Ah, the memories..

[delirium]

Where do old albums take you?

I saw a request yesterday for MF DOOM: Operation Doomsday and I thought, "Damn, I haven't listened to that album in ages." I take the album out, pop it into my laptop and right when that opening skit starts I'm teleported back to being 17 again. This is around the time I start to really get into music. And I'm talking skipping class to go to a record shop or leave school during lunch just to check out new releases and making it back just in time for Geometry to start. All my old hobbies I dropped and my whole life started to revolve around music so a lot of albums I got during this time had a real impact on me. Operation Doomsday especially.

When I first got this album I just didn't get it, at all. I was lurking some Hip Hop boards and DOOM wasn't as big (in the underground scene at least) as he is now. But there were some heads already in the know about him and this album just kept popping up from some people. So I say fuck it and go to the shop. I gotta see what this is all about. I got lucky with it 'cause about a week later the album went out of print.

It was unlike any Hip Hop album I'd heard at the time.

He constantly spoke in the third person. All his thoughts were condensed so that he'd express whole ideas in just a few lines where if someone else were trying to spit the same idea they'd take 2 or 3 times as many lines. The songs seemed like they had no structure. They weren't just 16 bars, chorus, another 16 and end song. Verses seemed like they went forever and then seamlessly blend into the chorus (which I only knew was the chorus BTW 'cause it was repeated later on) and back into another verse without missing a beat. And the production is just as quirky. The tempo on Tick, Tock wavers speeding up and slowing down only to speed back up again. Hey samples a single organ note from the Scooby Doo theme and a few voice clips from the show. None of the samples are cleaned up either. That dusty sound from sampling old records is kept making the record itself sound a little old. I didn't understand it at all.

But I kept playing it. Over. And over. And over. I used to take my CD player with me everywhere and just have it on repeat. I'd walk to the basketball courts at the top of the hill nodding my head so some lyrics I didn't understand at the time and just wonder, "What is he doing?" "Why do the skits seem like they're telling a story and what story is it telling?" "What the hell does he mean when he says 'Classical slap-stick rappers need Chapstick'?"

It's funny looking back at it all now seeing how my tastes in music have changed. This album grew to become on of my favorite albums of all time. I play it and can see every note in my head and I move to it banging down on each beat reciting each lyric. I feel energized just hearing..

I used to cop a lot
But never copped no drop
Hold mics like pony tails, tight, and bob a lot
Stop and stick around
Come through and dig the sound
Of the fly brown six-o sicko psycho who throws his dick around

The album was a dive into something new and unknown for me. It got me looking deeper than I usually do when listening to music. Got me asking questions. Fast forward and here I am now finding myself reminiscing about a time where the music was fun and just playing the album makes it feel like I'm starting over again. Like I wanna hear something I'd never heard before and just move. Be surprised. Ask why. Love music.

Where do old albums take you?

[Voynich]

Hmmm so many places.

It depends really.
Yesterday I heard a Spice Girls song on VH1 and I turned 11 again. Joining my friends in their Spice Girls reïnactment during lunch break, but just not getting it and not caring one bit. Being the only one without Spice Girls merch, cds and always getting assigned Scary Spice because everyone wanted to be Baby and I just didn't care.

Ace of Base albums bring me back to...hmm age 8. Endless summers at the camping site where I could still manage to build up a completely new social life in just 6 weeks, road trips to little towns with the windows down and singing along loudly.

Vaya Con Dios takes me back to my earliest childhood. When we still had dinner together and my dad would put on a Vaya Con Dios cd and I'd sing along and dance around the table.

Devy's Ocean Machine makes me remember the early days in the MD when we weren't even a sepparate section yet. Cata suddenly made his appearance and really got me caught up in music.

[erictheking]

Well I haven't got quite the story, but E 1999 Eternal is probably the equivalent record for me in terms of that time I first listened to an album (tape) in its entirety. I had heard hip-hop passingly before and the odd tracks at other people's houses but that tape was the moment when I actively started checking for more hip-hop and music became a bigger pastime than before. Yeah, the killer sample from 'Eternal Champions' (Megadrive/Genesis) sealed it.

