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You just never know. In one of the reviews referenced in my entry in our 20th Anniversary feature “20 Albums That Influenced Me,” I tell the story of getting to know the “girl next door” (actually three doors down) in my freshman-year college dorm, becoming friends before either of us had an inkling there might be higher stakes involved. Thirty-six years later, we have three grown children and a new grandchild. Neither of us saw that coming at the time; it just happened. You could say the same for my relationship with the Daily Vault, and writing about music. In…

In 2004, I was an eighth grader with a newfound obsession with Queen and an equally strong desire to avoid doing my trigonometry homework. Over the course of 12 years, the obsession deepened into the longest-lasting love of my life; I never used trigonometry again, but Queen’s A Night At The Opera has been a constant companion, and I’ve spent all of my young adult life trying to put those feelings into words. Back when the Vault first emerged in 1997, it was a rarer thing to have your own little corner of the world to share and connect with…

Let’s be clear from the start what this list is and isn’t. It isn’t a list of my favorite albums, or the best albums by my favorite bands, or anything at all like that; kindly banish such thoughts from your mind. What this is, is a list of albums that reached me at a critical point along my journey and changed the way I heard music. Also, while the list itself is chronological, it’s not in the way you might expect; albums are listed in the order in which they had an impact on me, not the order in which…

As I sit here on Christmas Eve, thinking about the 20 years of Daily Vault and the almost 31 years I’ve spent on this planet, I look back on some of the most influential and life changing music I’ve ever heard. This list brings back plenty of memories for me and hopefully, dear reader, it will do the same for you! 20. Tripping Daisy – Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (1998) Not the type of record I was expecting after hearing “I Got A Girl,” but it’s a record I’ve always liked. It’s one of those records I bought on…

Twenty albums do not a lifetime make, but they sure help it over the rough edges...1. Eddy Arnold – Have Guitar Will TravelI told my grandson a few years ago that my family did not own a television set until I was 10 years old. I’m not sure he believed me, as he has never known a world without computers, never mind one without a television set. That meant that the radio and phonograph were the king and queen of the house; my grandfather was in charge of both, and he loved Eddy Arnold. It was country music at its…

The albums in the list below (chronologically arranged, but in no special personal order) mark key milestones on my journey to discovering rock ‘n’ roll itself, growing up in India in the ’80s and ’90s. 1. Kraftwerk – The Man-Machine (1978)The Man-Machine was probably one of my very first exposures to music of any kind, period. My father picked up a cassette tape of this album on one of his trips abroad in the early ’80s (I forget where) on the recommendation of one of his friends. Of course, he didn’t know what Kraftwerk was! I still remember playing with Matchbox…

Here is a list of 20 albums that influenced me. They are not listed in chronological order of release, nor sorted by most to least influential. They are simply in the order that I first heard them. 1. AC/DC – Back in BlackThis was my first love. I was six years old when I got it, on vinyl. This laid down the foundation for a lifelong love of music. It is the perfect rock and roll album. My musical life was off to a hot start! 2. Joan Jett And The Blackhearts – I Love Rock And RollBack in the early…

[Editor's Note: Former Contributing Writer Darren Paltrowitz has authored two ongoing columns for the Daily Vault over the years. Both the original model (Moving In Stereo) and the more recent Keeping Up (With Darren Paltrowitz), which ran 50 episodes from 2008 through 2011, featured an eclectic mix of news and observations about musical and pop culture doings. For the site's 20th anniversary, Darren returned with a characteristically wide-ranging and quirky set of albums that influenced him.] 1. Superdrag – Head Trip In Every Key Superdrag had one of the key rock radio hits in 1996 with "Sucked Out." In turn,…

They say it’s better to burn out than fade away. Switchfoot continues to burn brightly after 20 years and 10 studio albums because this band has never stood still; the restless vision of frontman/lyricist Jonathan Foreman won’t allow it, and co-founders Tim Foreman (bass) and Chad Butler (drums) and longtime cohorts Jerome Fontamillas (keyboards/guitar) and Drew Shirley (guitar) are enthusiastic collaborators in the ongoing experiment that is Switchfoot. A key component of that experiment is that Switchfoot—shades of Schrodinger’s cat—both is and isn’t a Christian band. Foreman’s lyrics dig deeply into questions of philosophy, morality, purpose and faith without ever…

Morphine: Journey of Dreams documents the career of Morphine, the acclaimed “low-rock” trio of saxophone, bass and drums that blew up in the indie alt-rock scene of the ’90s. The band—drummers Jerome Deupree and Billy Conway, sax man extraordinaire Dana Colley and bassist/singer/songwriter Mark Sandman—released four critically touted albums before Sandman tragically died of a heart attack on stage in Rome in the summer of 1999. The film follows the band’s journey from Boston bar band to indie rock darlings to the aftermath of picking up the pieces following Sandman’s death. The film doesn’t really offer much that wasn’t previously…