The Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues
'Lessons'
Buffista Music III: The Search for Bach
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
or the massively imitated "sound" of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless?
More like Loveless I guess.
The Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues
I would've said Remain in Light or even My Life In the Bush of Ghosts was the breakthrough record.
Remain in Light
That's probably what I meant to type.
Dinosaur Jr. - "Bug".
Loveless wouldn't have happened without it.
And while I think "You're Living All Over Me" is a better album, it was the dozen-overdubbed-guitar-attack of "Bug" that was more influential in terms of sound.
I think most of us use iTunes.
Damn. I can't use iTunes, because it won't load onto Windows ME computers.
Any other options?
Unkonwn Pleasures by Joy Division. Martin Hannett's production was definitely an influence on much of what was to come, IMO. Metal Box by PiL was also quite striking.
Not sure I know much about studio stuff but a lot of women would not be recording artists today without Janis Joplin's "Pearl" or Patti Smith's "Horses" making women's place in rock much more...serious?(it's early...don't have the right words yet. Sorry.) But now when I hear Alanis, Fiona, Melissa E.,who paid tribute with her awesome cover of "Piece of My Heart" that is what I think. Not to slight Grace Slick, bitterness over "We Built This City" notwithstanding. Also, and unrelated to the "girls with guitars", I'd feel remiss if I didn't say "What's Goin' On?"
Metal Machine Music.
heh
Peter Gabriel's 3rd album for the drum sound he got.
According to this LA Times blog Amoeba is starting its own music label (but their first release is a bootleg, Gram Parsons to be exact, not an actual album) and downloading site.
As far as the sonic touchstone thing - that's exactly the kind of question I am no good at answering. I tend to think of albums like OK Computer or Yankee Hotel that were just different than anything I had heard before and seemed to affect the sound and recording style of many other bands after, but I have no idea if that is due to use of the studio or my limited musical universe or what have you.