Music Nostalgia Albums

[2cents]

Name the albums that bring you back to a specific time and place in your life.

1. The Verve - Urban Hymns: sitting at the family PC aged 13-14 around 1997-98 playing the version of Championship Manager where Pires joins Juve at the start of every game.

2. The Roots - Do You Want More?: getting into smoking weed in school around 98-99.

3. Sasha & Digweed - Northern Exposure 1: getting into the rave scene a bit around 00-01. In fairness there’s a bunch of albums bring me back to this time, a lot of the Global Underground mixes especially.

4. Tom Waits - Asylum Years: working as a bicycle courier in Dublin around 04-05.

5. Zero 7 - Simple Things and When it Falls, and Air - Talkie Walkie: traveling in the Middle East and Asia 05-06, especially long bus journeys at night.

6. Beck - Sea Change: on a train and/or bus in Turkey in summer 2008. Think this album provokes the strongest nostalgia for me, I can properly sense the atmosphere of Turkey whenever I listen.

7. Florence and the Machine - Lungs and Bonobo - Days to Come: traveling in South-East Asia in 2010. Specifically, the first one takes me to a bus journey along the coast of Bohol in the Philippines, the second one to a bus journey from Chumphon to Bangkok at night.

8. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns, The XX - XX and Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur: living in Tel Aviv 10-12. Especially the latter album, it brings me back to being out in really heavy rain on a specific day just after I’d moved apartments.

9. Telefon Tel Aviv - Fahrenheit Far Enough and Immolate Yourself: living in Rabat 2013, walking around the Medina at night.

10. Radiohead - Kid A: weekly early Monday morning Ryanair flights to the UK, 15-17.

 

[Red_Aaron]

I can't listen to the SSLP without huge flashbacks to Metal Gear Solid

Album and game were on heavy play for months on end in 1999
Rock bottom in particular transports me to a giant frozen warehouse being pursued by Vulcan Raven

 

[FrankDrebin]

Never got the love for Sea Change.

 

[Salt Bailly]

The Score - The Fugees

 

[Dirty Schwein]

Born To Do It - Craig David
Millennium - Backstreet Boys
Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park
Documentary - The Game
8701 - Usher

These 5 albums take me back to good times.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

Oasis, be here now and long summer days playing ff7 and drinking cheap white cider with mates
Glitter and spit by the pearl harts, lockdown 1.0 spending hours a day listening to this on the treadmill
Use your illusion 2 gnr, 14 years old and mopeing around over the girl that dumped me with estranged on repeat
Kula Shakur, k and moesly shoals, ocean colour scene, a great summer of parties drinks and girls in my mid teens
Californication rhcp, the year I passed my driving test I had this on constant repeat in the car driving everywhere and nowhere with mates

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Oasis, be here now and long summer days playing ff7 and drinking cheap white cider with mates
Glitter and spit by the pearl harts, lockdown 1.0 spending hours a day listening to this on the treadmill
Use your illusion 2 gnr, 14 years old and mopeing around over the girl that dumped me with estranged on repeat
Kula Shakur, k and moesly shoals, ocean colour scene, a great summer of parties drinks and girls in my mid teens
Californication rhcp, the year I passed my driving test I had this on constant repeat in the car driving everywhere and nowhere with mates

Definitely done that. love Use Your Illusion 2

I think Be Here Now is more nostalgic for me because I’ve rarely listened to it since the 90s so the songs are anchored in those 90s memories for me.

@2cents

Urban Hymns for me as well. A lot of those 1997 albums actually: Fat of the Land by Prodigy, The Colour and Shape by Foo Fighters, Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers among others.

 

[Cheimoon]

Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygène 7-13 is linked to playing Screamer 2 for me. Yeah I know, a little superficial. Can't think of much else than that Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way reminds me of doing puzzles in my living room as a small kid - although the song must have been close to 10 years old by that time. I'll have to think harder!

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

Definitely done that. love Use Your Illusion 2

I think Be Here Now is more nostalgic for me because I’ve rarely listened to it since the 90s so the songs are anchored in those 90s memories for me.

@2cents

Urban Hymns for me as well. A lot of those 1997 albums actually: Fat of the Land by Prodigy, The Colour and Shape by Foo Fighters, Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers among others.

Use your illusion 2 is still one of my all time faves, be here now had a bad rap at the time, coming after whats the story, but irs a great coke fueled rock and roll album.

Also queen greatest hits, 9/10 years old playing magicland dizzy, oh the days where games had no save points!!

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Use your illusion 2 is still one of my all time faves, be here now had a bad rap at the time, coming after whats the story, but irs a great coke fueled rock and roll album.

Also queen greatest hits, 9/10 years old playing magicland dizzy, oh the days where games had no save points!!

Be Here Now was the fastest selling album (potentially of all time) at the time? Sold something like 607k albums in 3 days, as it was released on a Wed/ Thu.

I got a detention for being late for school as I was queuing outside Woolworths!

it could be with a bit of trimming in its production, but still love it.

interesting that Use Your Illusion 2 is mentioned, I’ve always seen them as one entity. Just looked up the track listing and playing time, and it comes in at over 2.5 hours for both albums. Mental.

 

[Nickosaur]

There's a Modest Mouse album that I listened to while travelling through Chile. Such a strong sense of nostalgia, I can picture the hostels, the streets, the sea when I play it...

 

[Rado_N]

5. Zero 7 - Simple Things

Man I love that album. I even had a track from it for one of the songs playing at our wedding whilst we signed all the paperwork etc after the ceremony.

