Originally Posted by Rickenbacker

Here we go.

10 The Beatles - Rubber Soul
As soon as I heard Norwegian Wood and the subsequent tracks years ago, I knew that The Beatles were not the shallow pop band that I always thought they were. My Beatles bashing stopped in its tracks.

9 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
Simply the greatest influence on everybody's guitar playing, Axis had special significance for me, as I knew that the guitar could be a beautiful thing and a heavy thing at once.

8 The Essential Johnny Cash: 1955-1983
This compilation quickly destroyed my inherent bias towards country music that I had developed after hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd and throwaway racist bands like that. Mr. Cash showed me that country music can stand for something, a la Man in Black and Don't Take Your Guns to Town.

7 Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Destroying another even greater bias of mine towards rap music, tracks like Stan, Kim, the Way I Am, and Criminal showed to me that rap was much more than "bitches, hoes, and big screen TVs".

6 Joy Division - Live at Les Bains Douches [18 Dec. 1979]
One of the five best live records I have, this recording held significance for me in a time when I was feeling just terrible. Thankfully, Ian Curtis saved me from possibly turning to emo music or something awful like that.

5 U2 - Achtung Baby
One of the three great releases of the wonderful musical year of 1991, Achtung Baby made U2 more than just "my mom's band".

4 Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
The first incarnation of modern Jazz and still the greatest, Kind of Blue made me think of music as more than songs, more than albums, but as a cohesive thing. From here, music influences everything I do.

3 White Light/White Heat - The Velvet Underground
Taking a step further from Hendrix and Joy Division, White Light/White Heat had a tremendous influence on how I viewed "noisy" music. The 16 minute epic "Sister Ray" most exemplified this. Consider me a tremendous Velvets fan from this point on.

2 Talking Heads - The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
Undoubtedly the second greatest live album I have, TNoTBiTH not only introduced me to the Heads, but to the beauty of beats, bass, synths, and minimalist songwriting, all of which I had dismissed pre-Talking Heads.

1 R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Sometime in August 2002 my parents were driving my sister and me to Maryland from Connecticut to see my grandparents, one of whom was very sick. We drove down there in silence. As we got there, we learned that my grandmother had died. I shed no tears, but felt very sad inside. As we drove back the following day, my dad told me to take out a CD from the front pocket of the car and put it in the drive. That CD was R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People. The tracks flowed together as a seemingly tangible unit, building on the themes of the previous. By "Everybody Hurts" I was in tears and by "Nightswimming" I felt like I couldn't take it. It was the saddest, most relevant, most disturbing, and greatest record I had ever heard. Then, the album closed with "Find the River", which gave me hope without making me forget the events that had occurred. Bravo Michael, Mike, Peter, and Bill! Bravo!