Top Ten Albums that Were the First You Owned of a Specific Genre

Compared to the other albums I originally listed on my original remix, me listening to this one was not as long ago. It must have been around 2013. I had recently watched this incredibly sad short movie "The Snowman" (as a child I owned a VHS casette and wanted to watch it again - as a kind I never found it all too emotional, but as a teen this hit me hard) and when I googled up the soundtrack song "Walking in the Air" I discovered Nightwish's cover version. I then actually bought both "Oceanborn" and "Century Child" at the same time, but I listened to "Oceanborn" first as it contains WITA. The rest is history: I bought all the other Nightwish studio albums and they became my absolute favorite band and still are. This is a beautiful record and remains one of my all time albums, and of course my mind was instantly blown. Nightwish songs have by far my favorite and lyrics - the only thing coming close in admiration is Rammstein - and the enchanting power of the music craft is ...more

For me it was Angels Fall First. I still slightly prefer that album over this because of the folk element the debut has. But the song "Gethsemane" is still one of my favourites of the early Nightwish era.

I must say, I am far from being 100 percent sure if this was my first hip hop album or not, but browsing through my collection, it appears to be.
In 2005, being 9 years and watching the music T.V. channels (back then mostly VIVA, and also MTV Germany when it actually aired music videos), I was totally in love with thos "Lose Control" song. To be honest, I rarely listendd to hip hop back then. I was a pop listener, and everything harder than that left me unsatisfied.
In 2005, there was actually way more American than German hip hop that the major public knew. Sure, there were Bushido, Kool Savas and Sido, but that was about it. Nowadays, German hip hop constantly tops the German album charts and only few American rappers make it into the top ten.

Anyway, Missy Elliott had something that I liked, but I guess it was because I knew Ciara who was on this "Lose Control" song and because of the beat. That made it feel more upbeat and fun than other more sinister rappers trending ...more

I got this album when it was released in 2004 and I loved several songs on it. They also had several hits off it that everybody knew, and it was cool to listen to them. Being a child, I could barely relate to lyrics like "have you believed, have you hoped it will all turn out for the better? / have you cried, have you begged, becaused it all became different? / Where's the time? Where's the sea? / it's missing and you ask me where it was left behind", in fact I thought their lyrics were a bit odd. This is a clear case of not having been mature enough for the music, but I still loved those melodies and sound of it all.

This album was a big deal in Germany in 2004. Because its impact formed the entire landscape of German music afterwards - and it can still be heard today. Wir sind Helden were the first who had notable chart success with their indie-style German language music, but Juli had the huge, big hits that made indie rock and indie pop one of the biggest genres in Germany ...more

The album by a Finnish rock band that is massively successful in German speaking countries was released in 2006 and I got it a bit later, sometime in 2007 when “Forever Yours” was a single and all over the music channels. I was about 11 back then. Even though I can’t tell for 100% if it really was the first record of the genre because the definition is so damn hard.

In 2007, I liked some of their songs really much. While in America alternative rock and similar genres were amazingly huge in the 2000s, barely any band like this had hits over here. Sunrise Avenue stood out of the masses of pop with their alternative rock style and that appealed to me, but then, I liked a lot of music back then but rarely dug deep into it. I was a kid and just enjoyed music superficially. They never were a favorite band of mine, and I didn’t feel the urge to buy another album in the years to come, until I became older and matured, taking a more diverse stand on music.

Now knowing ...more

You know, this one is extremely hard. In 2007 my Madonna craze started. I bought all of her albums - and I don't mean just her studio albums, everything from EPs to live albums, and best of compilations because they included two new songs - things I'd never buy today no matter how much I love an artist. It was the first time my fascination for an artist was so big I wanted to own everything by them. Of course, my love for Madonna's music back then as a kid only went so far that I listened to her music all over again. Nowadays this is different: I stil consider her one of my top five favorite artists of all time, but because I see the biggest amount of creativity and ambition in all of pop music history in her. No matter how great others might have been, Madonna expanded the boundaries of pop, made it an art form, equal to more "respected" genres in songwriting, diversity and ideas.

That being said, this side of Madonna started with her third album "True Blue". "Like a Virgin" ...more

In 2005, this Dutch group made German kids very happy. So happy they entered the top ten with a genre that has died after the 90s in most countries, with several bands suddenly emerging imitating their happy style and one (Banaroo) actually managed to top the German album charts. I loved Ch! pz and their adventurous music videos when I was 9, and my memories are just the best.

What do I say nowadays?
This is the best album for a kid to listen to. The songs are built up like different adventures, in one song they are fighting aliens, in another they are cowboys, in another they are in space. There is one song set in a haunted house, which was and still is my favorite of the album (it has an INSANELY CATCHY melody in minor) but if they perfectly understand English it might be spooky for your kid (the main song is harmless, just horror stereotypes like werewolves and Frankenstein's monster, but there is a Thriller-like demonic narrator voice). The songs are imaginative fun for ...more

I bought this album in the same Madonna craze that got me "Like a Virgin". In fact, I still remember that I got it when I was sick and my mother bought it, knowing I didn't already have it (back in 2007, that was still possible to find out, now ten years later my mother would need to check through closets full of CDs).

From my recent point of view, "Erotica" is a good Madonna record with very diverse musical visions and styles. The title track is purely building up sexual tension (THIS is how you do a sexual song. Not simply being in-your-face explicit but using your voice, the beat and perfect wording to create a mood), "Rain" is a beautiful ballad, and several of the other songs have a certain disco groove combined with 90s drums and sampling.

One of the first albums I actually owned. The album to start the spark for my love for heavier music.

First album I owned.
I remember when a friend gave me a copy of this album because I really loved Linkin Park.

The first Nu Metal album I ever owned.
This was when Linkin Park was really good.

I got this album when it was released in 2006, I must have been around 10 - and I know what you will say, this is too young for a hip hop album that contains explicit lyrics. But I knew the facts of life much earlier. My family isn’t prude.

Initially, I didn’t like the album at all. I knew some of the group's earlier songs from the 90s, which were poppier, more melodic and relied on singing as much as on rapping, and this is what I really loved. “Comeback” is more rooted in modern hip hop rather than pop rap (Germany's equivalent of oldschool hip hop), and instead of catchy melodies we get harder beats and constant rapping. It wasn’t my cup of tea. Back then, I only liked pop music and this album’s tone was a bit frustrating for me.

Now, here's my recent opinion:
“Comeback” is a mixed bag. Two thirds are simply awesome, the rest is some of the weirdest material I ever heard on a German hip hop album. What has to be said is that even though in the ...more

I'm pretty sure I'd consider this a life changing album. Truly one of the biggest albums to me at the time.

My first taste of Hardcore Hip Hop - it was awesome.