[abstract]

Where do old albums take you?

I saw a request yesterday for MF DOOM: Operation Doomsday and I thought, "Damn, I haven't listened to that album in ages." I take the album out, pop it into my laptop and right when that opening skit starts I'm teleported back to being 17 again. This is around the time I start to really get into music. And I'm talking skipping class to go to a record shop or leave school during lunch just to check out new releases and making it back just in time for Geometry to start. All my old hobbies I dropped and my whole life started to revolve around music so a lot of albums I got during this time had a real impact on me. Operation Doomsday especially.

When I first got this album I just didn't get it, at all. I was lurking some Hip Hop boards and DOOM wasn't as big (in the underground scene at least) as he is now. But there were some heads already in the know about him and this album just kept popping up from some people. So I say fuck it and go to the shop. I gotta see what this is all about. I got lucky with it 'cause about a week later the album went out of print.

It was unlike any Hip Hop album I'd heard at the time.

He constantly spoke in the third person. All his thoughts were condensed so that he'd express whole ideas in just a few lines where if someone else were trying to spit the same idea they'd take 2 or 3 times as many lines. The songs seemed like they had no structure. They weren't just 16 bars, chorus, another 16 and end song. Verses seemed like they went forever and then seamlessly blend into the chorus (which I only knew was the chorus BTW 'cause it was repeated later on) and back into another verse without missing a beat. And the production is just as quirky. The tempo on Tick, Tock wavers speeding up and slowing down only to speed back up again. Hey samples a single organ note from the Scooby Doo theme and a few voice clips from the show. None of the samples are cleaned up either. That dusty sound from sampling old records is kept making the record itself sound a little old. I didn't understand it at all.

But I kept playing it. Over. And over. And over. I used to take my CD player with me everywhere and just have it on repeat. I'd walk to the basketball courts at the top of the hill nodding my head so some lyrics I didn't understand at the time and just wonder, "What is he doing?" "Why do the skits seem like they're telling a story and what story is it telling?" "What the hell does he mean when he says 'Classical slap-stick rappers need Chapstick'?"

It's funny looking back at it all now seeing how my tastes in music have changed. This album grew to become on of my favorite albums of all time. I play it and can see every note in my head and I move to it banging down on each beat reciting each lyric. I feel energized just hearing..

I used to cop a lot
But never copped no drop
Hold mics like pony tails, tight, and bob a lot
Stop and stick around
Come through and dig the sound
Of the fly brown six-o sicko psycho who throws his dick around

The album was a dive into something new and unknown for me. It got me looking deeper than I usually do when listening to music. Got me asking questions. Fast forward and here I am now finding myself reminiscing about a time where the music was fun and just playing the album makes it feel like I'm starting over again. Like I wanna hear something I'd never heard before and just move. Be surprised. Ask why. Love music.

Where do old albums take you?


Am I you from the past?:huh


There are few albums that really bring back memories. Highway 61 Revisited always brings back memories from freshmen year, when I would play that album EVERYDAY on the way to school. I always remember just really crisp cold fall air when I listen to it.:wink

Kid A, too. Even though I just discovered Radiohead last fall, I was a completely different person when I started listening to them, it reminds me of my ex.


Physical Graffitti by Zeppelin, too.

[Revy's Slut]

Well first off, I would like to say I was listening to operation doomsday when I opened up this thread, odd coincidence huh?

I'm only 15 now, but looking back on my taste in music has changed some what. At the moment I am mostly into underground rap, trance, techno, electronica, and other things along that line, but don't get me wrong I still listen to the stuff I listened to when I was 8 (rock music).

When I listen to rock, I brings me back to old family parties, elementary school, and middle school for the most part. A time when life was much simpler for me I guess. It's pretty interesting now that I think about it.

[Dr. Boskov Krevorkian]

Oh damn, do I ever...

