I realized recently that I don’t listen to too much new music nowadays. I attribute this to two things. One, I haven’t been making much of an effort to seek out new stuff. Two, when I’m working on my own music I tend to block out other music. It’s natural to have your sound be a reflection of your influences — some might say there’s nothing wrong with wearing your influences prominently on your musical sleeve. But I find the best way for me to capture the sounds I hear in my head, is to filter out other music and concentrate on my own thing.

So, here’s the point of this post. Thinking about all this, I began to think about my musical influences. There are certain albums that are part of my musical DNA, and are so ingrained in my head (and my memories) that I thought I should catalog them and dissect what makes them so important to me.

So here we have the first installment. I’m thinking of making this a recurring feature on this blog. I’d love to hear your stories on any of the albums I talk about here — did they have an impact on you? When, and why?

First one up is Ghost in the Machine by The Police. I was already a huge Police fan before this came out in the early 80s. The one day, at home in suburban Chicago, I heard a familiar voice on the radio accompanied by a syncopated reggae flavored synth riff, a funky ass bass line, and crisp drums. “Where does the answer lie… living from day to day… is it something we can buy… there must be another way…” Damn, was that the Police?! I’d just heard “Spirits in the Material World” and I was hooked.

Back then, I had precious little money from my allowance to buy records. Luckily though, my father got me a bootleg cassette version of the album from Jakarta, Indonesia where he was going on a regular basis for business. (Pirated music was a huge thing in Indonesia at the time.) While waiting for my precious album though, I listened feverishly to the radio — Sting, Andy and Stewart followed up “Spirits” with “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”, “Invisible Sun”, “Secret Journey” and they made a huge impact on my impressionable young mind.

There’s something about this album that’s pure genius — it has a dark and somewhat sombre tone througout, punctuated by moments of pop brilliance. It’s political, thoughtful, introspective, and sometimes disturbing. It’s also the first album where the Police used a horn section on several songs. I never figured out what those LED patterns on the album cover meant, but it added to the album’s mystique. They look like digital representations of the three members of the group.

All in all, this album was and remains a huge influence… it’s a classic.