Life-Changing Bands (or Songs)

SoonerAviator

SoonerAviator

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SoonerAviator
Would love to hear from you all on bands/artists/songs that have changed the way you listen to music or have touched you (appropriately or inappropriately) in a profound way. I'm not talking necessarily about bands that just put on a good show or have abundant talent, but those who draw your focus much more intensely. Sometimes an artist has a sound or way with words that becomes truly transformative in your life. I would expect this topic may have a lot of artists that I haven't heard of (or didn't get exposed to much), so I'm interested to see what comes of it.

Edit: added option for individual songs since sometimes a song may hold a significant meaning even if the band wasn’t particularly impactful to you.

As thread starter, here's one of mine:

Manchester Orchestra. Alt-Rock band out of Atlanta. Lead singer/song writer was a preacher's kid, so many songs have a religious overtone but often from a questioning/darker tone. Lots of creative lyrics that often provide commentary on difficult situations. They had a few hits on the Billboard charts (which is where I first heard them), but they keep the tours pretty low-key. If I were to point a person to a few songs as an intro, I'd probably suggest "I Can Feel Your Pain" for it's raw emotion (written about a young female fan who passed from Cancer), and "The River" which is more typical of their sound.


 
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SoonerAviator said:
in a profound way.
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There's been hundreds over the years that tweaked me in various ways, but Pink Floyd is still my go to group since I was a youngin. However, here's my current short list that keeps me on the straight and narrow path.
Crazy Diamond-Parts I-V:
The End (Man on Fire soundtrack):
Amazing Grace:
Take Me Home:
Whiter Shades of Pale:

Comfortably Numb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrOQC-zEog

Then there is Mike Oldfield, Hans Zimmer, Queen, Evanesence, Creed, Jennifer Thomas, Andrea Boccelli, Audiomachine, James Blunt, etc, etc, etc. All depends on the mood. Grew up listening to my Dad's reel-to-reel blasting an A-Z of different artists with some I still follow today like Kingston Trio, Richie Havens, Cream, Stones, Hendrix, etc, etc, etc.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Would love to hear from you all on bands/artists/songs that have changed the way you listen to music or have touched you (appropriately or inappropriately) in a profound way. I'm not talking necessarily about bands that just put on a good show or have abundant talent, but those who draw your focus much more intensely. Sometimes an artist has a sound or way with words that becomes truly transformative in your life. I would expect this topic may have a lot of artists that I haven't heard of (or didn't get exposed to much), so I'm interested to see what comes of it.

Edit: added option for individual songs since sometimes a song may hold a significant meaning even if the band wasn’t particularly impactful to you.

As thread starter, here's one of mine:

Manchester Orchestra. Alt-Rock band out of Atlanta. Lead singer/song writer was a preacher's kid, so many songs have a religious overtone but often from a questioning/darker tone. Lots of creative lyrics that often provide commentary on difficult situations. They had a few hits on the Billboard charts (which is where I first heard them), but they keep the tours pretty low-key. If I were to point a person to a few songs as an intro, I'd probably suggest "I Can Feel Your Pain" for it's raw emotion (written about a young female fan who passed from Cancer), and "The River" which is more typical of their sound.
Click to expand...

The Band. What could be simpler.:) Not life changing but maybe changed how I listen to music, along with many others. Music was my first addiction. This performance gave me a true appreciation for 'singing on the beat.' Not making every syllable match a note, just singin on the beat.

 
I'm curious how much this ends up having generational references? To misquote comedian Chris Rock "You'll always love the music you were listening to when you started making out."

For me, music that resonates with me still and has helped me endure tough times and celebrate great times?
The Who. Rush. Modest Mussorgsky. Antonín Dvořák. The Beatles. Van Halen (DLR era). David Bowie. Pink Floyd. Alice Cooper. Obscure bands like Golden Palominos and The Nails. And so many more.

I was extremely musically active through the end of college and music still narrates my life and accompanies my moods.