A few weeks back, I decided to listen to a Change of Seasons again; something I really haven't "listened" to so much as heard for a really long time. It brought me back 3 years, when I, too, was finally getting into music. It was also the time my love for progressive (at this point, mainly metal) music was beginning to solidify and form. Dream Theater was the first band I liked that wasn't typical in any regard, and after hearing that song it really changed my perceptions on music. The song was incredibly long for me to sit through, especially being 15 when I first heard it, and had was an ever evolving piece of music that, while having melody, had a structure that was certainly not typical with my tastes at the time.

It was funny, because I remembered how much I liked that song. I may not like Dream Theater as much as I did then, but that song is certainly still up there.

[Perverse]

I've been a casual listener since about maybe 14 years old. I only really got into about a year ago, maybe 18 months, so I woulda been about 15, 15 and a half at the time.

The first album I think I really started spinning on the regular woulda been Sean Price's Jesus Price Supastar. Indeed, it was Del who got me into the blog scene looking for new shit to spin. Thanks, man.

I think JPS was a great album to really ease my transition into the music lover that I am today. Before this album, I was sorta more into the gangsta rap shit. While I still listen to that occasionally, these days I find myself favouring the more underground, raw hiphop that's from the heart. Jesus Price Supastar had a really grimy, NYC flow that you might hear in your gangsta rappers like Jadakiss, Styles P, etc., but Sean Price wasn't just talkin' about poppin' glocks and shit. He talked about his own life, the mistakes he made, the problems he faced, and all that. It really brought you into his life. It also introduced me to the chill side of hiphop, through the track Let It Be Known, which had a Little Brother on a guest spot. It really got me into appreciating the jazzier shit a la Blu & Exile, Y Society, Nujabes, Nomak, etc.

That's my album from back in the day, even though it was only about 18 months ago.

[Audrey]

I remember when I was really little, and my parents would always play songs by the Beatles, because it's one of the only bands the two of them can agree on. I used to dance and sing with them, and I tried to learn all the words, even though I didn't always know what they were singing about because some of the Beatles' songs are just weird. They were my favorite band for a long time because I never really listened to the radio. Nowadays, even though I don't listen to them as often as I used to, I can tell any song by them as soon as it starts, and I can still sing every single song by them. I still dance sometimes, too.

The radio was mostly foreign to me as a kid, so I never really got hooked on any of that pop music. I also didn't really know much of the popular rock bands from the 90's until after the 2000's began. I had pretty much no knowledge of rap music up until a couple of years ago.

[troublesum-chan]

I notice that there are epochs of emotion in my life, or something like that. just like, there will be a period of a year or two where one emotion kind of underlies everything, and i don't ever notice it until i listen to music i listened to back then, and then it all kind of comes back and i can see the contrast and recognize the pervasive feeling...making any sense? xD

and its not even just a "happy" or "sad" emotion. Its something that hasn't quite been labelled, but its distinct from my current underlying emotion and all the ones that came after and preceded it. When i listen to music i listened to when i was working out in sophomore year, i get this kind of tingling sensation and i can remember running up and down those hills and stopping to swing on the playground swings just for the heck of it, and something that might be melancholy or boredom or a mild mixture of the two with a dash of something tingly.

and then when i listen to the things my dad always plays in the car, i remember going to basketball games and that feeling of not wanting to go, but liking the music and then the radio man talking about food, because i love food. the feeling underneath is just kind of maybe happy or that kind of feeling where you're happy its happening but you're sad at the same time its going to end, and the sad thats its going to end is winning somehow.

theres probably other examples but i can't really think of them

[mystictrunks]

Three years ago I stumbled upon Canibus 2000 B.C. in a local CD store. I have no idea why I picked it up, I remember him getting dissed by Eminem and that was it. I was blown away by the intro, I had never heard anyone rhyme that way. It was like I was high when I listened to him, and then track two hit with it's dogmatic beat and I knew Canibus was unlike anything else. I was hooked and so began my obsession with lyricism.

[Perverse]

BUMP!

More posts, people! Oh, and thanks for the O:D rec, Del. Haven't broken that out in a while.