Tuesday Top Ten: Ten Albums That Had An Impact On Me and Are Still in My Rotation

If you're on the Facebooks, you have probably recently seen -- or maybe even participated in! -- the ten albums challenge.  Basically, you are supposed to post album covers -- one a day for ten days in a row -- of albums that made an impact on you and are still in your rotation.  You're just supposed to post the album cover with no explanation.  Then you're supposed to nominate someone else to do it, and the chain will conceivably continue until Lord Zuckerberg deems fit.

No one nominated me, which hurts more than you'll ever know.  But I probably would have forgotten on the fourth or fifth day anyway, and then the whole damn thing would have been ruined.  So instead, I'm just going to post them here.  The way I look at this is that these are albums I loved or was influenced by when I was younger and that I still love and listen to today.

But before we get started, I'm also going to add a couple limiting/clarifying rules, otherwise this whole exercise is too ambiguous, and ambiguity is the concubine of confusion.

Here are my rules:

1.  These have to be albums I owned before I went to college (i.e., on or before August 25, 1996).  That means that, even if it was an album released before then that I subsequently purchased and loved and still listen to, it's out.

2.  In addition to being albums that had an impact on me when they came out and/or when I became aware of them, these have to be albums I have listened to with consistent regularity since then, keeping in mind that with the dawn of iPods and digital music, sometimes we don't always listen to full albums as much as we used to.  

3.  This is not a "my favorite albums when I was in high school" list.  To that end, I am excluding albums that I may have loved in high school and listened to regularly for some period of time, but no longer listen to on what I would objectively consider a regular basis, even if I still enjoy the music (2Pac's Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. comes to mind).

4.  I have to still own the album.  Then again, I suppose it wouldn't still be in my regular rotation if I didn't own it, which makes this rule completely redundant and unnecessary.  In fact, I'm not even sure why I kept this rule instead of just deleting it.

5.  I must own the full album, and not just one or several songs off of the album.

6.  Only one album per artist.

7.  Greatest hits albums are allowed, but will be disregarded if I have since acquired the artists studio albums that contain all or most of the songs on the greatest hits album (which is partially why The Rolling Stones, Bowie, Cream, and Dylan, among others, are not on the list).  Live albums or "live in studio" albums (like BBC sessions) by one artist are allowed.  Soundtracks are strictly forbidden.

8.  Keeping with the rules of the post, I will just post the album cover without any explanation.

9.  I nominate everyone in the world, except people who like EDM.

10.  No more than ten rules.

Here are my ten (in alphabetical order by artist), with some honorable mentions to follow:

1.  Spirit of America by The Beach Boys

2.  License to Ill by The Beastie Boys

3.  Abbey Road by The Beatles

4.  Hysteria by Def Leppard

5.  The Doors by The Doors

6.  Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses

7.  Radio One by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

8.  Untitled (IV, Zoso, Runes, etc.) by Led Zeppelin

9.  Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A.

10.  Weezer by Weezer

Honorable mention:  Odelay by Beck; Boston by Boston; The Chronic by Dr. Dre; Thriller by Michael Jackson; Metallica by Metallica; Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe; Abraxas by Santana; Skid Row by Skid Row; Doggystyle by Snoop Doggy Dogg; Core by Stone Temple Pilots; 1984 by Van Halen; Tommy by The Who