I suspect many people feel this way and get the same level of thrill, solace, comfort, or enjoyment from their music - and theirs may be completely different from my choices.
 
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I have this weird condition where old music puts me off, all I want is something new.
When I mean old, I mean anything from my youth up to the 80's (born in 60).
So right now I am really pumped by EDM especially that popular with shuffle dance.
eg Alan Walker
 
Montrose Make it Last
This song made quite an impression on me as a very young man.
This whole album really is one of my all time favorites...

Boston Hitch a Ride
Epic guitar...

Cry of Love Brother Album
Highway Jones
Bad Thing
Hand me Down
Peace Pipe
The production on this record has influenced my mixing (I have been a live sound engineer for 30 plus years.)
Produced by John Custer...simply a delightful record...

The Cathedrals Quartet Oh What a Savior
I mixed this band for about 40 of their last dares as a band. They had close to a 50 year run...every night we played to sold out venues...and very single night I fire-walled the PA when this song hit its crescendo...and EVERY SINGLE night there as not one person sitting...EVER...
I peaked a truck load of speakers and never got one complaint.
Great guys...it was an honor to have worked with them.
We were in Birmingham Alabama the night Glenn Payne, the lead signer passed...he had been off of the road for a few months.. He and George, the bass singer has been together for close to 5 decades...George toughed it out and went out on stage and sang his ever loving ass off!
 
Early 70's: Focus Some of you may remember their one and only hit, "Hocus Pocus", with the manic yodeling and astounding guitar. Thing is, nothing else they did sounded like that. This is more representative of who they were.


Middle 70s: Joni Mitchell She's played so many styles with so many musicians it's hard to categorize her. Here she is having an imaginary conversation with TIGHAR's favorite aviatrix:

80's - 90's: One man, two bands. Scott Miller was the man, Game Theory and Loud Family were the bands. Here he is in Loud Family, performing perhaps the coolest song ever recorded:
 
G-Man said:
I'm curious how much this ends up having generational references? To misquote comedian Chris Rock "You'll always love the music you were listening to when you started making out."
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Oh dear God. The popular music of my teens was absolutely awful. A high school teacher loaning me a copy of The Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks" and Devo appearing on SNL are probably the two biggest musical epiphanies of my life and definitely changed the way I listened to music. The relief in finding that there was much more to music than Donna Summer and The Eagles was liberating. :D

Not from NMTB but representative and hopefully inoffensive :rolleyes:

...and the aforementioned SNL episode:

G-Man said:
I was extremely musically active through the end of college and music still narrates my life and accompanies my moods.
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This, a million times. If you listen to my choices understand that music accompanies my moods but does not define them :eek:.

Several examples of songs that have led me to bands with catalogs deep enough to guided my tastes, and that I still listen to frequently:

Iggy Pop

The Nomads

Which gets us through the 80's.

Nauga,
to be continued.
 
The 90's were a little dry but got there eventually.

Jawbreaker

Man...or Astro-Man?

Pinhead Gunpowder

Dead to Me

Riverboat Gamblers

It's funny (to me anyway) how the East Bay sound really grabbed me, long before I had ever been to the area.

Thanks for indulging me :p

Nauga,
whose neighbors should know by now
 
Damn, Nauga. You're even more deep and enigmatic than I previously believed.
 
Ray Charles - I can't articulate it, but there is a quality, a characteristic of his voice I find compelling. Same for Nina Simone. Her covers of "To Love Somebody" and "Feeling Good" are terrific.
Also have to include Harry Stewart's "End of My journey", bith his natural voice and the melody. Genuine, moving, haunting.

Weird things is, I'm definitely NOT a blues or gospel fan. Some performances transcend genre I guess.

Oh, Oh, and yeah - Joan Osborne's cover of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"! So well done, it is hands-down my favorite cover of all time. I ration myself to once a month,

 
G-Man said:
Damn, Nauga. You're even more deep and enigmatic than I previously believed.
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Yeah, and my wife won't let me pick the playlist either :rolleyes:

Nauga,
a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, covered in bacon and cheese
 
FormerHangie said:
Early 70's: Focus Some of you may remember their one and only hit, "Hocus Pocus", with the manic yodeling and astounding guitar. Thing is, nothing else they did sounded like that. This is more representative of who they were.
Click to expand...

