Do you remember over the way there was a thread about which albums had influenced your musical tastes? I was just reading an interview with Elvis Costello when he mentioned that two of his influences were two of mine - Motown Chartbusters Vol 3 and Tighten Up Vol 2. Made me feel quite proud of my influences!
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Nebraska was a big influence on Southern Highway Gospel Companion. Mostly it was the sound of the album, I tried hard to create a feeling of space and wide openness and a muted tension that I hear in the record. As far as the songs, the influence was on the dialogue, trying to write the simple way people speak and to use fine details rather than wordy descriptions.
The feeling I tried to convey in First Boy on the Moon is the same endless summer day that I hear on Born To Run.
I don't know if any particular albums influenced my musical tastes as much as artists have led me to other artists. Albums have definitely influenced my writing, though.
Darkness - I think it really helped me get out of adolescence and shape me into what I am.
TGOTJ - It sparked my political consciousness.
Oblivians - Popular Favorites I didn't know music could sound like this
The best of Bob Dylan - my first contact with Dylan. I didn't know things could be written like this.
Born to Run influenced me in a sense.
I was already a music fan of many years standing but this album took me on a journey.
Probably "Scared to Dance" by The Skids, as this was a kind of more mature punk thing that got me thinking.
"Script for a Jester's Tear" by Marillion, maybe that was more the age I was at the time.
Here's one that I stumbled across in a CD store in Washington DC in...1987, I think? I'd never heard a single second of Brian Eno's music, and only knew him as David Bowie collaborator and the producer of Talking Heads and U2. But I saw this disc and bought it unheard, with no idea what it would sound like. I put it on, sat back...and fell in love instantly.