite album of all time. Why this one? Well, a few reasons. a) This record is the reason I taught myself how to play the piano. [thus enabling me to express/create in many different ways] b) It served as a portal to so many other forms of music for me, that I was previously ignorant too. In my oppinon, this is Tori Amos’ best work. It differs from her debut, Little Earthquakes, which was highly confessional, and takes her sound into a more classical setting. For example… Her first album was an example of a realist painting style, and this album is more of an impressionist piece…hazy and representative of life at the same time. String arrangements and ridiculously brilliant piano melody paired with insightful lyricism make this record such a gem.

The joints that take me the most are “Icicle” [ie. where she masturbates with a bible] where she recreates an orgasm, quite literally, via the pacing of the song and chord changes. Also, “Cloud On My Tongue” which has one of the most subtley beautiful string sections in recent memory. Just luscious shit. Her ability to write a melody that makes your spine tingle is still unchallenged, except maybe by Thom York & Co. (Radiohead) or Lennon.

Her first 3 LPs are my favs, although there are some great moments on her subsequent albums. [ie. “Gold Dust” on Scarlette’s Walk is phenomenal]. If you can find the Australian import of this album that contains More Pink – The B-Sides buy it…because the b-sides are just as good as the real album. Amazing shit, by one of the best songwriters of our time.

2) Common – Resurrection

This is my Holy Grail of SOLO Emceeing.

In my oppinion, this is where Common Sense earned his legendary status. Damn near taking the art of wordplay and metaphor to a new galaxy single-handedly. NO ONE was fucking with what this dude was doing when this shit dropped. Everyone ripped the man off. His stuttered delivery and Slowly-poured style he brought to the table on this one was a far stylistic cry from his initial “Can I Borrow A Dollar?” LP that owed more to Das EFX than himself.

But goddamn, this one is a doozy. With production from 3X-collaborator NO I.D., this man reaffirmed my love for lyricism and made it sound like so much fun in the process. If it weren’t for this album, I never would have fully realized my predeliction towards wordplay and rhyme schemes.

Songs like “Book Of Life” and “I Used To Love H.E.R.” cemented his place in the pantheon of greatness, while bragaddocious joints like “Watermelon” and “Sum Shit I Wrote” sons most of the punchlines that current cats have scrambled to come up with since.

I still follow Common’s work, cause I try to stay supportive of someone who changed my perception of hip-hop so much, but to me…this is the Common I prefer to remember.

3) Bjork – Homogenic

WOW. The first time I heard this record was in Orlando, FL. I was still in college, and I walked into a record store and they were playing a song with spanish style strings, an accordian and a crazy yelling bitch singing the wildest melody line on top of these HARD ass electronic drums. I immediately asked the clerk what they were playing….and he said… “That’s BJORK’s new album, man! You haven’t heard it?”

Needless to say, I immediately picked up this album, and was astonished to see what this dainty little icelandic chick managed to cook up all on her own. On Homogenic Bjork managed to fuse the three seemingly opposite worlds of traditional classical music, quirky pop melodies and the forward thinking abrasiveness of experimental electronic beats. And what a masterwork it is.

One listen to “Yoga” or “Bachelorette” will quickly convince you that mostly everything you hear on the radio is watered down sheep music created by the lazy and uninspired.

I reached back into the Bjork archives, and purchased her previous albums, (Yes, all the way back to her work with The Sugarcubes), and while her sophmore album, Post shows similar signs of eclectic-thinking, I believe she truly breaks through down all the walls and defines a new sound on Homogenic. This album altered my perception of the limitations of classical music.

4) A Tribe Called Quest – Low End Theory

If aliens ever visited our planet, and asked to be shown what hip-hop was, I’d play this album for them.

I was a fan of Tribe since Q-Tips cameo on the Jungle Brother’s album, Straight Outta The Jungle, and I owned People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm...but this album dropped right when the “NEW JACK SWING” sound was in full effect… [ie. Upbeat R&B beats, R&B singing & cornball ‘SMOOTH’ MCs]. And my god…it was the PERFECT antidote.

From the opening basssnaps of “Excursions” to “Butter” to the ridiculously nod-a-liscious “We Got The Jazz”, this album SCREAMS classic. I strenuously studied the liner notes for every bit of information I could find on that thing. [That’s all we had before the internet sprang up]. BOB POWER, the engineer of the album, really helped define the Native Tongue sound on this fucker. THICK stand-up basslines, rim shots, just VIBED-THE-FUCK-OUT jazz hip-hop that wasn’t pretentious…that was very real world and still very street worthy. This is the sound that allowed the gates to opened for The Roots, Erykah Badu and the current Okayplayer sound. It was fresh it was fun, and it was done perfectly.

Not to mention, it contains the ALL-TIME CLASSIC posse cut, “Scenario” with Leaders Of The New School. My god. This record still bumps. Their Junior-year follow up, Midnight Marauders is a harder-street-esque version of this album, and still manages to convey the vibe of ‘Low End’ while competing with the ONYX’d out ‘Ruffneck’ climate of the time. A must own for any self-respecting hip-hop afficianado.

5) Radiohead – OK Computer

I caught onto Radiohead VERY late in the game. I’d always remembered that they made some of the most creative music vidoes I’d ever seen, [see “Karma Police”], but I didn’t buy any Radiohead LP’s until I heard Kid A. I was immediately blown away, and I started searching for more work from them. I wound up pickin up a copy of Pablo Honey, The Bends and finally, OK COMPUTER.

THIS RECORD IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. I don’t care if you hate rock music….if you hate guitars, if you hate live drums…I don’t care. This record is the definition of a classic album. Every song on this monster is brilliant or beautiful. From “Exit Music (For A Film)” to “No Suprises”; This is THE album to kill yourself too. Hands down. Yes, it’s depressing shit…but I can’t help it. I have a flair for the melancholy.

“Paranoid Android” has one of the most gorgeous mid-song breaks I’ve ever heard. Thom Yorke’s voice sounds like a fallen angel with a wounded shoulder signing to heaven itself. “Rain Down. Rain Down. From A Great Height” – Just godly. I mean, damn. I STILL listen to this album at least once a week. Their 2nd album, The Bends is also excellent…but this fucker is a masterwork.

Hope you enjoyed that, I’ll post the next 5 at some point. Comments? Thoughts?
Any of y’all peeped these records? Lemme know, cause I spent a long ass time typing all this shit up for y’all. So, um, be nice and reply. :)

Peace & Respect
Tone.