First LP to keep you in genre for life

I think Milestone LPs is a way to put it for me.
Meet the Beatles- Started me playing the guitar.
Blood, Sweat and Tears- Now I'm playing the Trumpet.
Chicago Transit Authority- How could any band be better than B,S&T?
Mahavishnu Orchestra- Playing an instrument now seems futile.
Octopus, Gentle Giant- This album changed music for me forever. I became an audiophile because of this album. I started listening to it on a $300 system and went through every system in the store until I was in the back room. You know, where they put the multi thousand $$$ systems. So I bought one!
All these years later, I still listen to these groups along with some of the ones mentioned above. Fusion, horn bands, Tull, Brand X, Steely Dan, all progressive to me.
But Gentle Giant represents the high water mark for bands in my humble opinion. I am a fan of prog rock and of the equipment that's necessary to make it sound right, because of them.

A few that cracked things open/made a light bulb go on, (can't pin down what came first):

The Who- Live At Leeds
Mahavisnu Orch.- Inner Mounting Flame
Capt. Beefheart- Trout Mask Replica
King Crimson- Larks Tongues In Aspic
Can- Future Days
Ornette Coleman- Art Of Improvisers
Edgard Varese- Deserts
Herbie Hancock- Sextant

The first 3 LP's I purchased were The Beatle's Rubber Soul, Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits and The Kinks You Really Got Me. That was at about 1965-6 when I was 11. I listened in our Chicago basement on my folks console. I also listened to WLS. For some reason I remember shoveling the driveway, with my transistor radio in my coat pocket, and listening to Stevie Wonder's My Cherie Amour. It's funny what pops up in those brain synapsis's.

I still like Rock and Progressive Rock, but I found Jazz in 1974.
These were the lp's that did it for me!!!

Stanly Clarke / Stanly Clarke / 1974
Donald Byrd / Ethiopian Knights / 1972
Return to forever / Hym of the seventh Galaxy / 1973
Billy Cobham / Spectrum / 1973
Joe Farrell / Moon Germs / 1973
Deodato / Whirlwinds / 1974

Man, these are all great lp's! Stanly Clarke and Billy Cobham are still in regular rotation on my turntable.

As a matter of fact 6 months back I bought off ebay a first Japanese press of Billy Cobham / Spectrum

Peace
Ron

C.C.R.- Cosmo's factory!

The first Santana record rearranged my molecules when I was nine years old. I saw the band for the first time in concert shortly thereafter, which was the most primal music experience I've ever had. A lifelong obsession with music was the result.

My parents bought a cabinet stereo in the '60's. Remember the ones that had built in speakers at the end with a flip up lid and the record player at one end with a high quality ceramic cartridge with the flip over needed for 33's and 45's that was way "hi-teck". Everyone heard to Ad Nausium the train recorded right to left for the real "demo". Man were we audibly challenged. Coming from a portable AM radio land this was pretty cool. WLS AM in Chicago was the rave and was THE top 40 station I would listen to long into the night with the radio by my pillow.

My Mom ordered from Readers Digest LP's of the assorted classics, Beethoven, Mozart, et al and I was hooked on classical music at about 13, even some of them were mono recordings. I then started going to Cooks HiFi and listened to 45's on little turntables with headphones in one of the 8 "phone-booths" they had for private listening. Steel Guitar Rag got me started along with Fabian, Elvis, The Beatles, you name it I liked it. Because of these phone booths we were really buying "used" 45's, but then who would have thought about groove where.

Those 45's along with my baeball card collection from the 50's and early 60's would be of some value today. Who'd a thunk it!

My regret is that I did not know of any adults who had a real HiFi, I mean some one who owned some old AR's, a Fisher or Citation Amp, and a Dual, Benjamin Miracord, or Garrard turntable. If I had heard that I know my paper route money would have gone for something other than wood baseball bats and new baseballs.

Henry Mancini's music for the TV show 'Peter Gunn'. (Ever heard of it?) I too was a diddeebopper and rabid Presley fan in my teens, but the music from that show just grabbed me. Bought the LP and soon was a small-group jazz fan. Of course this was so long ago they played jazz and not jazz-rock (just as the country-western music of that time was not country-rock). Rapidly fell in love with Oscar Petersen, Ahmad Jamal, and especially Dave Brubeck.
.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick
Tchaikovsky - Ballet Suites as performed by Mstislav Rostropovich and the Berlin Philharmonic. Unmistakably the best performances of these suites ever commited to disc.

I also love the records that you listed above with the exception of the Lou Reed.

Good Question! Mine was probably Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Child Is Father To The Man" Couldn't get enough of Al Kooper's masterpiece. Also, listening to The Mothers Of Invention's "We're Only In It For The Money" through headphones made me buy a pair of Koss ESP-9 electrostatics. And I haven't stopped upgrading since. :-)
P.S. - Even "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" could transport me like few others.

Thanks for the memories,
Ed

Sorry. The above is a question. Not just a statement. What LP really pulled you in and gave you the fever?