Manky, Manky, Manky! It's so good to see you writing again! You never ever disappoint. Now get that journal going again: we need more writers like you. You can make me read a review of an album, and genre, I have zero interest in just simply because it's your writing. It's a rare talent, and you should nurture and exercise it more. Great job!

Linkin' Park - Hybrid Theory

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This album was very therapeutic for me during my junior and senior years of high school around the time the album came out. I was going through so many emotions during that time. The anger I felt from moving away from my childhood friends to a new town/high school and refusing to make friends there because I was pissed off at the whole situation and everyone. My high school years were treated like a job. I would go to school socialize a bit with whoever was there like they were my co-workers but if I happened to see them outside of school. I would completely ignore them like they didn't exist. Going to my part time job after school was nice but I always dreaded the day when I get my pay check. My mother would ask to borrow money and I would have been fine if it was going towards the house but she would had it over to her ****ing bf and the rage inside me just became blinding. I would go into my room and crank Hybrid Theory so loud while jumping on my bed and singing along with the lyrics.

After a couple of years Hybrid Theory became my go to album whenever I needed to vent my frustrations and to help me through whatever issue was bothering me. When I went into the military it seemed like everyone had a copy of this album. Whenever some type of party/event was going on. All we had to do was go to the nearest person's room and pick up their copy so that we could jam out to it while doing other things. So , I don't only associate it with difficult memories/times but also ones of joy while relaxing/chilling with people that I got along with well.

I still love this album as well :) Linking Park bring back a lot of memories for me, too!

Assuming you're not a spammer (though with a suffix like that I doubt you're anything else), please read the OP. This is NOT a thread for throwing in a one-line reply. You need to, like all the previous posters, expand on what the album means to you and why you like it, how it made you feel, what period of your life it recalls etc etc.

If, on the other hand, you are a spammer (99% probability) then you know what to do.
:rolleyes:

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Green on Red Gas Food Lodging (1985)

1985 was a strange year for me. I was just getting in a relationship that would turn out rocky and doomed (long story, don't ask). It was also the year I had decided to kick off with by leaving behind me many friendships. For better or worse, this was a decision both painful but necessary to get on with my life (another long story). If I had felt like I was a loner before, that would be nothing compared to what this year of rebuilding would turn out to be.

Where my now former friends were still listening to music mostly from the '70s, I was deeply into regional scenes (Athens, GA; Minneapolis; Austin, TX, etc) as well as the Paisley Underground. I completely enjoyed each album from True West, the Dream Syndicate, the Three O'Clock, Thin White Rope and Green On Red. I loved the psychedelic-roots rock sound most of these bands excelled at.

Green On Red's first self-titled EP leaned more towards psychedelic where the follow-up full length, Gravity Talks, was a mix of psych and country-punk. But their opus, I feel, was the next full length, Gas Food Lodging.

Here was an album that embraced my state of mind that year. An album with tales of loners, drifters, losers, outcasts and murderers. Now I had a steady job and lived within the law but I felt like a drifter/outcast by some of the social decisions I had made. I also felt close to a break-down by year's end. This album wasn't a downcast bummer: the mood may have been angry or bitter- as I was feeling- but there was also a rollicking, upbeat vibe that promised better days ahead if you could just hold on and hold out. Songs like "Hair of the Dog", "The Drifter" and "Sea of Cortez" might appear to carry a bleak message but the music and vocals carry a sense of urgency that to me meant to never give up. I looked upon Chuck Prophet & Dan Stuart as brothers who would understand my situation.

Anyway, if 1985 was a rough new beginning, the following year was desolate & depressing. This album rarely left my turntable for very long. I don't think I had ever absorbed an album before or after as I did this one. It really kept me going through '86 and fortunately the following year was when everything I had hoped would change for the better slowly did.

Gas Food Lodging hasn't lost anything for me with time. There's a rough sloppiness to it that I appreciate more as time passes. I can hear the album's influences in post-punk & New Depression recordings that have been released since then. Nowadays I hear more of an upbeat meaning via the album. Can an album change it's already recorded life with time? Sure, I believe music is a living thing.

Because I dont want this thread to diee so Ill do another!

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Belle & Sebastian is and will probably always be one of my favorite bands. Back when I was first opening my ears to all kinds of music (not actually that long ago) I just happened to stumble onto this one. When I first heard it I thought it was nice enough, but I just kept coming back to it. Everytime Id listen to something else and then think hm may as well give this another spin. I think my heart knew I loved this before my brain did. And every time I listened to i would have a different favorite song. One listen I would have to hear the title track again, another time it would be Seeing Other People or Fox in the Snow or Mayfly or what have you. I could never pick just one song to be my absolute favorite. I had phases of listening to all of them seperate from the album itself.

But even then the whole album rolls together perfectly like a storybook. It's got its happiness and sadness, its up and downs, everything a cliched tale needs and yet it's not at all cliche. I always think it delves into those awkward transitional years of becoming a teenager, but it plays well enough to apply to the young and old. Or maybe its more like having difficulty having that sense of belonging. Having numerous friends can still be lonely. Still it's an album filled with short stories that tie a larger story together. It's also one of the few albums that I can listen to when feeling either happy or sad. It seems to feed any emotional hunger I have, and that's probably the biggest reason that I love it so much.

The problem I'm having posting to this thread is I have no idea where to start

I'm with you. I don't know how to deal with all of the thoughts and feelings that make my favourite albums mine. If I knew how to organize it, I feel I should probably save it for my journal. I just don't know how to approach some things.

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After all these years, I'd be hard pressed to find an album that influenced me as much as this one. It was one of those seminal recordings that almost singlehandedly made me fall in love with both heavy metal and many of the traits and intricacies that come loaded with the whole "progressive" label. Big ideas, a grand story of revolution, despair and mindfuckery that still feels relevant two decades later, plus a superb sense of flow from track-to-track: good luck finding a better concept record even today in 2013...and I've heard my fair share.

That being said, there's other things too that stand out to me: you have those awesome guitar harmonies of Michael Wilton and Chris DeGarmo, some killer snare-work from Scott Rockenfield...and of course, there's Geoff Tate. The guy's a laughingstock today, but back in 1988 he was one of the best singers on the planet, and Operation: Mindcrime captures him at his best IMO.

To make a long story short, quite the eye-opening LP regardless of whether you were an ignorant middle schooler like I was or if your just looking for a foot in the door for "progressive" metal. :wave:

Shock-horror Ant my man, I have to say I was decidedly underwhelmed with this album when I listened to it. I can think of much better concept albums of course, but then that's all down to personal taste, which I realise. Never was a QR fan; maybe I should give it another shot? But then, with so much to do and Metal Week coming up in my journal (no, I never miss a chance to plug it: what of it?) ;)