For me, it'd have to be such "winners" as Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. Man, from age 5 to 8 or so, that was the greatest album ever. Then Ace of Base's The Sign came along and surpassed it in greatness. Oh, and around 5th and 6th grade, Live and Dave Matthews Band were high art... The only classic album I liked as a kid that really stands up today would have to be Peter Gabriel's So. Gabriel's such an under-appreciated artist, IMO (although it would help if he'd release an album more than once a decade...) It's crazy how my tastes have expanded.
I didn't really start listening to good music until around the Spring of 2004. Until then, I listened to a lot of punk pop(Sum 41) and emo(Saves the Day, The Get Up Kids) and even some rap(Cash Money bitches. Haha). It's funny thinking back to those days sometimes. Makes me proud to know that I actually have good taste in music now.
I still think Get Up Kids are pretty good actually. Maybe a bit whiney, but they had their own voice and sound musically.
I remember back in the day, I used to only listen to Movie soundtracks. Batman, Star Wars, Last of the Mohicans, Gettysburg, etc... And then I went huge on Depeche Mode in Highschool, and then Smashing Pumpkins, then into The Get Up Kids in early college.
The first CD I ever owned (which would probably be a cool topic for another thread) was Neil Diamond's greatest hits. And it sounded so good on CD... I would blast it on my stereo.
---------------------------- It's okay, I'm a saint, I forgave your mistakes.
I used to love movie soundtracks, also. The Mask, Batman Forever (lots of Jim Carrey movies, now that I think about it...). Then I moved on to Thomas Newman, who I still think is one of America's great composers for movies.
In elementary school I was totally captivated by the Captain and Tennille album. I still have it and I still love "Love Will Keep Us Together". I'm over "Muskrat Love", though.
Also (This thread is digging deep into my dark past) I had this cheesy disk of Aesop's Fables that came with my computer. When I was in Junior high I used to listen to the story "The Man, The Boy, and His Ass" all the time and laugh with all my friends.
I figured this was perhaps the most appropriate place for a confession.
---------------------------- It's okay, I'm a saint, I forgave your mistakes.
I thought the Now! That's What I Call Music series was pretty much the only music worth owning. I remember particularly liking volumes 4 and 8. I just sold all of them this year to buy Aphex Twin CDs...the people at the store looked shocked.
I must confess to buying and listening to Hanson's Middle of Nowhere, because of Mmm...Bop of course. In my defense, I was 10 years old, and very musically inexperienced. Then for a while I was influenced by some friends and listened to stuff like Limp Bizkit and gangster rap such as Cypress Hill for a few years. Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water was a great title to a brilliant album. Limp Bizkit was the epitome of cool (defense: 13 years old). Very very thankfully I slowly got over this phase, helped by starting to listen to a good radio station, which put me on the path to the music I'm listening to today.
Looking back now, boy am I glad where I've ended up. I just youtubed Limp Bizkit's My Generation and made myself listen to all of it It wasn't a complete waste though, the lyrics actually made me laugh out loud, particularly this gem, and i quote Fred Durst "Hey kid, take my advice, you don't want to step into a big pile of shit".
Originally posted by ProfAmaretto: For me, it'd have to be such "winners" as Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. Man, from age 5 to 8 or so, that was the greatest album ever. Then Ace of Base's The Sign came along and surpassed it in greatness. Oh, and around 5th and 6th grade, Live and Dave Matthews Band were high art... The only classic album I liked as a kid that really stands up today would have to be Peter Gabriel's So. Gabriel's such an under-appreciated artist, IMO (although it would help if he'd release an album more than once a decade...) It's crazy how my tastes have expanded.
Oh man, I was JUST about to type Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em!!! I loved that as a kid. Kris Kross too... I think that was my first cassette, actually.
------------------------------------------------------- Awkwardness happening to someone you love!
I was the youngest of three siblings. My brother and sister were both much older than me (8 and 10 years, respectively). So early on, I was listening to a lot of stuff through them. Lots of British Invasion and the "Have a Nice Day" type 70s Rock. The first album I remember being intrigued by for it's own sake, was the Who's Tommy. "Cousin Kevin" absolutely scared the shit out of me-- I was probably about 7 or 8-- but I really got into the story aspect of the rock opera. While I don't think it's a masterpiece now, I do think it gets a bit of a bad rap. My next foray? Kiss, of course.
_____________________________ Weep to Water the Trees.
"This is my main concern with Obama; what if he has been groomed since childhood to blend in with the zionists and infidels? What if he has been led along by a radical islamic terrorist organization and positioned to become an influential politician?
What if Obama gets into White House and turns out to be some crazy muslim terrorist? What do we do then? We'll be pretty screwed. It could happen." -- by some fucking nutjob
I was a pretty big fan of Backstreet's Back - you can't deny classics like "Everybody" and "As Long As You Love Me". Haha, when I grabbed the CD to look at which songs were actually on that one, I realized how awesome the cover art is. It looks like they just slapped some wordart on it.
Originally posted by ProfAmaretto: Yeah, "Green" is R.E.M.'s worst... one of their really bizarre "transition" records, like I hope "Around the Sun" was...
I think Green holds up quite nicely. It's still my favorite post-IRS REM album. We had some nice discussion of REM recently in this thread, if'n yer intererested.
_____________________________ Weep to Water the Trees.
"This is my main concern with Obama; what if he has been groomed since childhood to blend in with the zionists and infidels? What if he has been led along by a radical islamic terrorist organization and positioned to become an influential politician?
What if Obama gets into White House and turns out to be some crazy muslim terrorist? What do we do then? We'll be pretty screwed. It could happen." -- by some fucking nutjob
Originally posted by ProfAmaretto: Yeah, "Green" is R.E.M.'s worst... one of their really bizarre "transition" records, like I hope "Around the Sun" was...
I think Green holds up quite nicely. It's still my favorite post-IRS REM album. We had some nice discussion of REM recently in this thread, if'n yer intererested.
Metacritic Forums 
In my defense, I was 10 years old, and very musically inexperienced. Then for a while I was influenced by some friends and listened to stuff like Limp Bizkit and gangster rap such as Cypress Hill for a few years. Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water was a great title to a brilliant album. Limp Bizkit was the epitome of cool (defense: 13 years old). Very very thankfully I slowly got over this phase, helped by starting to listen to a good radio station, which put me on the path to the music I'm listening to today. 