I actually had the album pictured in the video, but that song wasn't on it. Not sure why they used that pic for the video. That song was on the third album. I bought that album, Focus II, or also known as Moving Waves for 'Hocus Pocus'. But it turned out to be a really great album. The second side was all one song and it was really good. It really surprised me.
 
luvflyin said:
The Band. What could be simpler.:) Not life changing but maybe changed how I listen to music, along with many others. Music was my first addiction. This performance gave me a true appreciation for 'singing on the beat.' Not making every syllable match a note, just singin on the beat.

Click to expand...

The Band is a great one for sure. I’ve heard Last Waltz innumerable times in my life but never that rendition with the Staples singers. Adds another layer of fantastic harmonies to the song. Thanks for sharing that one!
 
Bell206 said:
There's been hundreds over the years that tweaked me in various ways, but Pink Floyd is still my go to group since I was a youngin. However, here's my current short list that keeps me on the straight and narrow path.
Crazy Diamond-Parts I-V:
The End (Man on Fire soundtrack):
Amazing Grace:
Take Me Home:
Whiter Shades of Pale:

Comfortably Numb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrOQC-zEog

Then there is Mike Oldfield, Hans Zimmer, Queen, Evanesence, Creed, Jennifer Thomas, Andrea Boccelli, Audiomachine, James Blunt, etc, etc, etc. All depends on the mood. Grew up listening to my Dad's reel-to-reel blasting an A-Z of different artists with some I still follow today like Kingston Trio, Richie Havens, Cream, Stones, Hendrix, etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I figured there’d be several Pink Floyd fans amongst this crowd. Love their lyrics and their penchant for finding different sounds/themes to play with.

I love that song from Procol Harem, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything else they ever made, lol.
 
G-Man said:
I'm curious how much this ends up having generational references? To misquote comedian Chris Rock "You'll always love the music you were listening to when you started making out."

For me, music that resonates with me still and has helped me endure tough times and celebrate great times?
The Who. Rush. Modest Mussorgsky. Antonín Dvořák. The Beatles. Van Halen (DLR era). David Bowie. Pink Floyd. Alice Cooper. Obscure bands like Golden Palominos and The Nails. And so many more.

I was extremely musically active through the end of college and music still narrates my life and accompanies my moods.

I suspect many people feel this way and get the same level of thrill, solace, comfort, or enjoyment from their music - and theirs may be completely different from my choices.
Click to expand...

Eh, I think that holds true a bit. However, I grew up (born in ‘83) listening to tons of 50s-70s rock music from my parents, father had an entire walk-in closet filled with 33rpm records. I listened to the 90’s stuff, too, since it was popular when I was growing up, but honestly there’s not much of it I considered to be “defining”. I also hate most of the music that came out of the 80’s, especially wave/synth stuff and hair-band rock.

Some get locked into the same stuff that plays on the radio. I’ve been fortunate enough to get exposed to a lot of different eras and genres of music, so I don’t get too locked into what was popular when I was in high school/college.

I love streaming apps like Spotify which often suggest a lot of similar music to your playlists which ends up allowing me to dig deeper into a band that I wouldn’t have probably ever heard on SXM or terrestrial radio unless it made the Top 20 countdown.
 
I was a teenager in the 1960s, but never got on the Beatles train. I loved the early 1960s acoustic folk groups, especially The New Christy Minstrels. Their album "Today" was the first record I ever bought with my own money. I collected all their albums (in vinyl, and again when they came out in CD). The first concert I ever attended was in 1965, the New Christy Minstrels at the Greek Theater in Hollywood. The opening act was a young comedian named Woody Allen.