Thankfully nobody noticed the lyrics in the opening verse

 

[Salt Bailly]

Use your illusion 2 is still one of my all time faves, be here now had a bad rap at the time, coming after whats the story, but irs a great coke fueled rock and roll album.

Also queen greatest hits, 9/10 years old playing magicland dizzy, oh the days where games had no save points!!

Get In The Ring

 

[Organic Potatoes]

There's a Modest Mouse album that I listened to while travelling through Chile. Such a strong sense of nostalgia, I can picture the hostels, the streets, the sea when I play it...

If you mean The Lonesome Crowded West then you’re my newest friend. Tracks 7 & 8 are an easy way to send me into a stupor.

 

[Cheimoon]

Got something: specific albums by Mononc Serge, Patère Rose, and Metric, related to my first visit to Québec with my now-wife.

 

[One Night Only]

Iron Maiden - Rock in Rio - used to sit up all night listening to it and playing diablo 2 then going to school feckin knackered due to lack of sleep, but as soon as I got in and had some crumpets for tea I was suddenly wide awake again to repeat this vicious cycle.

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
Limp Bizkit - Chocolate Starfish & The Hotdog Flavoured Water
Bloodhound Gang - Hooray for Boobies
Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP.

I guess I just remember the school days very well

 

[Acheron]

Snow Patrol - A Final Straw

I've been listening to this lately and all I can think of are the early 2000s and my years as a preadolescent and teen years. It's a very good album as well and while there were other albums I'm not mentioning this one in particular has always had a very nostalgic feeling to it.

 

[Volumiza]

Implant - Eat Static: Me and my mates used to listen to this after a few bongs back in the day. This was our go to album when we were wasted and the music conjures up pictures of space and aliens. Amazing album even now, still put it on regularly and it always takes me back to my bedroom, surrounded by smoke and with friends laughing uncontrollably. High octane album full of high octane music.

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd: We were into dance mainly in the late 80’s early 90’s but we went to a party once and we were wasted and the host put this on at the end of the night. Mind blown! This album always reminds me of that night and the subsequent times me and my mates used to put it on after we’d been clubbing or at the pub.

Monkey Business - Ian Brown: Not the best album in the world but whenever I hear a track off it it makes me think of driving to or from my girlfriend at the times house in my pride and joy Mazda MX5 in 1999. Probably a slightly melancholic memory as this was the time I’d started splintering off from my group of friends to go on my own journey through work, uni, failed marriages.

Definitely Maybe - Oasis: Perfect album to soundtrack that time of my life. Me and my close circle of friends, no girlfriends at the time to ruin things, lots of drinking, lots of adventures, lots of fun.

Brown Album and Snivilisation - Orbital. Again. Friends, laughs. Glasto 1994. Maybe the best weekend of my life.

Edit: One last one is Soundtracks - Gypsy: A rare and obscure album from mid 90’s. Great ambient techno album and I still have it on cd as it’s not on many streaming services. Back in the day, me and one of my mates who was into music used to buy NME, Mojo, Q etc and read all about new albums coming out, then go to Arcade Records (now closed) in Derby to buy them. The old guy in there who I remember looked a little Bill Bailey - ish told us to ‘have a listen to this lads’ and put the cd on in the shop. An ace tune came on and he did this legendary shuffle dance to it, completely lost in the moment. I bought the cd based on that. Great album and my accompanying friend regrets not buying it himself. I’ve since found and bought him a copy and also paid a fortune for a brand new unopened double LP.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

Get In The Ring

When I was at school we used to eat lunch in our class, and were aloud to put music on, everyone else would pick take that, east 17 etc, 8 got three detentions when the teacher walked in and heard get In the ring

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

Be Here Now was the fastest selling album (potentially of all time) at the time? Sold something like 607k albums in 3 days, as it was released on a Wed/ Thu.

I got a detention for being late for school as I was queuing outside Woolworths!

it could be with a bit of trimming in its production, but still love it.

interesting that Use Your Illusion 2 is mentioned, I’ve always seen them as one entity. Just looked up the track listing and playing time, and it comes in at over 2.5 hours for both albums. Mental.

That happened to me too, detention, queueing at andys records for it.

 

[Nickosaur]

If you mean The Lonesome Crowded West then you’re my newest friend. Tracks 7 & 8 are an easy way to send me into a stupor.

That is their best album alongside Moon & Antarctica imo. But the album is actually We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. I know it's probably a bit more divisive but I think it's a great album. Little Motel gives me shivers every time.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Although I like bands from every decade from the 60's upwards, the 90's were 'my era' - the years I was at secondary school and really got into music.

From those years, I associate listening to Indie albums by the likes of Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene and Kulashaker when I was upbeat and in a good mood (same as I do with Vampire Weekend in the 21st century).

But I'm more nostalgic about albums by Counting Crows and Matchbox Twenty. Especially 'August And Everything After' and 'Yourself or Someone Like You'. Those were the albums whose lyrics and tone really helped me get through the harder times, and most fitted my mood most of the time.

They're still two of my favourite groups, and two of my favourite albums. I get more nostalgic listening to Counting Crows, and Adam Duritz' wonderfully plaintive vocals and lyrics, then I do with any other group.

 

[WI_Red]

I am dating my high school years here, but these are the ones that evoke the strongest memories:

Melancholy and Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins

Vitalogy - Pearl Jam

in utero - Nirvana

Sublime - Sublime

 

[syrian_scholes]

Food & Liquor by Lupe Fiasco is an album I still listen to every few weeks.