What album(s) was a musical epiphany for you?

[Mr MidFi]

A lot of my all-time favorites had to grow on me slowly. Conversely, many of the albums that "blew me away" on first listen couldn't stand up to repeated listens.

A few of the ones that grabbed me by the short hairs and wouldn't let go include:

Genesis - Trick of the Tail
I was 13 years old. Just starting to learn that there was more to music than just AM radio. Then I heard this (and Aqualung, Brain Salad Surgery, and Fragile) and my life, as I know it, began.

Lou Reed - Rock n Roll Animal
I didn't really like Lou Reed that much. But the dual guitar attack on this disc just freakin' slayed me.

U2 - War
I was a marginal fan of their first 2 albums already. But then the college radio station (WUOG, The Last One Left) played this one at midnight on its release date, while I was in my dorm room studying. All I remember is telling my roommate to shut the F up...this was something important going on.

REM - Life's Rich Pageant
The only REM album that I immediately loved on first listen. The rest of them had to grow on me.

Radiohead - Kid A
Built to Spill - Ancient Melodies of the Future
I went a long time between epiphanies. A long time. Then, I had two at the same time. At a listening station in a Border's book store. Life's funny like that.

[unleasHell]

there are probably more than this, but just off the top of my head...

Yardbirds: Live, featuring Jimmy Page, bought this as a kid and loved it...

NEU: Neu (Hallo Gallo is trance inducing even without drugs)
Can: Future Days (bought this new with my paper-route money)
AmonDuul II: Tanz der Lemmings (all three of these opened my live-long love for Kraut rock)

Tangerine Dream: Phaedra (showed me the inventive side of synthesizers)

Pink Floyd: DSOTM: (Perfectly Polished Prog)

Madness/Specials/English Beat: All of their First releases, unleashed the magic of SKA!

Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (This album scared the hell out of me for years, and is now my number one favorite of all time...)

And that is just the 70's....

[MasterCylinder]

My first musical epiphany was Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here: I was 13 when this came out and while I was all over DSOTM for about a year, It was Wish You Were Here that eneded up being the knock-out blow. I remember riding my bike over to my friend's house the day I bought it to listen and was absolutely floored. That album shaped my listening throughout high school.
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ELT ( and all the other people on this thread that mention PINK FLOYD)........

Go find a copy of the book A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS..........a great read for any PF fan...........superlative review of the early years up to the Gilmore dominance..........the complete history of Syd included, which, of course is the topic in WYWH.