This Record Changed My Life VIII

KE$ha | Artist
Beastie Boys | License To Ill 
I remember very specifically hearing this for the first time. I love their irreverence, and they’re funny as fuck – they don’t give a fuck. It’s very much the energy of rock ‘n’ roll but over a different genre of music, which is why I was so drawn to them, and also why I made the first record that I did – it was because I listened to them so much. I’m a little bit OCD and when I like something I just listen to it over and over. Like, literally, for the past two years I’ve been listening to The Slider [T-Rex] and The Idiot [Iggy Pop]. The Beastie Boys are just funny and their sense of humour is something that I really like. It’s something that is sometimes overlooked in music, the importance of having a sense of humour about yourself. Then again, the first record I remember buying was Big Willie Style, so it wasn’t all arthouse…

Luke Logemann | Head of Recorded Music UNFD
American Nightmare | Background Music 
Even though I had listened to hardcore and punk for a good five years, the release of American Nightmare’s debut album was the first time I found a record that I knew I’d listen to for the rest of my life. The speed, passion and originality this band brought to the table is the reason so many people have been affected by this Boston band. Lyrically, it takes a new, more personal take on what hardcore had done previously, but retains the punk rock, fuck you type attitude this music is known for. They ended up changing their name to Give Up The Ghost, but fans will forever know them as American Nightmare.

Lakyn | Artist
The Beatles | Help! 
It was the year 2000, I was eight, and somehow my ears found their way to the timeless sound of The Beatles. I told my parents about my new found love and I remember them looking at me like “this isn’t right? he should be listening to Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit like the other kids.” Although I missed The Beatles train by a few decades I wasn’t going to leave the train station anytime soon. For Christmas that year my parents bought me Help! and that is the record that changed my life. I was lured in by Yesterday, Paul McCartney’s voice just grabbed my heart and covered it in everything good, accompanied by that string quartet; it was just a sound so real and honest, unlike anything I’d heard in my whole eight years of existence.

Joe Hansen | Grinspoon
Fugazi – In On the Kill Taker
When I heard Fugazi were playing the Italo club in Lismore in 1993, it definitely peaked my interest. What are they doing here? Bands like that just don’t come to Lismore! To prepare for the gig i went out and bought their latest album, In On the Kill Taker. Wow. Subtle, abrasive, dynamic, intense, catchy and harsh all at once, it blew my mind. Starting off with a chimey guitar and a slow rhythmic build, the first song Facet Squared eventually kicks in like a punch in the face. Though Ian MacKaye’s high pitched scream is basically unintelligible, the intensity of the delivery is unmistakeable- this bloke’s not mucking around! The first five songs are all Fugazi classics, but for me the absolute highlight is right at the end, the brilliant Last Chance For A Slow Dance. A slow burner built on a hypnotic guitar motif, it shows how Fugazi, supposedly a “post hardcore” band, constantly defy classification into any genre- they are simply Fugazi. The most striking thing about the album to me is how “real” it feels. The unadorned production may leave some people wondering if the reverb button was broken that day in the studio, but it has the effect of giving the music such an immediacy, it feels like you’re in the rehearsal room with them. The plaintive opening vocals of Rend It or the drawn out scream in “Instrument” for example, are just so there, in your face, raw and emotional. It’s the sound of real people playing real music, in a room together, sweating on their instruments, blistering and bloodying their hands, and losing their voices- it may not be pretty but to me it’s fucking beautiful!!

Emmylou Harris | Artist
Joan Baez | Joan Baez 
Joan Baez – Joan Baez Her voice. Oh my God her voice at the top range, it was something straight from heaven. I eased into music a little bit when folk started getting popular when I was in high school. Peter, Paul and Mary, I did like them, I enjoyed the harmonies and the songs, but it was really Joan Baez who made me get a guitar and really try to learn songs from her record … I did one album that I wrote:The Ballad Of Sally Rose, and I had been working on that for a few years before I actually did the album. I had an idea for a song cycle and I would work on it here and there and not get anything finished. When Bruce Springsteen’s album Nebraska came out, that album inspired me so much; I thought it was a brilliant, brave record. And I thought, ‘You know what? If you’re really serious about being an artist, you need to take the time and finished this project.’ And so I did.