The Music Project, Pt. 1

These are the first 4 real albums I ever bought. Beatles, Bette, Zep, Sabbath - in that order. I say first "real" albums, because I had previously purchased some of those compilation albums from K-Tel and Ronco. You know, the ones advertised on television:
"Dynamite" (22 explosive hits).
"Believe in Music" (20 of today's top hit songs).
I could put almost all of the Beatles' stuff on this list, but "Let It Be" was my first (Beatles and/or rock) album, and their last (at least in terms of release), and it has a special place in my heart. The Beatles wanted it to be raw (see: "Naked"), but it was hijacked by that crazy genius Phil Specter (see: "End of the Century" by the Ramones) and sweetened with strings and an angelic chorus. The result is a strange, dichotomous, compelling album.
A 13 year old boy, in the early 70s, in a small, rural town in North Carolina, falling in love with "The Divine Miss M?" There should have been red flags everywhere. I was too young and naive to understand all of the hoopla and implications at the time. I just knew that Bette was fabulous. And she remains DIVINE. An iconic album for gay men of "a certain age."
"Led Zeppelin II" was one of my earliest forays into hard rock. This album, recorded all over the US, while the band constantly toured, has never disappointed me, in 37 years of listening. You can feel the confidence of a band gelling on this one, but there's also a primal sense of urgency. A desert island pick.
Ok, Zeppelin whetted my cravings for noise, but where do I go from here, I asked myself? "Paranoid" was the logical next step. Black Sabbath was the baddest, noisiest band in existence, at that time. Gleefully shadowy and "evil," "Paranoid" is like a bad dream that you're digging too much to awaken from.
As you can see, I'm already all over the place musically.