Guitar Gear Forum

Friend of mine posed this question on Facebook today. I had never tried to narrow it down to just one, before. Here's what I came up with (and I fully expect to me excoriated for this answer, but hell, that ain't nuthin' new around here for me!):

All right, y'all are (rightly) gonna make merciless fun of me for this, but let me preface it by saying that I grew up in a really small, backwards south Georgia town and never even heard actual classic rock and/or roll on the radio till I went away to college. So, when I was, I guess, 14, I picked up ~ on vinyl, no less ~ the Styx double album _Caught in the Act Live_. Now, I know ... Styx. And I know, that was the infamous, ludicrous "Kilroy Was Here" tour. It's not my fault. I started listening to the radio in 1982, and all we had were pop stations. That's how I found out about Kilroy, and when I went to the record store (remember those???), I discovered this "new" band had all these other albums on cassette going back years...

But it was the live double album that probably had the biggest influence on me, for two reasons: one, I had never heard that kind of quasi-artsy, semi-proggy rock before (and wouldn't have guessed what the concert overall was like just from the stupid Mr. Roboto single!); and two, I had never heard LIVE versions of studio recordings performed in concert like that before.

So, yeah. The loud (to me), aggressive (to me at the time) guitars, the live energy, the extended solos, and the complex vocal harmonies pretty much ended up defining what I would come to think of as "good music," things I would want to do in my own writing, performing, and recording, for the rest of my life, long after I had discovered "better" (more critically acclaimed) and heavier bands.

What about y'all?

Nirvana Nevermind for me. Started getting tabs in the early harmony central days and never looked back. Such awesome heavy music that was so much cooler than everything else I'd heard to that point.

There are many others but that one probably had the most profound impact.

Thurston wrote:Nirvana Nevermind for me. Started getting tabs in the early harmony central days and never looked back. Such awesome heavy music that was so much cooler than everything else I'd heard to that point.

There are many others but that one probably had the most profound impact.

Right on. I found it really hard to pick one, and if I couldn't chosen more than one, I'd have some much better albums up there.

Quadrophenia, for instance.

I tend to give Nirvana a hard time because they got associated with the wave of Grunge that knocked out a lot of the stuff that I liked at the time, but they certainly were a fresh, new sound when Nevermind came out and you can't argue with that impact.

ajaxlepinski wrote:

I WISH I'd discovered this album as a much younger man! It's transcendent.

Probably the best live band that ever existed.

...at the risk of having my good friend Ryan D shit all over me again

If I have to pick only one, it'd have to be this guy. There's been a lot of albums that floated my boat in many ways, but this one is the one that got me for the longest time.

G-SPACE wrote:...at the risk of having my good friend Ryan D shit all over me again

If I have to pick only one, it'd have to be this guy. There's been a lot of albums that floated my boat in many ways, but this one is the one that got me for the longest time.

Why would anybody give you shit over that one, my man? Especially after the entry in the OP???

^^^ Forgot about that one!!! ^^^ AWESOME album. My old band used to play Paranoid at gigs but, we did it fast, Dickies style.

First album I bought with my own money. I had those old Princess Liea looking headphones with the coily cord. I would lay on my bed and listen to it over and over and over. Probably the reason I am more bass player than guitar player.

Still my favorite album.

Impossible to nail down an "answer" to this question. So many bands and albums influenced me in one way or another along the way.

Yarbicus wrote:

First album I bought with my own money. I had those old Princess Liea looking headphones with the coily cord. I would lay on my bed and listen to it over and over and over. Probably the reason I am more bass player than guitar player.

Still my favorite album.

Timely post for me. This band (not this album though) would be close to the top of my list. If I could choose more than one and still satisfy the constraints given in the original post.

JiveTurkey wrote:

Yarbicus wrote:

First album I bought with my own money. I had those old Princess Liea looking headphones with the coily cord. I would lay on my bed and listen to it over and over and over. Probably the reason I am more bass player than guitar player.

Still my favorite album.

Timely post for me. This band (not this album though) would be close to the top of my list. If I could choose more than one and still satisfy the constraints given in the original post.

For me, it is not even close. Sure, there are plenty of other bands than have had a significant impact on me but this band and particularly this album dwarf all others for me. Frankly, it got me through some really rough teenage years.

Yarbicus wrote:Frankly, it got me through some really rough teenage years.

This right here is why, when the discussion that got heated RE: GVF where everyone was dogpiling; I admitted defeat in finding new stuff that measures up. Yeah; there's some good stuff that continues to come out. But not "good stuff' that measures up in any way, shape or form compared to that stuff that gets you through the rough teenage years. Those albums are special. For Rush; I love all of it but I'd probably go 2112

As a first-hear - musical style I gravitate to - I gotta say



my guitar wankery has gone in a different (easier) direction - more power chords and rhythm playing - but that is just where I picked up my self teaching - and have not progressed far from it.

draelyc wrote:What about y'all?

