bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Thursday, August 10, 2006 ::

Life-changing albums: Debi and Jack weigh in
Two more of my favorite bloggers -- Debi Warford and Jack Wolfgang -- took the bloggedy blog challenge to create a list of albums that changed their lives. Jack's list is short and sweet (do two albums really constitute a list, Jack?), while Debi posts her top 10). Debi's from my era, so many of her choices resonate with me. Jack's a bit younger, I think, so his picks are of more recent albums.

Here are excerpts from each list:
From Debi:

3. Cat Scratch Fever, Ted Nugent, 1977
When I was in high school (I guess I would’ve been a junior at this time), my brother was a freshman and determined to become a rock star. To that end, he got Mom and Dad to buy him a bass guitar so he could learn to play. (The theory, I think, was that the bass would be easier as it had fewer strings.) His bedroom and mine shared a wall, and in the evenings he would don his massive stereo headphones, plug in the bass, stick Nugent on the record player, and “teach” himself bass by playing the title track over and over again, while singing along. The result for me was hearing only the bass line (played as well as you might expect) and my brother’s off-key rendition of the song. That was enough to put me off Nugent for years...

And from Jack:

The second album is Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around. I first heard this album cruising around the back roads of Grady County with my brother in his Audi. I immediately recognized the source of "The Man Comes Around" even without seeing the liner notes. I was inspired that Cash was spreading the good news even to those who weren't brothers and sisters in Christ. I realized that people who would have no interest in buying a Bible did buy Cash's album. I claimed the promise revealed to the prophet Isaiah: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Cash's rendition of "Bridge over Troubled Water" was awesome as well. The voice of a man who has seen troubles and pain brought special meaning to the song. I pray I haven't dissuaded anyone from buying this album.

Tags: music, rock, rock and roll, rock'n'roll, lists, music lists, countdowns

:: Andrew 07:39 + ::
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