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Evolving Music Taste


SlyEnemy 2.0
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How has your musical taste evolved? I'm quite interested in seeing the way other people grew up with music.

I'll throw my story in first, though I'll try to keep it short.

I was never really into music when I was a kid. It's not that I didn't like it, I used to love listening to The Kinks, Carpenters, Mamma's and Papa's... All the old classics when I was in my Dad's car, but I didn't recognise a love for music. It was just something to sing along to back then. My dad never listened to the radio, so I was never exposed to anything.

It was at the age of about 15 that something started to happen. My friend Rich bought 2 new albums from Our Price, "Nirvana - Nevermind" and "Green Day - Dookie". I fell in love. I'd not heard anything like either before, they were like pop music, but different, and the catches had me hooked.

I started building a collection, basic stuff at first, the building blocks to most "alternative" kids collection: Slipknot, Green Day, Nirvana, System of a Down. I just went through the motions of thinking I was really into music, because I didn't listen to Pop music, and it was a bad road to go down.

I started getting into stuff that I remembered from School Discos. All that classic 90s dance stuff. I was listening to a lot of Punk and Ska at the time, stuff like NOFX. This was when I was about 19 - 20. I was getting bored of it, if anything all of it sounded the same. I started listening to cheesey dance, just because I could remember it, stuff like Snap! and N-Trance, downloading it from the McInternet and laughing my ass off. Then my wife introduced me to Aphex Twin and it changed my life forever.

Drukqs was the first album I heard, and it was so hard to get it to, I persevered with it because I knew there was something in it. I listened to every instrument, every sample, every track until I finally understood it all. It was like all genre's packed into one, where he could do anything he wanted with music, and I wanted to do anything I wanted with music. So I stopped listening to one kind, and started listening to all kinds.

Now I'm listening to anything from Yo La Tengo to Prefuse 73 to Low to Justin Fucking Timberlake, and as long it's good, or well produced or just interesting in any way, I'll listen to it. I just love music.

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I think the first Album i ever got, that I used my own money on kind of thing was one of the NOW series i think it was NOW 37 or something. I bought it for some cheesy shit that was one there, i think i was about 8 or 9 at the time but it had supergrass 'sun hits the sky' and Ocean colour scene's 'hundred mile high city', Blurs 'beetlebug' and other things like that which id not really heard before, that was when i thought that music could be something I really enoyed.

Id always listened to things like the Cure when I was younger and to this day one of my favourite songs is 'six different ways', Talking heads were always on as well, other bands like the oyster band and the waterboys, squeeze were on every now and again, my dad and sister were really into their music and I think it kind of put me off.

I can kind of remember liking Micheal Jackson and Elton John was I was younger (says a lot I suppose) for their catchy, well put together pop, although at the time it was just because the songs were mostly bright and cheerful.

I think the reason im not majorly into pop now (although I can still listen to some stuff) is becuase I went through a cynical kind of hating the manufactured pop image and how its sold to children part of the pop scene, now i can kind of see that thats just the way it goes and appreciate some bands more than others. I guess im still kind of into the bands themselves rather than primarily the music that they make, if two bands were to release the same song for example, id probably prefer the version that my favourite band did, rather than necessarily the best version. Ryan adams version of Wonderwall will always beat Oasis original, although admittedly marginally, for that reason.

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I remember being really young and my dad listening to Queen (when i was about 3 or 4) and as I got a little older my mum listening to a lot of soul. Some of it was wank, and to this day I still dont like it, but some of it e.g. Otis Readding, Marvin Gaye is and was brilliant.

In the last few years of primary school i was listening to a mixture of Queen, Alice Cooper, Kiss (thanks to Bill & Ted) and, more shamefully, Meatloaf. By the time I was 13 I was listening to the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. My firends tastes shifted from grunge to Cypress Hill, and eventually the dreaded indie. I cherry picked the best things they were listening to, but pretty much stayed on the road I was on. Smashing Pumpkins, Faith No More, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains all came along, with the likes of Silverchair and Everclear.

Grunge eventually started drying up, Pearl Jam were going out of their way to lose fans, Blind Melon and Alice in Chains were no more and I was getting bored. I started taking risks on bands i'd previously not liked. They sound like no brainers now, but at the time i didnt know anyone listening to the likes of The Pixies, Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine. Tool took a lot of effort to get into but it's more than paid off.

By the end of school I was getting bored again. My brother was listening to the Beatles on rotation, my sister Blind Melon (who i loved) and I was getting sick of the same stuff over and over. I took a chance on Mogwai's Come On Die Young album, and it changed the way I thought about music forever.

I, like a few on this site, seek out music now, trying to challenge myself. It's not all obscure, and it doesnt always pay off. And ironically, depsite having a more diverse cd collection than ever, I now tend to listen to the same bands more often.

It also takes a lot of effort to listen to traditional bands now, i dont know what you all think, but its almost like I dont trust anything conventional. A shame because with effort some of it is still pretty good

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Ben wrote:

It also takes a lot of effort to listen to traditional bands now, i dont know what you all think, but its almost like I dont trust anything conventional. A shame because with effort some of it is still pretty good

I feel like this sometimes Ben, but it comes and goes with me. Sometimes I'll hear stuff that I know is the same as ever, like The Strokes, but I can listen to it on the level it was intended and enjoy it for that.

Reading through Sambob and Ben's stories, I can see some weird mirror images of events I left out of my story. For instance, Ben saying his friends shifting from Grunge to Cypress Hill was the same situation I was in. I picked up on the Cypress Hill, but then I went off in a Punk direction while my friends all listened to MeTaL! (I also used to listen to Meatloaf, the first album bought for me ever because I was always singing Bat Out Of Hell that I'd heard on the advert).

And Sambob, sounds like you got into Talking Heads about the same time as me, but Cure didn't come later on (Only a couple of years ago actually). Good to see a few people taking this up, I've found it dead interesting :) I certainly didn't expect to see Sambob's side of things so enlightening, as I thought he was a music dolt. Which you are. And you smell. Jew.

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SlyEnemy 2.0 wrote:

I certainly didn't expect to see Sambob's side of things so enlightening, as I thought he was a music dolt.

Oh cool, now we can be best friends. :)

Good thread though, I want to see who reveals that they listen to bananarama.

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sambob wrote:

SlyEnemy 2.0 wrote:
I certainly didn't expect to see Sambob's side of things so enlightening, as I thought he was a music dolt.

Oh cool, now we can be best friends. :)

Good thread though, I want to see who reveals that they listen to bananarama.

Doesn't Hendo front the Bananarama fan club? I thoughts thats why he wore all the make-up?

*giggle*

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