Fast forward to fall 2002. Randy Sparks, founder of The New Christy Minstrels, appeared on the PBS special "This Land Is Your Land" with a couple of other members of the old group, under the name "Randy Sparks & The Minstrels". That was the first I knew they were still alive, let alone performing. I looked online to see where I might be able to catch them in concert. It would be in late January 2003, in Modesto, California, a mere 663 miles from my home in Vancouver WA. I told my wife, "You can go with me if you want, but I'm going."

I met Randy Sparks after the show. I told him we'd driven all the way from Vancouver WA (as if anybody had ever heard of it) to be there. He said, "Vancouver! That's where I started the group in 1961." Who knew?

A couple of months later I sent Randy an e-mail, suggesting he consider doing a "Homecoming Concert" in Vancouver. Ten minutes later the reply: "Rent a theater and we'll be there." At that moment I became a concert producer. It was my show -- advertising (radio and print), promotion, ticket sales, program design -- everything.

The funny part of that was, during the months we were putting the Vancouver show together, the movie A Mighty Wind came out. If you didn't see it, it was a comedy about a reunion concert of '60s-era folk acts, including one called "The New Main Street Singers", an obvious parody of NCM. My son saw it and said, "Dad, you're living a movie!"

The concert was in September 2003, We sold out 546 seats. The story on the front page of the local paper was headlined, "A Mighty Coincidence."

In the years following, Randy re-recruited more of the old group, as many as seven of the original ten, and re-acquired the name "The New Christy Minstrels" that he had sold back in the 1960s.

I put together a few more shows for them in the Northwest, and one here in Phoenix as recently as last year.

Whenever I showed up at one of their concerts, Randy had me come up with my guitar and join the group for the finale, This Land Is Your Land. A groupie's dream, being on stage with Randy Sparks, Barry (Eve of Destruction) McGuire, Dolan Ellis, Art Podell, Clarence Treat, and the others. Once I was with them on the main stage of a Carnival cruise ship. Whoda thunkit?

Yours truly, second from the right, Redding CA, 2007:



Randy Sparks' music is fun, positive, and always historically accurate. He is one of those people I admire, who are in awe of their surroundings and observant of everything. I have told him I learned more of American history and geography from his music than I ever did in school. He's 86 years old, still writing, still performing.
 
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G-Man said:
Obscure bands like Golden Palominos and The Nails. And so many more.
Click to expand...
'88 Lines' showed up in my Pandora feed the other day. I think it was @wanttaja that did a parody of it and all the people Captain Zoom has...well, zoomed.

FormerHangie said:
Early 70's: Focus Some of you may remember their one and only hit, "Hocus Pocus", with the manic yodeling and astounding guitar.

80's - 90's: One man, two bands. Scott Miller was the man, Game Theory and Loud Family were the bands. Here he is in Loud Family, performing perhaps the coolest song ever recorded:
Click to expand...
First, Hocus Pocus brings back memories, but not their version. We bet an enthusiastic band at an open mike night that they couldn't cover it. We lost. It was at once hilarious, frightening, and awe inspiring. (Sounds like a song by The Sweet :) )
Second, GAME THEORY!!! Thank you! 'Don't Respond' is one of those songs I heard once or twice when it was first released and thought it was interesting but never got around to tracking it down. Done! There is all kinds of stuff like this just lurking and waiting to be found.

Let'sgoflying! said:
So right now I am really pumped by EDM especially that popular with shuffle dance.
eg Alan Walker
Click to expand...
For me it's an unnatural attraction to Drum and Bass. I blame The Powerpuff Girls.

Save yourself a lot of time and skip to the middle.

Nauga,
and his short attention span
 
Pilawt said:
I was a teenager in the 1960s, but never got on the Beatles train. I loved the early 1960s acoustic folk groups, especially The New Christy Minstrels. Their album "Today" was the first record I ever bought with my own money. I collected all their albums (in vinyl, and again when they came out in CD). The first concert I ever attended was in 1965, the New Christy Minstrels at the Greek Theater in Hollywood. The opening act was a young comedian named Woody Allen.