I can hear the Styx influence all over your recordings so that doesn't surprise me.

For me I've got a couple rock albums and a couple hard rock albums that had a profound impact. But for over 30 years the one band that I still listen to and attempt to cover is Whiplash.

Dick Butter Nuts wrote:

draelyc wrote:What about y'all?

I can hear the Styx influence all over your recordings so that doesn't surprise me.

For me I've got a couple rock albums and a couple hard rock albums that had a profound impact. But for over 30 years the one band that I still listen to and attempt to cover is Whiplash.

I have that on vinyl at home

Overall impact? I'll go with the greatest selling album of all time, DSOTM. (edit: third-best, wtf?) I remember running down to the Griffith Park Observatory to see Lazer-ium shows and smoke weed out of metal pipes. Dark Side was always the best. Good times indeed...
[video]https://youtu.be/B-QddLcds2U[/video]

Profound impact on me as a guitar player? I'll go with Hendrix's Are You Experienced. That was the album that first made me want to play guitar. Profound impact in me in an obscure fashion? I'll go with the Smiths self-titled or maybe the Hatful of Hollow album - it's a tossup. These albums were a guilty pleasure for me as a teen, as all my friends were jamming out to hip hop, classic rock, and grunge music. Yet here I am 25 years later, and I've been playing in a Smiths tribute for over a decade!
[video]https://youtu.be/jGktTbBAHM0[/video]

Yarbicus wrote:

First album I bought with my own money. I had those old Princess Liea looking headphones with the coily cord. I would lay on my bed and listen to it over and over and over. Probably the reason I am more bass player than guitar player.

Still my favorite album.

Another fantastic entry that I wish I had discovered as a younger musician!

Dick Butter Nuts wrote:

draelyc wrote:What about y'all?

I can hear the Styx influence all over your recordings so that doesn't surprise me.

For most folks 'round here, that comment would probably be interpreted as an insult, lol, but I just gotta own it. Thanks, mang.

probably this, in all honesty. one of the weirder records i'd heard at the time, and when i first heard it, it kinda scared me. not in any REAL sense, but it was SO fucked up and so NOT rock, but yet, so balls out and completely off radar.

but also



SO inspired, dynamic, and full bore rock.



really, kinda just iconic.



soulside hot bodigram. proof positive that you don't need to be virtuosic to play fucking amazing rock.



life of crime. rhythm section amazeballs and vocal powerdestruction.



don cab 2. yep. alinear rock madness.


these are a few.. it's IMPOSSIBLE to qualify all the MOST profound impacts. it's like rings in a tree... i could add a million others, but as a guitarist, all of these were mindblowers.

Kiss Alive. This made my 14 year old self want to play guitar.

soo many over the years but 2 at the top are.. Steve Harris as that was the first electric bass guitar I ever heard and still is one bad mofo in the world of electric rock bass. Also the Maiden cats never overdosed , never killed anyone and never dissed their fans . They are at the top of their game after all these years and true legends of Metal . The other is Mark Egan , the first fretless player I ever heard and from the first note I new I found what I was looking for . Thank you

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Hyz4pOXtE[/video]


[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E77dEVb-wko[/video]

VH 1

So many great entries in here. The British invasion hit me hard, as I grew up with my aunt, who was a few years older than me.
Animals
Kinks
Who
Stones
Beatles
Faces
Spencer Davis
etc
But as far as guitar, the guy that kicked me in the ass the most (by far) was Hendrix. In particular, the Band of Gypsys and the live at Monterey records. The intro of him by Brian Jones at Monterey, and the opening riffs of "Killing Floor" still gives me chills. Whatta pimp.

Okay, since a lot of folks are kind of ignoring the "1 album/artist" restriction, I'mma add these two, because I believe their impact on me was every bit as great as the one I initially posted.

The first CD I ever bought, once I finally upgraded to a CD player (long after everybody else already had:



Didn't originally go with this album because it's a greatest hits compilation and not so much an album, but I lived in the two discs of this collection for like, a solid year after I got it. I may not have listened to anything else during that time -- can't remember for sure now, but there was certainly enough variety in this collection that I didn't need to go elsewhere. What these guys could do with a three piece format, and more importantly, the way they evolved over the years (very apparent from a lengthy collection like this) was truly inspiring!

And the second CD I ever bought:



Their single "It's Love" from the previous album introduced me to the band, but Dogman was the first album of theirs that I bought and really dove into. That a three piece could be so heavy and yet have all the intricate vocal harmonies that had hooked me with Styx was ... a transcendent experience.

So, between Rush and King's X, I realized that my ideal band concept was the classic power trio. Been trying to put one together most of my playing life that could also do the vocals like I want, but finding a bassist and drummer A) who want to do it, and B) who can sing and play at the same time has thus far eluded me.