How Could I Forget?

or

I Said "More To Come!"

There have definitely been more influential albums in my life than just the ones I mentioned in the previous post. It's just that I have only so much time I can devote to this kind of posting.

Anyway, here are some more.

The Blues Brothers? "Shoot," fool, they still owe you money! Yes, I'd put the Blues Brothers soundtrack on my list of most influential albums of all time. I can remember sitting in the back of Garrick's pick-up truck outside of our Evanston apartment drinking what we called "white trash margaritas" (they simply consisted of Hi-C blended with crushed ice), grilling whatever we could find on the little smokey joe, blaring the Blues Brothers on a boom box (with the cord coming through our apartment window). You should have seen us "shake a tail feather" alongside the (rather busy) street.

Bob Marley and the Wailers Legend: There's nothing like Bob Marley to go with a warm Spring 0r Summer day.

Daddy Freddy's in Town. Just kidding. I got this CD free from a fraternity brother named Crackshack. It had been left in his room (the D&D Dungeon) by a previous owner, and 'Shack didn't want it. It includes the worst.version.ever of Bob Marley's Stir it Up.

I couldn't have a list of influential albums without including the Violet Burning on it. I'm still trying to determine what album I'd include. Probably Strength or Chosen; though I don't consider either one to be their best effort, they were the early ones, the ones I was exposed to while I was in college. While Strength has better overall songs, Chosen has some real gems like The Killing. This was influential to me in that it was Christian music with emotion - real emotion. Like at IS-fest, when Michael Pritzl began the concert (first time I saw the Violets) by saying something to the effect of, "I know some of you want a rock-n-roll show, but I'm just not feeling it today" and proceeded to blow me away with an amazing heart-felt show.

While I'm on the subject of the Violets, it was the Altar Boys who opened my eyes to Christian punk music. Gut Level Music was the key for me. Inferiority Complex (my best high school effort at being in a band - Crux was junior high, and the SIDS never got off the ground) did a great live cover version of I'm Not Talking About Religion, too. Yeah, their sound is a bit dated now, but in the early to mid 80s, this was revolutionary stuff in the Christian music industry.

Chris Tomlin Not To Us. There's plenty of good Christian music out there. There's even more really bad stuff. There's plenty of good "radio" stuff that doesn't translate to corporate worship. Chris Tomlin, however, writes stuff that's good live, on the radio, and in church (especially led by the old SonRise Praise Band, but even good led by a single guitar). Tomlin took over where Graham Kendrick left off a few years (a decade and a half? can it really be?) back as the songwriter whose every song is a worship "hit."

So that's some of the music that impacted me. How about you? Or was there something you just know I left out?