This blog originally posted at http://marianmarginalia.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/my-real-actual-influences/
So I made a list once upon a time of my musical/artistic influences, and wrote them down and touted them proudly. But my parents saw that list and called baloney. So with their help I’ve drawn up a more accurate list of childhood influences, as well as the roster of the top 10 most influential albums I’ve loved and listened to in becoming a musical self. Here ya go, world, more honesty. In no particular order, stuff I listened to a gazillion times at some point in my youth, with a few I’ve spun enough times to make the list even though I came to them in college or after:
- Yes – 90125, Fragile
- James Taylor – Sweet Baby James, Never Die Young, & New Moonshine
- Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life
- Quincy Jones – Back on the Block
- Beatles – Sgt. Pepper
- Paul Simon – Graceland
- Simon & Garfunkel – Bookends, Bridge Over Troubled Water
- Weird Al Yankovic – everything
- They Might Be Giants – everything thru 2005
- The Aquabats – everything thru 2004
- Menotti – Amahl and the Night Visitors
- Beethoven – Symphonies No. 3, 6 & 7
- J.S. Bach – Goldberg Variations, Cello Suites
- Gilbert & Sullivan – Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado
- Lyle Lovett – Joshua Judges Ruth, I Love Everybody
- Ragtime
- Les Misérables
- Miss Saigon
- Cats
- Kasey Chambers – Barricades & Brick Walls
- Norah Jones – Come Away With Me
- Jason Mraz – Waiting for My Rocket to Come
- Harry Connick, Jr.
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Oscar Peterson
- The King’s Singers
- Diana Krall – All for You
- Carole King – Tapestry
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- Jewel – Pieces of You
- Jars of Clay – Flood, Much Afraid, If I Left the Zoo
- Sting – Mercury Falling, Soul Cages
- Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table & Dreaming, Crash
- Earth, Wind, & Fire
- Tower of Power
- The Temptations
- Holst – The Planets
- Stravinsky – Rite of Spring, Firebird
- Copland – Billy the Kid Suite, Rodeo, lots more
- Leonard Bernstein – complete works
- Brand New Heavies – Brother Sister
- Joni Mitchell – Clouds, Blue, For the Roses, Court & Spark, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
- The Proclaimers – Sunshine on Leith
- Marc Cohn – Marc Cohn, Burning the Haze
- Carly Simon – Have You Seen Me Lately
- Julia Fordham – Porcelain
- Bruce Hornsby – Harbor Lights, Hot House, Spirit Trail
- Bonnie Raitt – Luck of the Draw
- 100 Carols for Choirs (Oxford hymn book)
- Christmas with Julie Andrews
- Pink Martini – Sympathique, Hang on Little Tomato
- Moulin Rouge soundtrack
- Romeo + Juliet soundtrack
- Peter Mulvey
- Stephen Fearing
- Kris Delmhorst – Songs for a Hurricane, Five Stories
- Five Iron Frenzy
- Brent Bourgeois
- The Newsboys
- Audio Adrenaline
- Into the Grey
- Susan Ashton
- Regina Spektor
- Sarah Harmer – You Were Here, All of Our Names
- Postal Service – Give Up
- Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
- Iron & Wine / Calexico – In the Reins
- Baltimore Consort – Bright Day Star, The Mad Buckgoat, The Ladyes Delight
- Polyphony (choral ensemble) – O Magnum Misterium
- Carbonleaf – Echo Echo
And my top 10 Most Spun Albums, right up until I produced Vanilla (some are still spun constantly):
- Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
- Blue by Joni Mitchell
- Songs for a Hurricane by Kris Delmhorst
- Marry Me by Saint Vincent
- Le Fil by Camille
- Sixpence None the Richer by Sixpence None the Richer
- Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens
- You Were Here by Sarah Harmer
- The Crane Wife by The Decemberists
- Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor
There. Now I don’t have to keep repeating this list for people. Lots of awesome folks have been left off of it, but I believe it’s truest to what I listened to growing up, rather than what I listen to now and wish I had listened to growing up. Then again I was never all that cool.
Mission accomplished! This is now written down. I’ma go do real work with this out of my head.