We've all had moments when hearing an album for the first time where it seems like time stands still or that we know our understanding of music has changed simply by hearing that album or song.

I wish I could hear Midnight Marauders and The Low End Theory again that way. Same for The Chronic, Like Water for Chocolate, Dig Your Own Hole, Nevermind, Maggot Brain, and a bunch more.

What songs or albums do you wish you could re-experience for the first time?

with someone who hadn't ever heard it before
and i was THOROUGHLY jealous of the experience they were about to have

I wonder how different it is listening to it now in 2019 than in '96? when it came out.

But that album blew me away. To me that album is the beginning of a new genre - its hip-hop obviously but with the same 'lyricism' as a jazz or classical piece. Made me a lifetime fan of Shadow's.

I'm gonna have to load that in Spotify for nostalgia's sake.

I want to go back to a time when I could listen to Dr. Dre, Puff, and whoever else, and not hear the "spirit" of the person who actually wrote the lyrics. Like, that shit is cool trivia, but now it's like "Oh, that's Em/Kendrick/Game/Snoop/Kiss/Pharaohe spitting that".

By, 'spirit', do you mean listening to their lyrics as if they were unknown and you were learning the styles of those MC's like you did when you first heard them? Or do you mean that the status of those MC's disrupts your appreciation of their skills? Or something else entirely?

I mean there are a million I could name that would fall into this category but ... for the sake of time and brevity, the most magical/impactful listening experiences upon my first listens to an album were:

Dr. Dre "The Chronic"
I fell in love with hip-hop with this album. I was watching MTV and saw an Ice Cube video; for the life of me I can't remember what song it was but I know it was Ice Cube. I loved the low riders in the video and more importantly my head was nodding like crazy. So I talked to some older neighbors I rode bikes with about how blown away I was by the music whatever Cube song it was and one of them gave me The Chronic tape and - holy shit did the complexity and power of these beats blow my 9 year old mind lol. Never looked back.


Reflection Eternal "Train of Thought"
What a damn experience this album was. It's so perfect. My favorite album of all time. By this time I was in high school and had expanded from almost exclusively listening to west coast/g-funk to the Rawkus/Soulquarian movement so I'd heard some Roots, Common, Mos Def/BlackStar/etc. by this time. I loved all of it, but this album IMO was the best front to back experience of them all. I say it all the time around these parts but I could write a book about how great this album is, and how important and nostalgic it is for me, but I'll save you guys the novel for now. But yea - this album is just so powerful IMO.


Jay-Z "The Blueprint"
Another album I could write a ton of words about but I'll just say it came out my senior year in high school and really just defined that whole year. So many great memories tied to it and it's just so so so damn good front to back.


Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon"
Heard this in college (typical white dude shit) while smoking and yea - not much to say that hasn't been said a million times about this one but I definitely grew up a lot with this one and it opened up my mind a lot.


OutKast "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below"
I could probably name like 3 or 4 OutKast albums but this one sticks out just cause of the time of my life in which it came out (sophomore year of college) when I was simultaneously discovering myself in a lot of ways and having just a TON of fun. And obviously besides the nostalgia that's tied to this album, it was just a damn good listening experience and as we all know it stretched the limits of hip-hop despite whatever gripes we may individually have with some parts of it (bad singing, for example lol). And "Hey Ya" is of course just a timeless dance/party jam.


Q-Tip "The Renaissance"
Came out when I moved out of state and again, just a beautiful album that I remember zoning out to almost exclusively for like 4 straight months. Tons of road trips, plane rides, etc. when I just wore this album OUTTT haha.


PRhyme "PRhyme"
When this came out I was in the midst of a pretty significant dry spell in terms of hearing new hip-hop music. And Royce and Preem just decided to remind me ... no, hit me over the damn head to remind me why I loved hip-hop music so much. No lie I have every lyric memorized on this album and listened to it front to back incessantly for damn near a whole year. Such a gem.


Like I said there are a ton of other albums that would qualify for this post for me, but these ones are the most meaningful for the reasons stated above and as I went through I realized I was creating sort of a chronological timeline so I stuck with that; one album for each kind of listening era. For example I'd love to hear Doggystyle again for the first time but I kinda tie that in with The Chronic and that whole g-funk/west coast movement so I'm refraining from going that deep cause I could probably go on forever.

It's interesting how sometimes the place in life you're at affects how music impacts you. That the music itself alone isn't what rewires your musical understanding but the music hitting your mind at the right time in your life.

