What albums inspired you so much that they changed the course of how you write music?

stevie is an excellent choice. i mostly hate pop music. i hate how generic and crowd pleasing (lowest common denominator) it is, but i love stevie. he transcends pop. hes up there with mingus as far as im concerned. which brings me to mingus. ill choose the black saint and the sinner lady. he does things in this album that go completely against the grain of modern ways of musical thinking. most of todays music is about dumbing things down. its about "keep it simple stupid". that is one way of doing things, but its absolutely ridiculous to think thats the only way. what mingus does speaks directly to my soul. its tons of parts all doing different things at the same time but still contributing to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. skinny puppy last rites. i guess i first discovered this before i made music but i rediscovered it right when i started making electronic music. it taught me that harsh noise could be incorporated into songs in a way that furthered the melody. and also, it taught me that imperfections were important in sterile electronic music. theres parts swirling in from random radio dial turns, acoustic guitar lines dropped out of nowhere, things that just get weaved in and out and barely stay there for more than a few seconds. ornette coleman, i guess ill choose science fiction. this guy has stumbled upon a language of music that it will take a long time to fully understand. it is so far outside the conventions that its really hard at first to get it, but when you do, its truly like nothing else. really made me think of melody and harmony in a different way and although its freejazz, it absolutely has a soul that usually gets lost in most freejazz records. alot of freejazz is about trying to outweird eachother. all showoff posturing with no heart underneath it all. this guy on the other hand, lives and breathes it. naked city self titled. structured freejazz. sounds like (on purpose) switching radio stations between country jazz rock grindcore cinema soundtracks all in the same song, or, it sounds like the most harsh insane heavy music you have ever heard. everyone in the band is an absolute master of their instrument and if there was any justice in the world, these people would have all of katy perrys money.

/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers Thread