For Skot, at Izzle Pfaff, it was XTC's Skylarking. For Snarkout, it was SuperChunk's No Pocky For Kitty^*. Bernard Sumner, from Joy Division and New Order has a whole list of them, as does Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices.

For me, it was The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.

Up until I heard that record, I was pretty much into Metal; and metal was quickly turning into Hair Metal. But, just in time, the new kid showed up at our high school and turned me onto this album. The first thing it did was show me that it was possible for other genres besides metal to be dark, gloomy and angry (very important for teenage boys). For example, the first song:

Oh kiss me, kiss me, kiss me
Your tongue's like poison
So swollen it fills up my mouth
Just just love me, love me, love me
And nail me to the floor
And push my guts all inside out
Get it out, get it out, get it out
Get your fucking voice out of my head
I never wanted this
I never wanted any of this
I wish you were dead
I wish you were dead

To me, back in '88, that's was 100x more powerful than any metal song could ever be. Metal was, and probably still is, obsessed with sorcery, Satan, and insanity - stuff that I don't find scary, and that I can't relate to at all. But this song, "The Kiss", was the stuff of one guy having a really hard time with some woman (and probably some drugs). It seemed so much more authentic, to me. And even more importantly, the next song, "Catch", isn't angry at all; it's just a sweet little song about a crush:

Yeah I know who you remind me of
A girl I think I used to know
Teah I'd see her when the days got colder
On those days when it felt like snow

You know I even think that she stared like you
She used to just stand there and stare
And roll her eyes right up to heaven
And make like I just wasn't there

And she used to fall down a lot
That girl was always falling
Again and again
And I used to sometimes try to catch her
But never even caught her name

And sometimes we would spend the night
Just rolling about on the floor
And I remember even though it felt soft at the time
I always used to wake up sore...
etc...

It's happy, dreamy, whimsical, and intimate. While the first song is a 5 minute guitar freakout with a blast of angry lyrics crammed in at the end, Catch is a soft little 2:45 with synth-violins, acoustic guitar and Robert Smith's trademark "doo-doo-doo"-ing. The first two songs set the limits, and the rest of the songs ricochet back and forth between those extremes. There are love songs on that record - OMG! I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to a love song. But those love songs are so unlike anything I'd ever heard before that they didn't make me run out of the room screaming, the way most Top 40 love songs did - and still do. For example, "Just Like Heaven" is on that record: one of the best songs ever written (and I'll fight anyone who disagrees), and it's a bleeping love song! But you couldn't hear anything like that on commercial radio at the time (at least not where I was). Sing along with me:

Show me, show me, show me
How you do that trick
The one that makes me scream she said
The one that makes me laugh she said
And threw her arms around my neck
Show me how you do it
And i promise you
I promise that I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you
.. etc

A love song sure, but worlds away from the stuff you'd hear on Top 40 radio back in 1987: Lionel Richie, Huey Lewis, Bryan Adams, Lou Graham, etc.. The lyrics were fresh, the music was fresh, the style was fresh, it was a love song, and it even rocked a little - just ask Dinosaur Jr..

This album was a whole new world: a wonderful world where love songs didn't have to suck, where dark songs didn't have to be about witches and black masses, and where dance songs weren't insipid (ex. see "Hot! Hot! Hot!"). I don't think I bought another metal record for years after that. Once I figured out that there were more than two kinds of music (metal and crap) I was on my way to becoming a muscial omnivore - except opera; that shit's poison.

* FYI, Pocky is a Japanese snack: thin rods of a pretzel-like cookie, dipped in chocloate, or other sweets. Very yummy.