Fast forward to fall 2002. Randy Sparks, founder of The New Christy Minstrels, appeared on the PBS special "This Land Is Your Land" with a couple of other members of the old group, under the name "Randy Sparks & The Minstrels". That was the first I knew they were still alive, let alone performing. I looked online to see where I might be able to catch them in concert. It would be in late January 2003, in Modesto, California, a mere 663 miles from my home in Vancouver WA. I told my wife, "You can go with me if you want, but I'm going."

I met Randy Sparks after the show. I told him we'd driven all the way from Vancouver WA (as if anybody had ever heard of it) to be there. He said, "Vancouver! That's where I started the group in 1961." Who knew?

A couple of months later I sent Randy an e-mail, suggesting he consider doing a "Homecoming Concert" in Vancouver. Ten minutes later the reply: "Rent a theater and we'll be there." At that moment I became a concert producer. It was my show -- advertising (radio and print), promotion, ticket sales, program design -- everything.

The funny part of that was, during the months we were putting the Vancouver show together, the movie A Mighty Wind came out. If you didn't see it, it was a comedy about a reunion concert of '60s-era folk acts, including one called "The New Main Street Singers", an obvious parody of NCM. My son saw it and said, "Dad, you're living a movie!"

The concert was in September 2003, We sold out 546 seats and made the front page of the local paper. In the years following, Randy re-recruited more of the old group, as many as seven of the original ten, and re-acquired the name "The New Christy Minstrels" that he had sold back in the 1960s.

I put together a few more shows for them in the Northwest, and one here in Phoenix as recently as last year.

Whenever I showed up at one of their concerts, Randy had me come up with my guitar and join the group for the finale, This Land Is Your Land. A groupie's dream, being on stage with Randy Sparks, Barry (Eve of Destruction) McGuire, Dolan Ellis, Art Podell, Clarence Treat, and the others. Once I was with them on the main stage of a Carnival cruise ship. Whoda thunkit?

Yours truly, second from the right, Redding CA, 2007:



Randy Sparks' music is fun, positive, and always historically accurate. He is one of those people I admire, who are in awe of their surroundings and observant of everything. I have told him I learned more of American history and geography from his music than I ever did in school. He's 86 years old, still writing, still performing.
Click to expand...

Great story! I’ll bet you would have been happy just getting the email reply from the band about setting up the venue, much less having it turn into a side gig and performance opportunity!
 
Sundancer said:
Ray Charles - I can't articulate it, but there is a quality, a characteristic of his voice I find compelling. Same for Nina Simone. Her covers of "To Love Somebody" and "Feeling Good" are terrific.
Also have to include Harry Stewart's "End of My journey", bith his natural voice and the melody. Genuine, moving, haunting.

Weird things is, I'm definitely NOT a blues or gospel fan. Some performances transcend genre I guess.

Oh, Oh, and yeah - Joan Osborne's cover of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"! So well done, it is hands-down my favorite cover of all time. I ration myself to once a month,

Click to expand...

She torched that one. Gotta love that raw voice. But we can’t forget it was a tribute to The Funk Brothers. Here’s another one from Standing in the Shadows of Motown.
 
I hated country music then I heard Zac Brown. I hated jazz then I heard the Rippingtons.

Normally a classic (70's, 80's) rock kind of guy.
 
I hated 80s music until...well, I still hate most 80s music. I could’ve gotten by without that decade.

Interestingly, I’m hearing some of those artists going “back to their roots” and/or singing “old guy” music on the blues stations.
 
I like the autobiographical backgrounds of several Rush songs (Fly by Night, Subdivisions, Limelight). Plus I have a high voice and can sing sort of like Geddy Lee.
There's not too much music that I don't appreciate, at least at a genre level (having been forced to learn to play the violin five-and-a-half decades ago, I got an early start on classical.)
 
kyleb said:
Allman Brothers. Stormy Monday.


Boz Scaggs. Loan me a dime.

