15 Albums That Changed My Life
This is the first of fifteen blogs in a series about the albums that have changed my life. It is not an original idea of mine, but rather one inspired by some of my closest friends who have taken the time to compile their own lists. What seemed at first to be a simple task has proved otherwise. In fact, this is the third time that I have sat down to try and write this entry. I really want to take the easy way out of this one. I would love to just give you what my dad has referred to as my “desert island records.” However, there is so much more involved in coming up with this list than just picking the albums I would want to keep me company should I ever find myself stranded on a desert island and miraculously had a source of electricity or batteries to power a CD player.
This list is going to be very personal. I think that in order to really find out which albums have changed my life I need approach this auto-biographically. I need to go back and retrace the steps along my musical journey and look at where I was, and how I got to where I am now. I hope that for people who know me as a musician this list might give you an insight on what has influenced my style of play and what has been my inspiration creatively.
Also, this list is going to be very embarrassing at times. As I look back and realize what some of the records are I laugh at myself. Hardly any of these albums would make it to that “desert island” list, but they all hold a special place in my heart. The are the albums that in one way or another changed the way I felt about music, influenced my beliefs, and even taught me important lessons about life.
I’m honored that you have taken the time to read this and are making the decision to relive this journey with me. I’ll try my best to keep it interesting and I promise you’ll have a good laugh or two. So here it is: the first of fifteen albums that have changed my life.
Jars of Clay – Jars of Clay (Essential, 1995)
I remember when my family started listening to a Christian radio station when we would be driving around in our gray station wagon. The station was 99.1 WAWZ to be exact. I remember they used to have a half- hour long show a couple nights a week where they would play some of the “edgier” Christian music of the day. This wasn’t the time of the day when you would hear Michael W. Smith or Steven Curtis Chapman. Instead I would hear bands like the Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, and dc Talk. I was also listening to this show the first time that I heard a new band called Jars of Clay and their first single “Flood.” It was like nothing I had ever heard before and I instantly was drawn to them.
This was the album that started it all for me. It was the first album that I purchased with my own money. I can vividly remember being back in Jersey and going to the Freehold Raceway Mall one evening with my family. I was on a mission. I made my way up the stairs and all the way to the back corner of the mall where Lemstone Books, a very small Christian bookstore, was tucked away. From the back corner of the mall to the back corner of this little store I went and searched until I found it: my very first cassette. I couldn’t wait to get back into the car so that I could throw that tape in my Walkman, put on my headphones and listen to my new music.
I was hooked. I listened to that tape over and over again. Looking back I can think of a few reasons that this album struck me in a way like nothing else did. Sonically, my ears were hearing things they had never heard before. Never before had I heard acoustic guitars being driven by electronic drum loops. I remember being blown away by the intensity that was built in “Flood” just before the bridge and then everything cut out and Dan Haseltine’s voice is accompanied only by strings. The way the strings were featured on the entire album had me completely mesmerized. The instrumentation and arrangements of the songs all seemed so foreign to me. It was also the first time I really paid any attention to harmonies, and those harmonies have remained a defining characteristic of their music to this day. They were different from everyone else I had ever heard on the radio, Christian or non-Christian, and I loved it.
I think that I was also drawn to this album because I was learning how to play guitar and all I had was my 3/4-scale Prelude acoustic guitar. I felt like I could learn these songs and they would sound right. That was never the case because I wouldn’t learn until much later that the entire album is played in EABEBE tuning and almost always with a capo. Regardless, it gave me hope of one day playing those songs on my little acoustic. I would also have to credit this record for my absolute love of playing acoustic guitar.
Most importantly they were my band. The first one that I would obsess over. I felt like I discovered them and they wrote those songs specifically for me. No one else I knew listened to them. That would change soon as their popularity grew and I even heard “Flood” on the local mainstream radio stations. However, my dedication to the band remained and is still there to this day.
Jars of Clay have influenced my life greatly. They are the reason the I chose to go to Greenville College, where I would meet my future wife and form some of the best relationships I have ever had. It was there that I would discover my love for studio recording. I played in two bands with some of my best friends and through those bands I found my creative niche both on guitar and bass.
It’s funny to look back and realize just how big of a role one cassette tape has played in my life. I hope that as I continue these blogs I will be able to pick out as many connections as I can with this one. They probably won’t be as long as this one, but I had a lot to say about this album. After all, it is the number one album that has changed my life.
Until next time I want to encourage you all to read my friend Chase’s blog on his website, www.chasemacri.com. Should you decide to do your own list, please let me know because I would love to read it. Later everybody.
Ian
