Most Influential Albums: Day Five

Although my musical tastes generally fall within the Pop or Rock genres, I did have a brief foray into the world of rap/hip hop in the early 1990s, mainly driven by "U Can't Touch This". One of my friends and I spent a long time with a walkman and headphones playing and rewinding Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em  on cassette in an attempt to decipher/memorize the lyrics. Of course, this was before the days of the internet which would have made it much easier but not nearly as much fun.

Not much else beyond the song "Pray" is still memorable today. (I still pull out the lyric "we got to pray just to make it today" on occasion.) But the album certainly had an influence on me at the time. I acquired all his albums and watched his performance at the 1991 Grammys a hundred times or so. As a high school freshman I was in a Home Economics class and we were assigned to do a sewing project. I decided to make a pair of baggy Hammer pants in a very loud print. And I think I even wore them to school a couple of times - the early 90s were very accepting like that.

My rap phase didn't last much past the release of Too Legit to Quit. By then, it was time to enjoy the R&B stylings of Color Me Badd and Boyz II Men. However, three years ago, our ward had to prepare a dance routine for a stake activity. I suggested..."U Can't Touch This", which resulted in a 41-year-old me learning to do things I'd never learned as a 14-year-old Hammer fan. That's influence.