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Anteater · 02-27-2014, 10:16 PM

Sometimes I think the most curious aspect about music on the whole isn't why some songs mean so much to some people...but rather, how it starts to reach into you during that brief period of time in adolescence, that two to five year window where music becomes more than just background noise and you start to build a sonic landscape in your head comprised of the sounds that appeal to you on some instinctual level. Before you know it, your natural inclinations have coalesced and the world seems to become far brighter and more compelling than before. Well, at least that was how it was for me.

While there's nothing special about my musical upbringing, I thought I'd do a couple of posts highlighting the "gateway" bands, artists and songs that helped determine my core foundation as a listener. It's my journal, might as well do it here ya know?

Anyway, we'll start with the obvious: Progressive Rock. I promise I'll pick genres the rest of you care about on the next few posts!

After taking a cursory trip back down memory lane, I determined three particular songs that "converted" me per-se into progressive rock, which I consider the first real "genre" of music I ever fell for. And they are as follows-

Gentle Giant
Nothing At All (1970)

People mostly associate this band with the still-bizarre and completely unique Medieval sound they started pushing into with landmark albums like Octopus (which you should check out anyway), but this little opus from their debut was something I ran across on accident during a movie hunt online back in middle school. Needless to say, I was captivated: it sounds completely unlike any other hard rock song in 1970, yet is obviously a big influence on the direction Led Zeppelin would take as they approached their mid 70's peak. GG's first album tends to get overlooked in general by aficionados of the decade, but for me this song was like cracking open the best aural book ever "written" at the time I discovered it, and it definitely was a big factor in settling me in as a "prog rock" fan.

And speaking of the Zepps...

Led Zeppelin
Achilles Last Stand (1976)

At one point this was probably the longest song on the tiny little IPod I got my 13 year old scrub-paws on at a clearance sale. At this point in my life the very concept of a song longer than 4 minutes was foreign, but this tune changed all that. While Gentle Giant clued me into what "progressive rock" was and why it kicked the living shit out of stuff I heard on Top 40 radio, Achilles Last Stand showed me how could take one hell of a riff and turn it into something absolutely monolithic and immediate despite the length. Once you get suckered into the groove, those ten minutes go by like greased lightning. This was the first "long" song I ever really cut my teeth on, and it also made me a more patient listener in general. Most people need a hook within 5 seconds or they change the station: I could go minutes now letting a song sink in and evaluate it on its own merits, so kudos to Led Zeppelin!

And last but not least...

Camel
Ice (1979)

I got into Camel right as I was starting high school back in '04: ITunes had made it possible by this time to start at point A (like Gentle Giant) and start exploring all the great bands who were associated with initial act's "style", so this one was the latest to the party as far as these three songs go. I ended up cherrypicking a bunch of random cuts from different albums, and 'Ice' just happened to be among them. But without a shadow of a doubt, it singlehandedly turned me on to instrumental music. Not just "progressive" stuff, but other styles of lyric-less exploration as well.

The thing's a helluva piece of work. It's guitarist Andy Latimer's greatest moment, somehow managing to be both soaring & contemplative simultaneously. At the time I first sat down with it, I thought it was like the moon: it looks close enough to touch, but you'll never get within spitting distance of it in your entire life unless you became an astronaut.

These are just a few key tracks in just one genre I like...but they're also a big part of why I love writing about music, listening to new things all the time and even being part of a community like MusicBanter. Some people grow up into perfectly functioning adults and feel mostly indifferent about things like music, but if there was one genre that spared me from that less-than-appealing end result, it was progressive rock.

Next time(s): what got me into heavy metal, jazz and even electronic music and soft rock. Keep your eyes peeled...