earth day alone made me want to work on learning that riff such an awesome riff, such an awesome record as a whole...

omg yeah, that riff is truly sthg special. god-given in some ways.

Metallica - Black Album, Master of Puppets, Load: I'm cheating and lumping these into one because Metallica was the only band I listed to for about three years before I realized that other bands existed.

Chris Cornell - Euphoria Morning (1999): My best friend in college called this the ultimate "happy-sad" album. The title of the album says it all, euphoria through sadness.

Opeth - Still Life (1999): The first metal band I discovered (after Metallica) that for me really transcended the metal genre. And Opeth has been my ultimate gateway band, I discovered so many new bands in one way or another through Opeth, including...

Madder Mortem - Deadlands (2002): This album stunned me, I had no idea that it was possible to play music that sounded like this. Unique in so many ways at a time when I really needed it.

Devin Townsend - Terria (2001): A soundscape of amazing lushness, it brought me into the world of Devin, with all of it's glory, beauty, and poop jokes.

In order, 5 albums that changed my life -

1.Number of the Beast. After hearing it, I forever became a fan of metal. My first metal cd.

2.Ghost Reveries. Opeth was my first REAL venture into metal, getting to the more extreme stuff, and this album is why.

3.Alien. My first SYL record, and ultimately, the reason why I'm into such extreme music now a days.

4.Symbolic. Yes, I was already a fan of Opeth, and I kind of liked SYL (but not FULL ON yet). But Death's Symbolic changed me. I still label it my favorite record ever. Symbolic made me willing to listen to a lot more music. In fact, Symbolic was the first album that I wanted to listen to all the way through, and it made me go back and listen to most of my albums all the way through, just so I would know for sure if I liked them or not. It expanded my views on music most of any album.

5.None So Vile. Ending on an odd choice. None So Vile came to me in an era when I thought Exodus and Cannibal Corpse were brutal. While they were AMAZING bands, and still are, None So Vile was when I started to want to listen to EXTREME music. None So Vile actually resparked my interest in SYL. After None So Vile, I went back and listened to Alien, and was like "dang, this album is AMAZING!", when before, I had just really liked "Love?", and not really heard much of the album. So None So Vile was the album that made me think that extreme music is something to get interested in. It's still in my top 5 albums, as is Alien, Ghost Reveries, and Symbolic. However, I have since replaced Number of the Beast with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

"Bleak" changed everything

BAM! Me too, brah. Literally changed my taste in music after hearing that.

Although Blackwater Park isn't my favorite Opeth album, Bleak is tied for number one in favorite songs. Tied with Shitstorm, Symbolic by Death, Infinite Dreams by Iron Maiden, and Crown of Horns by Cryptopsy.

this is a good thread. let's resurrect it.

swans - the great annihilator
this was my introduction to swans, which is reason enough to make this list. the first time i heard it, i was coming down from an acid trip alone in my bedroom during a thunderstorm. it was one of the most beautiful moments of my entire life.

cop shoot cop - white noise
i used to troll the bargain bins at record store when i was a teenager. hell, i still do. found this when i was 16. i recognized the name because i was really into spiritualized and they've got a song called cop shoot cop. i took it to the listening station and it blew my mind. i think i listened to the album straight through right there in the store. it took me years to fully understand what exactly i was hearing because i had no context for this style of music or the ~*life experience*~ to fully comprehend the lyrical concepts. 13 years later, this is still one of the most important albums i've ever heard. TWO BASSES NO GUITARS. MIND BLOWN.

tom waits - bone machine
yeah, i don't know what to say about this one, but it's really important to my musical maturity. the first time i heard it, i was in the car with my then-boyfriend who had just bought it. 10 seconds in, i forced him to stop at the nearest record store so i could buy it. as a result, i got really into leonard cohen, nick cave and alt. country like 16 horsepower.

einsturzende neubauten - perpetuum mobile
it was slow going with this band. the first time i heard them, i was 18 and my boyfriend played me the first 'strategies' collection. i thought it was ok, but i totally didn't get it. a couple years later, he bought me THIS album for valentines day and i totally shat my pants. that year i saw them live and didn't listen to anything BUT their entire discography for 6 months straight. they completely deconstructed the way i listen to and appreciate music and rebuilt it from the ground up.

mansun - six
one of the genuinely weirdest albums i own and it only gets better with time. i got into marillion as a result of being into mansun and if i remember correctly, marillion lead to porcupine tree and the rest is history....

oingo boingo - dark at the end of the tunnel
this was the first proper album i ever owned. i was really into 'the nightmare before christmas' when it came out and my dad told me about danny elfman's band. i think he later regretted that... along with being force-fed john cale, talking heads and captain beefheart as a child, this album definitely set the stage.

honorable mentions that go together: ocean machine and isis' 'oceanic'
these albums have not had a long-term effect yet, but never in my life have i heard music that so perfectly evokes the ocean. i almost literally grew up on the beach. 6 years ago i moved to portland, oregon where the nearest ocean is 2 hours away by car (i don't drive) and not at all swimmable outside of the hottest part of summer. its really painful to not have the ocean in my life anymore and these two albums are almost like being there again because i so clearly remember what it feels like to be slammed around by the waves or to float around in the swells.

I'll keep it short.

Black Sabbath- Paranoid: This is what made me say "WOW, I've gotta learn how to play guitar." Which then lead to a love of all things music

Slipknot- Iowa: Can't stand them now, but this album is what got me into "heavier" music when I was about 12 years old.

Strapping Young Lad- Alien: To this day I've never heard something so wonderfully chaotic.

