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Category: Music
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Influential Albums

I started collecting music in 2013 as soon as I began lurking /mu/. Before that time, my taste sat with only the most vanilla of all music, and tracing any of that is esthetically round-about. This listing follows my taste roughly chronologically:

A 10x10 from when I was ~21

Slint - Spiderland

Slint's Spiderland is probably the first record that I listened to which really riveted me. I'm not sure if my first listen to this album was really depthy, or perhaps it showed itself at an important time of my life; either way, I was knocked to the floor in tears at the end of the album.

Animal Collective - Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished

A very early release from the formative and still-in-college Animal Collective, I listened to this release around the same time as Spiderland. Again, I was obliterated and reduced to a sad pile on the floor.

Kanye West - Yeezus

Just by virtue of being on /mu/ I listened to Yeezus

Porter Robinson - Worlds

Sort of a high-school record of mine is Porter Robinson's Worlds; this is my absolute favorite album of all-time and it's unlikely that you'll spend a day with me and not hear me talk about it in some in/direct way. The album was released in 2014, although I listened to it for the first time in May 2015. It's been the biggest musical influence on me; I'd absolutely recommend listening to it.

I discovered Worlds only because I was heavily into the dirty, nasty youth of early 10's EDM (i.e. dubstep); during my exploration I stumbled clumsily into Robinson's Spitfire, an album full of the things I loved at the time: a steady kicked-up palette of drums and powerful, layered synth leads. I burned Spitfire to a CD, threw it in my car, and forgot about Robinson for some time.

Unfortunately I started watching anime some time after this, which lead me to discover a lot of artists which really resonated with me like Wakusei Abnormal, MELT BANANA, Passepied, Kinoku Teikoku; these bands are only a few among my early influences. There are likely many still unlisted and forgotten.

Perfume - ⊿

The next remarkable album I can recall listening to is ⊿ by J-Pop group Perfume. I fell in love with this album for quite some time, and it contributed to my continued engagement with Japanese music/culture. Particularly, this album's production is so tight and cute and pop-ish that I couldn't help but hold it close.

Between the Buried and Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence

It's as progressive as progressive metal had ever dared up to Colors, but this release from Between the Buried and Me influenced me heavily while studying for many topics, some of which were on my college exams and some of which I only studied for fun.

Supercell - supercell2

Vocaloid; I listened to this as I was entering college so it also has a special place in my heart no matter how unforgivable Black Rock Shooter may be.

The Blue Hearts - The Blue Hearts

The self-titled release from The Blue Hearts is such an uplifting release that it helped me recover from an unavoidable depression which resulted from my stubborness during my first semesters in college. That's not to say that I'm not so stubborn anymore, of course, but I'm only better at it.

tomggg - Butter Sugar Cream

Really representing my flirts with future bass which were relatively short-lived (maybe for a season or two), this genre was very refreshing and new. I do not think that anything in the genre has ever come close to this album.

Moe Shop - Pure Pure

After I exhausted myself thumbing through the depths of the budding future bass genre, I dove into future funk. This was probably the most well-produced of all future funk (not saying much when you take the genre) but it explores a lot, lot, lot more outside of that narrow window than I can explain in one genre tag. Not a very remarkable release in hind-sight, but it was very remarkable to me at the time.

J Dilla - Donuts

This was the first listen I'd ever given J Dilla. The quality of this release sent me looking for more beat-tapes and what-not. I definitely owe a lot of my broadened taste to this album, as it opened the doors to me discovering a lot of artists I never would have explored otherwise.

Modjo - Modjo

Modjo is exactly one of the artists I listened to because of Donuts. When I reconciled the high-tempo music I'd been exploring prior to Dilla with the flow I heard in Donuts, Modjo filled that whole in my heart perfectly; things tend a little more electronic from here on out.

k?d - Birth of the Universe

This release is only a single, but the Worldsy sound really resonates with me.

Purity Ring - another eternity

The dining hall at my university had bodyache in their morning rotation and I was attracted to Purity Ring initially at least by that strange association. stranger than earth is a really good track too.

Tyler, the Creator - Scum Fuck Flower Boy

My favorite release of 2017. Very different from Tyler, the Creator's previous work; my listening to this album was almost an accident but I'm very glad that I heard it (it was requested that I provide this album on my website) because I've played it countless times since it dropped.

