Monday, January 12

Okay, I know not everyone feels as strongly about music as I do. But I'm sure just about everybody has at least one piece of music that has really grabbed them. You know the one. You can still remember exactly where you were when you first heard it. You were so entranced by it, that everything else receded into the background and it was just you and the music. Fine. Maybe I'm a little looney, but this has happened to me on more than one occasion. So here, in no particular order, is the music that has grabbed me:

- Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd - I can still vividly recall the first time I popped this album in and listened to it all the way through. I was completely entranced from beginning to end. The way the songs are entwined throughout each other and fit together is perfect. To this day I am still unable to put this album on and just cherry-pick a song or two. The album is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

- Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - I was in my car when I first heard this piece in its entirety on the radio. I sat in my car in a parking lot and listened to all 25 minutes of it, unable to tear myself away.

- Neil Young's Harvest - After the Gold Rush is great, but it didn't capture me like this simple album.

- Eminem's "Lose Yourself" - This one surprised me. But the first time I came across it on the radio, I was enthralled. Again, I sat in my parked car because I had to hear it all, the whole story. Gripping lyrics.

And no good music list would be complete without....Bob Dylan. His stuff fascinates me more than anyone else, but the album that really gripped me was Bringing It All Back Home. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to hear it in context, when it first came out. I mean, Blood on the Tracks is probably my favorite all-time album, but the energy of Bringing It All Back Home is something else. Combine that with some of the best love songs of Bob's career, and you've got one magnetic album.

I'll see if I can drudge up a few more favorites. Feel free to send me yours.

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