3 albums that shaped your musical identity.

[Obulus]

There's two that stick out:
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Melvins - Houdini

If I go beyond these the list becomes longer than three immediately (in the order I discovered them):
Millionaire - Paradisiac
QOTSA - Songs For The Deaf
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Deerhunter - Microcastle
Liars - They Were Wrong So We Drowned
Sleep - Jerusalem
Thrones - Sperm Whale/White Rabbit
Danny Brown - XXX

[Helter]

Great Thread! Here's my three:
The White Stripes - The White Stripes (prior I was all pop and 80's metal, they made me discover blues)
Led Zeppelin - Zeppelin III (Through this album, I discovered my love for folk after hearing about page<jansch)
This Will Destroy You - Young Mountain (My first taste of this type of music and made me want to start trying to write stuff, even though I missed the boat on the boohoo postrock explosion )
Not the most unknown choices but they are the discoveries that bridged me to other artists

Honorable Mention: Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow (my dad had the cd of this, when I was younger and it made me fall in love with the 60's culture, music, fashion, etc.

[Gone Fission]

And...
Lilys - In the Presence of Nothing

Kurt Heasley, FTW.

He opened Solo for MBV in ATX...

Necro-ing this because In the Presence of Nothing got a reissue and is streaming on Spotify. Been hitting it hard.

Kurt's opening spot at that ATX show hipped me to Lilys, which is okay broadly, but that first album . . .

Gonna have to see if more vintage Slumberland stuff is also streaming now.

[Chankgeez]

That's awesome. Lilys remain totally underrated and so's Slumberland.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mUBb394JE

[Blackened Soul]

I will attempt this thingy since the thread was zombied.. this is not a easy or correct or a something thing but here is a something things

Stefano Scodanibbio - Voyage That Never Ends: I found out about this album in a copy of Double Bassist, had to order it because back then hearing stuff on the net wasn't a thing... lucky for you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgjFBTCxzOI&t=241s

Boris - Feedbacker: This album is just one of the best sounding albums ever made to me. It got me back into like heavy music after a long time of being really jaded, it let me know that the things I was doing and the things I wanted to do were valid and not just "that noisy crap"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsKgltFHIEY

Being From the bay area and having parents that were musicians AND who grew up in the 60s meant there were lots of awesome albums around. My mother would always play this album when cooking for holidays Ravi Shankar is like a musical mountain to me reaching far up into the clouds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-HasHPrYCc

[facelessfx]

In Utero
Go Plastic
Labor Days

Or:

Bleach
Experience (Prodigy)
Paul's Boutique

They taught me about how it's easy and important to be able to appreciate different genres equally. I'll go through all of Nirvana and Aesop Rock's output every few weeks. Never get tired of them (except smells like teen spirit)

Honestly. And it shames me slightly to say it, but Oasis - Definitely Maybe was probably the most influential album for me as it came along at a time when I was just ready to start listening to music, instead of it just always being there and hearing it. And it made me pick up a guitar. And once I started listening and playing, the whole world of music presented itself as something huge and amazing.

[tremolo3]

My musical identity changes every month ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[MechaGodzilla]

Daft Punk - Discovery
Eric Clapton - From the Cradle (I wanted to pick a blues album and, although this isn't much of a popular classic even by Clapton standards, it kind of covers all the bases)
Stooges - 1969

I picked these because I guess you could broadly categorise my tastes as blues, smart dance music (anything that you can listen to outside the context of a club without getting bored) and rock subcategories that stoners listen to (despite the fact that I don't smoke)

[Psyre]

The Beach Boys- Smile
Blur- 13
Eno- Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Shout outs from pre-2012 Psyre
Don Caballero- American Don
Sufjan Stevens- Enjoy your Rabbit/Age of Adz

[Ugly Nora]

Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits 1974–78
Eagles - Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)
Billy Joel - Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2 (volume 1 only)

[Olin]

Swans - Swans Are Dead
Jackson C. Frank - Blues Run The Game
Tram - Heavy Black Frame

This is a good thread to be necro'd, real interesting to see everyone's roots.

[Chankgeez]

Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits 1974–78
Eagles - Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)
Billy Joel - Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2 (volume 1 only)

I sincerely hope you're forced to listen to only this here music on endless shuffle perpetually forevermore.

[MechaGodzilla]

Jackson C. Frank - Blues Run The Game

I'd love to know more stuff in the vein of Jackson C Frank. I like Dave Van Ronk and I know Nick Drake did a lot of JCF stuff but my knowledge ends there (also I struggle with Drake because his voice isn't that good, whereas JCF and DVR are really strong singers).

[Pepe]

Oh, a very nice thread. Three albums only? That's tough.

Steve Winwood - Arc Of A Diver
Stanley Clarke - The BASS-ic Collection
Simple Minds - Ne Wold Dream (81-82-83-84)

And a lot more, but especially these.

[dozicusmaximus]

When I was 8
Nirvana - Nevermind
Jimi Hendrix - Experienced... I think, it was a greatest hits tape.
Michael Jackson - Dangerous

When I was 12
Marilyn Manson - Portrait of an American Family
White Zombie - Astrocreep 2000
Crystal Method - Vegas
honorable mentions
My old man's Yes, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind albums
Korn - self titled
Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation or Firestarter single

When I was 16
Paul Oakenfold - Global Underground 007: New York
Three Six Mafia - When the Smoke Clears
Deftones - White Pony

When I was 23
ISIS - Panopticon
Meshuggah - Nothing
This was when I started listening to a lot of death metal, sludge, doom, grind, black, blah blah. I loved all of it because it was new to me. If I had to pick one...
Portal - Outre (one of the few albums that left me totally speechless afterwards)

The past 10 years, I've heard so much awesome music from Classical to Post Punk.
At this moment some albums that kind of embody the direction I want to move in with my own music.
This Heat - self titled
The Thing Soundtrack
GOD - The Anatomy of Addiction
Steel Pole Bath Tub – The Miracle of Sound in Motion
Tangerine Dream - Rubycon