The album you learned to play to

[shadowplay]

Basically post the album that got you on the road to knowing what you were doing in a small way.

Mine is A Distant Shore by Tracey Thorn which I got around the time I got my first guitar in 1982 (flaky old Hofner that cost £15 with a WEM Amp included) and which seemed so accessible to me and it was one of the few records I've ever learned all the songs by (singing too) and as the years passed Lady S learned the basics to it and all my kids have too even if they've ended up far more skilled than I ever was.

For me this is a punk record in spirit more than most actual punk, it just breathes from a place of accessibility, honesty and can do attitude. Cost £138 to record and sold 100k copies plus.

I still know all the songs front to back and I must have played those songs to all the girls I've loved before, as evidenced by Lady S and two of my exes comparing notes recently during a visit in mortifying style.

The way I remember it was that I was singing and playing all these songs in a weekend but perhaps in retrospect it was more like a month.

Tracey Thorn -A Distant Shore

My favourite song changes but I guess Too Happy is the one.

D

[Bert Camenbert]

Did you play Tracey's cover of Femme Fatale to your girlfriends?

[soggy mittens]

I remember downloading a bunch of tabs for full albums in txt files around 98/99 from the library, these are my most remembered and enjoyed...

Nirvana - MTV live and unplugged
Weezer - Blue Album
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
J Mascis - Martin + Me
Frank Black and the Catholics - Frank Black and the Catholics

[shadowplay]

Did you play Tracey's cover of Femme Fatale to your girlfriends?

Sure did and they were generally flattered by it despite the lyrics seeming critical. Most of the women I've escorted would regard Femme Fatale as a compliment having grown up watching monochrome noir and well...there's no getting away from this...featuring on the goth spectrum (not today's self harming goths dressed in 'special' goth gear from shops filled with Emily the Strange tat and who listen to heavy metal).

D

[dc]

Tracey Thorn -A Distant Shore
D

this is such a wonderful record. great "first OSG post of the day" to read, and first album to play -

[marqueemoon]

[blacktiger]

The question assumes that I actually learned to play, which is debatable. The records I played along with early on were mainly Hendrix (AYE and BOG 2, mainly) and assorted early Black Flag records. I have never learned to play anyone else’s songs, though. When I say that I played along, I mean that I added additional guitar. The closest I ever came to learning anyone else’s stuff would be learning the main riffs from “Minor Threat,” “Paranoid,” and “Crazy Train” (it was the 80s, after all).

[jthomas]

I know that this will sound odd, but: "Tommy."

[Telliot]

For me, it was the Beatles. No album in particular, just their general library. They have always been my church, and their songbook my bible. I learned guitar, bass, singing, songwriting, and production from them, all of which created a foundation for who I am as a musician/songwriter today.

[countertext]

The Cult - Electric
Love Removal Machine kinda grabbed me, and I learned most of the guitar and bass on that record thereafter. Never worked out some of the solos, but the record as a whole probably affected my sense of guitar playing ever since.

[scottT]

I have some kind of weird choices. I play more bass than guitar, but for guitar it was Murmur and some Fables, and for bass it was Horses (Patti Smith) and Television (bass mostly and some guitar). It's not that I couldn't already play a little before that, but those are albums I sat down with to try to systematically work out track by track.

[chemattstry]

OK Computer and The Bends by Radiohead. I bought the tab books and really learned a lot through that.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

[Telliot]

Good one! I learned quite a lot from that and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

[mackerelmint]

I stole everything I know about playing guitar from Donald Fagen. Yep, teenage me playing the Rhodes parts from Steely Dan records on guitar, in my bedroom. A real weirdo.

Also Andy Summers, Nile Rodgers, and KISS records when I was just starting.