Albums that actually changed my life:

eh Steve tagged me in a facebook thing and I decided to blog it here instead. The meme said to come up with 25 of "the albums that, no matter what they were thought of musically, shaped your world. "
Rather than listing 25 of my favourite albums, I thought I would identify a handful that actually changed me, and explain how:

So here goes - in approximately chronological order

The Lads- Arbour Day
The first CD I owned, I got it as soon as it came out as I liked their cassette tape "People I Regularly Associate" because of the silly voiced story that went on between the songs. I remember singing many of its songs to myself in my part time job watering someone's garden while they were overseas one summer.

MIC - Superhuman
I went Parachute 98 being a bit of a fan of the lads, but not overly obsessed with music. I came home and got the title song of this album stuck in my head from it being on the Parachute 98 sampler CD. A couple of weeks later I bought the album, and started spending too much time looking at CDs in Christian bookshops— A trait I still exhibit today.

Bride - The Jesus Experience
The first "Heavy" album I owned— and the first album I played air guitar to. Also, great for getting weird looks from European tourists as they walk past while you eat lunch in the middle of the Abel Tasman National Park listening to it on battery powered computer speakers plugged into a walkman.

Project 86 - Project 86
The first good "Heavy" Album I owned on CD. Until I heard this I didn't realise music, Christian or Otherwise could be this Dark/ Loud/ Angry/ Heavy /Brooding/ Powerful and generally awesome. Also talking about how much we liked this and their next album is how I got to know one of my best friends.

Grammatrain - Lonely House
Hearing about how good these guys were from a mate at school (not a Christian) who was mostly into Metallica and Korn is what started off my search for Christian music that was as heavy or heavier than mainstream bands. I started learning to play guitar from my mate Jeremy teaching me bits of songs from this album. I've bought it on tape about 3 times and also eventually acquired it on CD.

Veggietales - Veggietunes
Where the others have mostly only affected the development of my musical tastes and how that is played out in my personality - this album had a massive impact on my life outside of just music obsession. After moving to go to Uni, I'd set a song from this as my answerphone message on my phone in the hostel. The first conversation I ever had with my now wife included sharing our mutual love for silly singing vegetables, and me telling her to call and check it out - She did, left a message, we got to know each other and about 4 years later we got married.

Dead Poetic- New Medicines
This album is the album that broke me into screamo, and then through that into metal/ metalcore with "extreme" vocals. Heh, and I've just realised that as I'm typing this, I'm wearing a t shirt based on the album cover. An honorable mention could also go out to Further Seems Forever's The Moon is Down for making me like emo (without the screaming) at about the same time.

Chances are, being an extroverted music fan/geek, if I know you, I would be interested in hearing about albums that changed your life too. You could leave a comment, post some thoughts on your own blog or facebook or we could chat about it in real life sometime- preferably with coffee. mmmm coffee.