when I was 8 years old I manifested this infatuation with the beach boys. I was ridiculed by my older brother and learned to keep it a shameful secret until the age of 13 or so where they fell by the wayside and I had kind of forgotten about them.
i owned every album and can still to this day sing every beach boys lyric. But when I was 18 or so, I got back into them with gusto and found a more mature and deeper appreciation for pet sounds and smiley smile.

My first CD I ever owned was shamefully ugly Kid Joe... but that didnt really shape my music perspective. The first album that I can remember violently listening to over and over again was Greenday's album dookie, The doors double Best of CD, and Live's Throwing Copper and soundgarden superunknown.... oh, and Nirvana unplugged.

But that was my "coming of age" likes.

as a child my mother used to sing Joni Mitchell and Carol King to me and that gave me such a deep appreciation for the female sensuality and vocals that later made me instantly like portishead and bjork.

But the one album that truly blew my mind and exposed me to an entire new world of music was Disco Volante by Mr. Bungle about 6 years ago.
That album alone openned my eyes and forced me to have appreciation for all things technical. From Glover Gill's dark tangos to frank zappas 80's stuff to big band and foxtrot.

Disco Volante is such a dark, visceral, aurally detailed, textured journey from beginning to end that incorporates almost every genre and does it in such a way that you instantly see the beauty that Patton and Spruance see in them. It is like someone showing you a painting that you can see the influences of every artist to ever come before them (and some yet to come) that instantly shows you "how to see it and understand" individually each influence.

I have bought that album 5 times now and have probably listened to it as a whole and in its individual parts for over (easily) 1000 hours of my life.