I can still recall every minute detail of that first night and the sheer awe I felt absorbing that shit.

first time Criminology hit me with them horns & Scarface sample I;ll never forget

....like even if its some dumb and random place, it's still imprinted with that music

Sign O the Times
Dirty Mind
Kashmir
Lysol (The Melvins)

**Loaded Luxe vs. Calicoe battle

...just a few off the dome




*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/bobgeorge87

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

I especially appreciate the ones that incorporate the original samples and other extras from the time period and make it all blend perfectly. Gives older/classic albums a whole new life.

This recent 25th anniversary mix of Common’s Resurrection is in constant rotation:
https://www.whosampled.com/news/category/mixes/

* There’s also dope mixes of The Chronic, Doggystyle, and Tribe and others

I agree re: the anniversaries making me revisit favorites that I haven't necessarily listened to in a while. All three of the albums you just named qualify haha. I still know the lyrics front to back on all three of those albums.

>I agree re: the anniversaries making me revisit favorites
>that I haven't necessarily listened to in a while. All three
>of the albums you just named qualify haha. I still know the
>lyrics front to back

Word. I hear that.
Enjoy..

.

me and 2 of my guys were sitting in his Nissan Stanza and what we heard after that changed everything we thought we knew about music.
we all just sat there mouths agape song after song.

Stevie's Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)



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I never knew what a paradigm shift sounded like until I heard 36 Chambers. And this was right after listening to the masterpiece that is Midnight Marauders. When the tape finished I had to sit in silence and process what I heard for 10 minutes. I would love to have that kind of moment again

With Kind of Blue I would have liked to listen in a darkened room with a pristine stereo and a glass of Glenfiddich 18. By time Flamenco Sketches comes on I imagine I'd be in tears

Dummy
Endtroducing
Love Deluxe
It Takes a Nation of Millions
Stronger Than Pride
Sign of The Times
______________________________________________________________________________

"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

Personally there's a bunch, but above a lot is this song by Janelle Monae: Sincerly, Jane

https://youtu.be/xCzSZTkEMpo

This record just awakens me spiritually which sounds like I'm overhyping it but I'm not. The way the song goes from scared, to angry, to the Outkast/Organized Noize bounce just hits me perfectly.

The vocals during the second chorus is everything to me.

As for someone else. This past week I want record shopping with a friend that is jumping out of her electronic/pop rock roots and listening to more hip-hop.

She suggests I pick her something to get, and it was risky but I went with Donuts...and she has no idea what a Dilla is. She likes The Roots so I knew she's at the very least would like Donut of the Heart.

She plays Donuts first and I tell her about how it was made, Dilla's impact in Detroit hip-hop, and a couple words about people who made songs with each track and she just clicked with it off top lol. Her 3 and 5 year old daughters were bouncing around to it and everything....it was a really dope moment.

The only record she didn't like was The Factory, and to be fair it's sticks out compared to everything else. Also, I'm convinced EVERYONE that has heard Lightworks loves it.

Now I gotta burn her the Roots versions of the beats and see if she likes those too.

.. for the first time, introducing a classic/a personal favorite album to someone who you just *know* will appreciate it and who ultimately does. There's like a feeling of pride lol.


>As for someone else. This past week I want record shopping
>with a friend that is jumping out of her electronic/pop rock
>roots and listening to more hip-hop.
>
>She suggests I pick her something to get, and it was risky but
>I went with Donuts...and she has no idea what a Dilla is. She
>likes The Roots so I knew she's at the very least would like
>Donut of the Heart.
>
>She plays Donuts first and I tell her about how it was made,
>Dilla's impact in Detroit hip-hop, and a couple words about
>people who made songs with each track and she just clicked
>with it off top lol. Her 3 and 5 year old daughters were
>bouncing around to it and everything....it was a really dope
>moment.
>
>The only record she didn't like was The Factory, and to be
>fair it's sticks out compared to everything else. Also, I'm
>convinced EVERYONE that has heard Lightworks loves it.
>
>Now I gotta burn her the Roots versions of the beats and see
>if she likes those too.

I can completely go right back to where I was when I first heard this and how completely blown my mind was. I bought it based on reviews, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had just started exploring stuff like Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack and the reviews tried to put this in that category. Little that I know that this record would take me on a trip through soul, hip hop, rock, drum n’ bass, ambient, lounge, alternative and some elements of jazz. It was an audio head trip. I was at a friends apartment in college, some “enhancements” were consumed but I can safely say that high or sober this record would have had the same impact. By the time we got to Superheroes the room was like “what are we listening to???” Seeing others react similarly to me was probably the highlight of the experience.

Had a similar 'non-enhanced' experience with the album. Really blew me away.