Devin Townsend- Terria: Opened up my whole world musically, I became much more open minded after being blown away by this and being introduced to Dev's solo material.

Grateful Dead- American Beauty: Don't really have anything to say about this one, it just really moved me.

syl - city :: got me into dev's wondrous stuff
korn - s/t :: got me into "hard"-ish rock
nirvana - nevermind :: got me into rock
satyricon - dark medieval times :: got me into black metal
type o neg - october rust :: just one of the awesomest albums ever made

Fear Factory's demanufacture, my first real metal cd.
Peter Gabriel's Us, one of the first cd I bought myself with my own money, well it was a cassette.
Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral, it was the soundtrack to my teenage years.
Ministry's Psalm 69 started me on my path to 2 genres, metal and industrial
Devin Townsend's Physicist, my first Dev album, and it holds a special meaning to me, as I was going through a bad time in my life, and this album was my comfort blanket.

Peter Gabriel's Us, one of the first cd I bought myself with my own money, well it was a cassette.

that almost made my list. the depth of sound happening on that album is mindboggling.

Pearl Jam - Vs./Ten: Before PJ all I listened to was Weird Al. This was the first time I actually 'bought' a real music album and it got me started on a long path.

Metallica - Master of Puppets: My first real metal moment. I had the Black album before this and enjoyed it but I remember putting this on and listening to Battery and being amazed it was even the same band.

SYL - City: I was well on my way to being a metalhead angst ridden teenager who loved him some Pantera, Slayer and all those sorts. An older friend gave me City and the first time I listened to it I thought it sucked. I don't what it was but I went back to it one night while riding in the car and all of a sudden GOT it. Not long after saw them on the tour for City in a completely deserted club opening for Stuck Mojo and Testament. That cemented the roots that hold fast.

At the Gates: Slaughter of the Soul: This was the album that made me realize that countries outside of North America made metal too. I was watching a cheap local metal show and they played the video for Blinded by Fear I was floored. It's a shame they broke up about a month before I realized they existed.

Opeth - Morningrise: Oh man, this album... specifically the song Nectar. I had gotten a black metal comp which was filled with all sorts of grimness and then sandwiched in there on the 2nd disc was a song from an unknown band from Sweden. Fucking Opeth. I got Morningrise soon after and was hooked.

Limiting it to 5 is pretty rough.

hmmmm

Pink Floyd- The Wall. I've loved that album my whole life, when I was really little I heard it all the way through and shat myself. It maybe me feel things I'd never felt in music before.

Strapping Young Lad- The New Black. I know it's not their best release, but it was one of those metal album that just hits you in a way that not many others do. When I heard it, I was hooked.

Buckethead- Colma, or Electric Tears. I can't pick which one. Something about the emotion that he put into the songs hit me hard. Around that time was when I discovered an emotional connection to soft instrumental music. People give him a lot of shit for not putting emotion in his music, but fuck. Those two albums are some of the most emotional music I've ever heard. I mean, it's crazy how much those albums make me feel without using anything but pure music.

Death- Symbolic. Without this album I would not be here on the board. I would not be who I am at all, actually. Everything about this album amazed me. As a drummer, I heard Gene shred for the first time on that album and it blew me the fuck away it also eventually made me find Dev . Still does. To me, this album defines metal. I can't further explain it, it's just perfect as far as metal goes.

Dev- Infinity. HOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY BAWLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Nuff said!

Buckethead- Colma, or Electric Tears. I can't pick which one. Something about the emotion that he put into the songs hit me hard. Around that time was when I discovered an emotional connection to soft instrumental music. People give him a lot of shit for not putting emotion in his music, but fuck. Those two albums are some of the most emotional music I've ever heard. I mean, it's crazy how much those albums make me feel without using anything but pure music.

I completely love Colma, but have never heard Electric Tears, I'll have to go check it out now

Buckethead- Colma, or Electric Tears. I can't pick which one. Something about the emotion that he put into the songs hit me hard. Around that time was when I discovered an emotional connection to soft instrumental music. People give him a lot of shit for not putting emotion in his music, but fuck. Those two albums are some of the most emotional music I've ever heard. I mean, it's crazy how much those albums make me feel without using anything but pure music.

I completely love Colma, but have never heard Electric Tears, I'll have to go check it out now

Electric Tears is even softer. No drums at all. Very spacey, pretty stuff. Padmasana is an eleven minute ride of a lifetime. I used to turn all of the lights out at and play it through my Ipod dock, which would give off this blue light that would dimly lit up the room. (I know the details about the lighting really don't matter, but it created an almost... for lack of a better word, spiritual type of feeling. I mean, I've never really felt anything that people talk about feeling from from normally spiritual stuff, but I get that feeling they talk about from that. If you're ever having a sleepless night, give it a shot!)

Coldplay - Viva La Vida (don't hate me, it actually got me into listening to more types of music than what was on the radio. I started buying albums 'n' all)
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (yet again, don't hate me, it got me into the heavier (lolLinkinPark) side of music)
Kamelot - The Black Halo (metal isn't all growls and screams? Woah, some melody here. Talk about opening minds)
Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine (music with emotion, pretty much changed my outlook on how awesome music can be)
Pain of Salvation - Scarsick (just because music takes influences from genres I generally don't like doesn't mean it can't be incredibly enjoyable and deep, opened me back up into other genres)

Tangerine dream - Hyperborea (Age 7)
System of a down - Toxicity (13)
Devin Townsend - Ziltoid (14)
Meshuggah - Obzen (16)
Carbon Based lifeforms - Hydroponic Garden (17)