Roughly contemporaneous albums that I acquired during my first two years of high school

Paul's Boutique had passed me by completely, somehow. The first time I heard 'Pass the Mic' was a head-turning 'whoa, so that's what those dudes sound like now?' moment.

Check Your Head was the one for me, since I was so into playing drums and funk and the live instrument version of everything (hip hop, drum & bass, etc). Still think it's their best sounding recording.

Back to Dream Theater: so like I geddit if people were into these dudes in order to get a hit of the wanky progginess that was otherwise kinda out of fashion at the time, but then how did they justify the thing where every other track is just like the lead singer indulging his inner John Tesh over twinkly new age synths for four minutes?

All right, I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take.

Officially, I can now say that Images and Words will not be receiving my vote in this poll.

This is like being under local anesthetic and watching with foggy wonder as someone disassembles your body. Like you know this is the worst thing that could possibly happen but...you just can't look away.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck that last track was interfuckingminable. I think I'm going to put on Metal Machine Music and scour my brain clean for a little while.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

dang this list whiffs on all the records from that era/radio format that i have any fondness for

Shakespears