Out of Step #1

Compiled by Richard Cartwright
weareoutofstep.blogspot.com

Dear people putting website addresses in print,
I know that sometimes you want to change your url, it's perfectly understandable. But when the old one is just a blogspot address, there's no reason not to leave it up with a link to the new one instead of erasing it entirely and leaving me to wonder if I typed something wrong.

That out of the way, this is a zine asking people to name, and talk about, three records/albums that changed their life. It is, as you could probably predict by it being a zine, full of people talking about indie rock, punk, and some more classic rock stuff. There's like two electronic albums (one of which is chosen for it taught the writer that electronic music didn't have to be dance stuff) and one hip hop.

I really like the idea, but felt that the albums became kind of predictable as the people asked (white zinesters) all basically listen to the same type of music, and I would have liked a wider range fo musical tastes on display.

Anyway, here are mine.

Rammstein - Sehnsucht

I remember just before the beginning of grade 10 (ie. the start of high school) seeing part of the music video for Du Hast, and just being "What is this? I need more." However, I didn't manage to see/write down the band name and for days afterwards I watched MuchMusic as much as possible in the hopes of seeing the song again (does much even play music any more?). Eventually I did, went out and bought the album and listened to it on repeat as I read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (which I also bought that day). Then, high school! Where for basically the first time in ages I met people who had the same interests as me (computers, reading), and who knew Ramnstein, and lots of other cool (and better) music that was electronic based. Hurray.

Blink 182 - Dude Ranch

I never actually owned this album, instead it was one that my brother owned. He discovered it through much the same way as I discovered the above album (ie. MuchMusic), and it began his journey through punk, indie, post-punk, noise, and whatever else he listens to that continues to this day. So why does it affect me? Well, my brother was always more into music than I was (perhaps due to there actually being a punk scene where we grew up, while there wasn't an electronic music scene outside of people's bedrooms), but I discovered loads of bands I really like from music he downloaded/bought (Xiu Xiu is the only one I can remember right now, but there were others), and we both evolved along parallel political paths.

Something by Buck 65

I never owned this either (I spent all my money on comics and video games), but there was the internet, and my brother owned some of them (so why should I buy it too?). I haven't liked some of his recent stuff as much, but at the time it taught me that hip hop could actually be good, that it didn't have to be about bitches and bling, and you could be from Halifax and still make awesome rap songs about centaurs. Hip hop is awesome and you should listen to more of it.

(A 4th is the song "Out of Space" by the Prodigy, which I heard while a babysitter was driving my brother and I home from school one day. She put it on a tape for me and I listened to it over and over. I had no idea who it was by, and it was only a while after the Prodigy became big in North America that I learned that it was by the same group that did Firestarter. I don't know if it "changed my life" or whatever, but it clearly made me an early advocate for more beeps and bloops in my music.)

What are your top 3?