By that criterion, my keystone album was undoubtedly...I know, it's difficult. As I stated in my OP my keystone was the album that broke me out of the box named 'singles chart' and into an almost infinite world of 'other stuff' and I became almost overnight a rockbore of the first order able to hold my own in the 6th form common room and carry around LP covers without fear of ridicule. Does that help?
That's +3 for Tubular Bells! I may have to declare it the most influential album ever released. Today I actually dug out my copy and gave it a spin for the first time in years and you know what? It's still one of the most singular records you could listen to. Eccentric, beautiful, humorous (in a Canterbury scene sort of way) and awe-inspiring.By that criterion, my keystone album was undoubtedly...
wait for it...
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield!
At the age of 11, having heard nothing much beyond the top 40, it came as a revelation. Thank goodness for older brothers.
I recently made a list of 10 albums that influenced my musical taste for one of those Facebook "chain letter" things. Apart from TB, two other early contenders are Todd Rundgren's A Wizard a True Star and 23 Skidoo's Seven Songs, both of which boggled my ears and opened my mind in different ways.
I still return to Rundgren and Skidoo occasionally, but rarely listen to Mike Oldfield these days.
I also have keystone albums for jazz and classical music, but I'll save those for another post.
God, another one bought on the day of release but lost in the Great House Move Mystery.My first copy of TB owned as a school kid was on the tan label I think, long since sold and replaced with the b&w label laminated sleeve original. There was a time about 20 years ago where you could still find close to mint originals in the £1 bins of some shops who only cared about titles, not pressings. I liberated a fair few that way, kept the best myself and cashed the rest in at £15 or so. Likely worth a good bit more now.
Thinking a out it I can actually trace a lot of this stuff directly to Reaction Records in New Brighton; a wonderful second hand record shop in the ‘70s run by a couple of cool hippy biker types who were very kind to curious little kids like us and gave us lots of suggestions as to where to look next. We could just trade whatever it was back in the next week if we didn’t like it. I learned a heck of a lot from that shop.
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Alquin’s Mountain Queen is a must listen!Yes, Focus! Not much talked about today but the best instrumental band ever. I too own Moving Waves and Focus 3 which led me to fellow Dutch band, Alquin whose 'Mountain Queen' is another instrumental tour de force.
Alquin’s Mountain Queen is a must listen!
Yes, I have both Marks and Mountain Queen but nothing else. I see that their whistle test appearance doing The Dance has just appeared on YouTube. I saw this back in the day and rushed out to buy Mountain Queen. It took me ages to find it as no one seemed to stock it but it is one of my treasured LPs. And it sounds great - really well recorded."Marks" (their first album) is equally fine. Less keen on the other two from the '70s, and haven't heard the ones from this century.