It's All About The Albums

I don't think there has every been a time that I wasn't inspired by music. I was always surrounded by it. Whether it was the music I loved or hated. Funnily enough, some of the music that truly disturbed me during my baby/toddler years, has come to be amongst my favorites as a fully grown adult. I guess if you hear it often enough, you get used to it.
I would like to talk about the music that moved me. Now I couldn‘t go through it all, otherwise I‘d be here all night. So I‘ll do the next best thing. I‘ll just talk about the albums that changed and moved me…


When I was about 1O years of age I was blown away by a girl pop-rock band called Shakespear‘s Sister. About a year later, on a Friday night, my parent‘s took me to JB Hi-Fi. This was a monumental evening for me because this was to the night that I would hold in my hands my first ever compact disc album. I was drawn to Shakespear‘s Sisters‘ debut album, so my parent's bought that for me. I felt so grown up beginning my CD music collection with this particular album. The music had a hard edge, but was also very feminine. Sacred Heart is good for a listen if it is the end of the week, your boss has annoyed you, your boyfriend has broken up with you, you‘re recovering from that lovely time of the month, and you are about to get ready for a night in town with the girls.

As soon as I saw Vanessa-Mae: Violin Player being promoted on television I just knew that this was something for me. At the time of getting this album I must have been in year 10. Vanessa-Mae‘s album moved and excited me. Never before had I realised that a classical player could do for the violin what Jimmy Hendrix did for the electric guitar. In fact to describe this album with just one word, I would say — electrifying.

Harry Connick Jr made me sit up straight and listen when he came out with the album She. I was almost through high school — I‘d say about year 11. After hearing the same old, same old on the radio Harry's old school big band sounds blaring out of the radio simply blew me away. Such a breath of fresh air, was this album. He really made me wish I had been born on the banks of the Mississippi.

At the same time that Harry Connick Jr found me, Sheryl Crow was another to also enter my heart. My reaction to both these artists were similar. I just could not believe that commercial radio was playing anything as pure as these two. It was like tasting nothing but junk food, then somebody putting something flavorsome, spicy and wholesome on my dinner plate. For the first time in ages I was listening to something real and from the heart.