davidn

"A list of 10 Albums which have greatly influenced my taste in music. One title per day for 10 days. No explanations, no reviews, only covers." That's what the thing I was tagged in on my mostly defunct Facebook account said, and it gave me something to do, honestly. And what's the point of posting just covers - I'm going to share my memories and thoughts about them anyway!

I wasn't into music for a long time, but Iron Maiden was the band that changed that (actually it might have been Crush 40's melodic rock as a stepping stone to this but that's a much dorkier-sounding story). Their songs were so different, melodic and interesting - and were made even more fascinating when I found the fansite http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com/ with in-depth background on what every Iron Maiden song means. Discovering a thirteen-minute retelling of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner (which we had recently slogged through in English lessons) opened a completely new world to me in terms of what you were even allowed to do with music.

I first noticed them on the soundtrack to Carmageddon 2 which I was playing with a school friend, then went home, dialled into Freeserve and downloaded a load of their songs from Napster - from there, we gradually spread them around our group of friends. After a long time downloading random songs, Powerslave was the first ever album I bought for myself, from a music shop when on holiday in Germany. It was a good time to get into them because Bruce Dickinson had returned to the band very recently on Brave New World, and these albums were part of the soundtrack to our 6th year of school whenever we wrestled 5ive and Steps off the stereo.

I miss our common room.