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Love Stormy Monday. Some great blues riffs in that song. I love a lot of Allman Bros music, very versatile musicians. The duo with Boz Skaggs was a great one, I hadn't heard that one before. I need to dig into Skaggs' albums more since I really only know his popular stuff. I bet there are some gems that didn't get much playing time, especially not on today's radio stations where they just recycle the Top 20 hits from each year every day.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I like the autobiographical backgrounds of several Rush songs (Fly by Night, Subdivisions, Limelight). Plus I have a high voice and can sing sort of like Geddy Lee.
There's not too much music that I don't appreciate, at least at a genre level (having been forced to learn to play the violin five-and-a-half decades ago, I got an early start on classical.)
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I love Rush for their musicianship and incredible talent (especially as a drummer, watching Peart do his thing). Subdivisions is a favorite of mine. I, however, can only take so much of Lee's voice. Usually after 5-6 songs in succession I'll listen to something else. His voice is unique, but can be polarizing as well, lol.
 
Not sure where to even start: The first radio I remember having was when I got an AM radio for a birthday or Christmas. I remember it being in Brooklyn, NY so that would have been 1st grade in the early-mid '60s. NYC radio, even on the AM dial, back in the day would have had everything from Motown, to rock, to pop, to everything else, and I remember listening to all of it. Back then it would have been the Stones, Kinks, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, and many, many more. I don't think stations were as specialized then as they are now. You could have heard the Supremes followed by the Byrds on the same station.

I think that appreciation for variety stuck with me over the years. I still scan the dial for something new to like, and don't really care where or what it is. I'll know it when I hear it. A lot "pop" music over the decades hasn't had a lot of staying power, it's a splash and then it's over. But some other things have been burned into cultural history and will be around for a long time. We'll be listening to that music from the Stones, Bowie, Dylan, and others for quite a while.

A few examples:

Gimme Shelter (turned up to 11)
I especially like the Motorhead cover of Sympathy for the Devil (also turned up to 11)

And Heroes, either the Bowie or Motorhead version.

Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.
 
Not surprisingly, my perceptions and reactions change as I grow older. There were several Styx tunes that got to me when I was in high school, such as "Crystal Ball," but seemed trite later on. In college I loved "Circumstances" by Rush, and even today it sticks with me. (Still a big Rush fan.) More recent Rush tunes reach me now, though, such as "The Larger Bowl" and "The Way the Wind Blows."

One tune that really cuts me these days is "If We Are the Body" by Casting Crowns.


Also "How Did You Love" by Shinedown.
 
Lots of music has touched or moved me over the years. I still have a “Divorce Mix” that helped get me through that ordeal a while back.

But only one genre would I consider life-changing - the anti-war protest songs of the 1960’s, best personified by Phil Ochs.


Aided my transformation from Air Force ROTC cadet to anti-war protestor. And possibly saved my life in the process.
 
Half Fast said:
Not surprisingly, my perceptions and reactions change as I grow older. There were several Styx tunes that got to me when I was in high school, such as "Crystal Ball," but seemed trite later on. In college I loved "Circumstances" by Rush, and even today it sticks with me. (Still a big Rush fan.) More recent Rush tunes reach me now, though, such as "The Larger Bowl" and "The Way the Wind Blows."

One tune that really cuts me these days is "If We Are the Body" by Casting Crowns.


Also "How Did You Love" by Shinedown.
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Agreed on that CC song. I have a hard time with a lot Christian rock mainly due to the format the music takes. There tends to be a heavy emphasis on repetition of the chorus and generally pretty mundane musicianship (not a knock on the musicians), almost always in 4/4 time. It causes me to lose interest because the songs from several artists ends up sounding much the same. The genre (being what it is) tends to focus around the same handful of themes which I understand but also get apathetic hearing. There are some great gems though, often with those bands/artists who tackle some of the more intimate/difficult subjects in their lyrics (not usually the stuff churches would have in service). It has to be difficult to write music which is predominantly lyrics-forward while still wanting to have something challenging for musicians to play (country music is often this way).
 
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