Sometimes the music of the past still makes a difference today. And with that in mind, a while back we at Jupiter Index asked a number of diverse artists what musical releases had either most influenced them or which they simply enjoyed hearing. These are their replies.

Michelle Malone
Just for the record, my favorite all time CD's:
I love the organic, rootsy, acoustic-driven, in your face, shake your ass and stick out your tongue rock ‘n’ roll. Having said that, here are the records that I cherish (excluding the other 30 or so that mean just as much to me), that have had the most profound difference to me as a music minimalist:
1. Bonnie Raitt - Give It Up or Takin' My Time - don't make me choose.
2. Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street or Sticky Fingers don't make me choose!
3. Delaney and Bonnie - Motel Shot.
4. The Faces Box set: 5 Guys Walk into a Bar -- don't gotta choose :)
5. Little Feat- Dixie Chicken

Colin Gilmore
I'll try my best. These albums aren't necessarily my absolute favorite five, but they're ones that I remember having an impact on me.

1. Michael Jackson's “Thriller.” It was the first album I ever owned. I was eight years old and listened to it non-stop. Not only was he the coolest thing in the world to me at that time, but the album was full of songs that were very powerful to me, both lyrically and melodically. It was also one of those albums that people from all different backgrounds loved and it
brought me together with like-minded people from different backgrounds.

2. The Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks..." When I first heard this album, I remember thinking, "I've never heard anything so bitter and negative! I'm in love!" I was 12 years old and having grown up in
Lubbock, I'd never heard anything like it. I was so full of anger at that time in my life. This album was like God had answered my silent question: Why does music have to always be so shiny and pretty when life isn't? I'd listen to it non-stop all night and day and wore out several cassettes of it.

3. Pink Floyd "The Wall." I got into this one just as I started high school. I'd stay up all night listening to it and think I was going completely
insane. This album made me realize how interwoven beauty, insanity and bitterness are. Despite the fact that it's one of those albums that's generally overplayed (especially certain songs), it still inspires many of the same feelings I had then.

4. The Pogues' "Peace and Love" I loved this album from the moment I pushed play. It was like ancient Ireland had come back from the dead to shake me up with modern and old sounds. It's one of those albums
that woke a certain part of me and made me feel I'd certainly heard echoes of it in a past life. I think Shane Magowan will be regarded as a genius when he's gone.

5. "The Many Sides of Johnny Cash." I discovered this album long after I'd discovered and fallen in love with Johnny Cash. To me, listening to songs like "Flesh and Blood" and Guy Clark's "The Last Gunfighter
Ballad" made me feel the cycle of grace, fall and redemption that so characterizes Johnny Cash, as if I was watching all the seasons unfold before me. That might have only been my perception but it's how it hit
me at the time. I feel at times that if I was only allowed to listen to one album for the rest of my life, that would be it.

Patty Larkin's
1. Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
2. Sounds of Silence - Simon & Garfunkle
3. Jet Plane & a Rocking Chair - Richard & Linda Thompson
4. Miss America - Mary Margaret O'Hara
5. Odelay - Beck
6. Play – Moby

- Jupiter Index