The idea of the "Gateway" album - the album that turns you on to an artist or even a whole genre that you didn't expect to like - is a little misleading. At some point, almost every album you listen to is a gateway, if only to more albums by those artists. Still, most of us can identify a couple of albums that led us down some paths we might not have otherwise gone.
One important thing to remember is that a "Gateway" album doesn't have to be great. Many a fan of single malt Scotch got into it through the popular Glenfiddich or Glenlivet whiskies, neither of which is considered a particularly good one. But it serves to get people into the tent. I wish I could say that I got into the music of Bela Bartok through a love of Eastern European folk music, or because I was so deeply into Stravinsky, but the sad fact is that I got into his music through the prog-rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer. (They did a rock arrangement of his piano piece Allegro Barbaro and rechristened it "Barbarian.")
Even worse, I discovered Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition through ELP's arrangement. It took me years to get the sound of Greg Lake's appalling lyrics out of my head when listening to the grand finale, "The Great Gate at Kiev." And the list of other gateway albums goes on - David Bowie's music was a gateway to his collaborator Brian Eno, whose Obscure Music series in turn was my gateway to the avant-garde music of John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars, and a number of other composers, most of whom became gateways themselves.
Tell us: what album served as a gateway for you?
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John Schaefer has hosted Soundcheck since the show’s inception in 2002. He has also hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 (“The No. 1 radio show for the Global Village” – Billboard) and the New Sounds Live concert series since 1986.
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