Name a few albums which helped determine your musical tastes

Now this is an interesting question! I’ll probably have a boring answer, but the question is fascinating.

This is slightly odd for me, because my life has two very distinct parts. I’m going to focus on the things that have shaped me in the second part. Nothing in the first part is worth focusing on, and not much in it was worth listening to (and I don't just mean the music).

• Gillian Welch / Revival
• Greg Brown / Slant 6 Mind
• Townes Van Zandt / Rearview Mirror
• Wilco / Summerteeth
• Jim White / No Such Place
• Beatles / Rubber Soul
• Mississippi John Hurt / (can’t remember the album name)
• Alligator Records / (I think it was their 20th Anniversary compilation)
• Miles Davis / Kind of Blue
• Derek & The Dominos / Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs
• Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim / Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim
• Neil Young / Harvest Moon
• Rufus Wainwright / Poses
• Spoon / Kill the Moonlight
• Van Morrison / Astral Weeks
• Bob Dylan / Time Out of Mind

There are others, but I imagine this list is already long enough nobody will read it. :)

@mdalton 

Sorry for your loss.  Can't even imagine.

That Bonnie Raitt album made a big impression on me, too.  And Lyle Lovett's "Step Inside This House" two-disc set, too.

Leo Kottke--Peculiaroso

Nice.

I imagine there must be some audiophiles arguing that one has to listen to jazz or classical to enjoy one's system.  We're talking about audiophiles, after all.  Some audiophiles argue one has to use cable risers to enjoy one's system.  Some audiophiles argue one has to stack two quarters and a nickel on top of each speaker to unlock all the inner detail in one's system.  Any sentence that starts with "Some audiophiles argue..." is most likely true.  Let's face it: this is a hobby where one encounters a lot of fatheads.

All that said, a lot of audiophiles do enjoy non-rock music on their systems, and that's okay, too.  They (we) should try not to be fatheads about it, but it's okay.  Being open to the possibility of finding music we like in any genre is usually a good thing, too.  Try it out.  See if you like it.  If you don't, cool.  If you do, cool, you've just found a whole new nook of the musical world to explore and enjoy. 

I bounced off of jazz a couple of times over the years before I found my way into it via a few specific albums/artists that really clicked for me, and from there I've found more and more of it I enjoy.  Even in my 50s, I still give a listen now and then to something from genres I have not historically enjoyed, just to see.  (Using a streaming service makes this very easy and, essentially, free.  It's not like the old days, when I had to shell out my limited funds to take a chance on something I'd heard one track from on the radio, and then if I didn't like it, figure out what the heck to do with the piece of physical media I was stuck with.)

Nobody needs to harangue anybody for not liking any particular style of music.  Nobody needs to get their nose out of joint because people *do* like a particular style of music.

An audiophile should optimize his system for the music he enjoys, and then enjoy it, and let others do likewise.

The question wasn't what we like.  It was what helped determine our musical tastes.  I like CCR, but it didn't introduce me to any genre, style, or sub-genre I hadn't heard before.  By the time I heard CCR, I'd already heard southern rock/swamp rock I liked, so it didn't help determine my tastes.