Has to be a 5.
I bought White Light, White Heat when I was 15 as it was cheap in a Mid Price range promotion at HMV, a schoolmate bought Road to Ruin at the same time and we took the LP’s back to mine and taped each others purchase. That was the first time I’d ever heard The Velvet Underground or the Ramones. These bands really didn’t get played on the radio and there was practically no way to hear them. What a day that was.
I’d already heard the Joy Division cover of Sister Ray and the original does not disappoint with its elongated obtuse angular noise. It was however The Gift that really hit me in an inspirational way. It’s plodding droning developing ,noise essentially in one speaker and a spoken word story in the other, when I heard this it struck me straight away that I should be in a band, I have no musical gift but it wasn’t really the music they were communicating to me, it was the - make a noise, express yourself, do it - qualities.
The debut album is hard to put in tandem time wise with say, The Beatles - Revolver, it’s like them two albums are from different planets not continents. Their debut album communicates all that feels dangerous in life and rock n’ roll in such a sleazy, beautiful and direct way, everything about it is pretty perfect including the iconic artwork.
After hearing White Light, White Heat I could then just see their reflection in so many other bands, The Jesus & Mary Chain were emerging at this time (1985) and all of a sudden you just thought, hey!
Yep, 5 from me please.