Virtual Self - Virtual Self EP

After a long spell of touring, Porter Robinson dropped an EP under a new "Virtual Self" alias. My favorite track is Ghost Voices for the deep-house feeling. The neo-trance feeling of the whole album inspired me to explore a lot of music I'd never have listened to otherwise.

Soulja Boy Tell'em - The DeAndre Way

Practically an indespensible part of Soulja Boy Tell'em's diverse discography, The DeAndre Way showcases Soulja Boy's talent as a 21st century musician. Just as he predicted on Souljaboytellem.com - Sidekick, Soulja continues to produce music using for the "new generation...a new thing...a new 2K sound" using "new teknology...t-e-k-nology."

Particularly, I relate to Soulja Boy's bars in First Day of School; I dress every day like it's the first day of school, and I think it's important to express taste through fashion, which often has the consequence of being the freshest in the class. So what if they try to jock your swag? They'll never fucking squad up to the freshest in the school.

Speakers Going Hammer is also another song I bounce to. Although it's cut out as a radio single, it's really catchy and I like it a lot. Not really much else to say about it.

Drake - VIEWS

The Japanese consulate for the Eastern seaboard of the US is in Atlanta, which is 5 hours away from me (and then 5 hours back). Because I needed to go there to drop off my passport and fill out some paperwork for my visa, I knew it would be a long drive. Nobody came with me and so I was free to play whatever music I wanted. I'd never really listened to a full Drake album before so I loaded my phone up with a few and headed down I-85 the next morning aroung 7AM.

VIEWS was definitely my favorite and it had just come out the year before. In fact, it's one of the albums I bumped walking around Tokyo and riding the metro there because that long drive down to ATL left such a lasting impression on me. The juxtaposing taste of salty fries and black coffee, 5 hours down and then 5 hours back, still linger in the back of my head, and those were some of the last things I did before I left to study in Japan. And, I needed to drive BACK down there to pick up my passport after the visa paperwork was processed!

Weston Road Flows is definitely my favorite song on the whole album.

Moe Shop - Moe Moe

This album came out while I was studying abroad in Tokyo; I listened to it on repeat for like a week after it came out, even though it was only an EP it's definitely my favorite piece of work that Moe Shop has produced.

I remember studying and doing my homework in the little room above the Akihabara JR station near that Starbucks and the atmosphere of that place is married to this album for me.

G Jones - The Ineffable Truth

I really started getting into bass-music thanks to one of my friends in uni. who is really into Rezz. Around the same time I discovered the genre G Jones dropped this amazing album.

Gesaffelstein - Conspiracy Pt.2

I think I found Gesaffelstein around the same time my boyfriend got a Spotify premium account. This opened a new world for me because I could quickly discover new music, whereas before it took far longer to find and consume new albums. With this service, I routinely keep clicking "Related Artists" and eventually I find some really, really cool artists who I likely would have never heard of.

Shinichi Osawa - Opus ∞

On one Winter drive up to West Virginia I discovered Osawa's The One. Unfortunately the cell-reception is terrible once you get in WV so I only got halfway through that album before my service quit on me. I had to wait until I got to the ski-lodge itself to finish the album.

I returned to Osawa when I got back to school the following week and this album really stood out among Osawa's discography.

Bon Iver - i,i

Just a really good album; I started listening to new music together with my boyfriend at the time this came out and this was one of the albums we picked to listen to first.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

My favorite some here is Blue Ridge Mountains. The whole album is great. This was on a recommendation from sweets.

k?d - Find Paradise

Another album I listened to on one of my drives to West Virginia. Always reminds me of the snow.

Mr. Oizo - Lamb's Anger

I felt that I had a dry streak of new music in 2019 until I started listening to stuff put out by the French label Ed Banger; although I'd heard of a few artists on the label (notably Justice's †) I really started to dig into Banger in 2019.

aran - ARCHVS

Discovered aran while digging through recommendations from friends whom have also recommended artists like onoken.

Eminem - Music To Be Murdered By

My boyfriend is a big fan of Eminem; although we both liked Kamikaze, this album really stands out for both of us. His favorite song is probaby either Godzilla or Marsh but I really like (warning: hot takes) You Gon' Learn and Yah Yah and Little Engine.

Lethal League Blaze OST

I've only played Lethal League once but the OST is so so good.

Minamotoya - MINAMOTRANCE CORE i7

Really hype doujin trance. The remixes on this album are good too. Maybe I just have really good associations with trance (see: Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune) but either way this album is great.

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