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Do you still listen to the music you grew up with?

post #1 of 16
8/10/09 at 4:20am
Thread Starter 
I spent my formative years listening to the New Wave/alternative music that was somewhat prominent here in Los Angeles. I never quite moved away from it and have always kept a few discs around, but for many years, I moved into grunge, then into the indie rock scene. A taste for classical has always been there, but I also got into jazz, roots/classic country/alt.country, and to a lesser extent, world and electronica.

However, lately, I've been searching out past favorites from the 1980s. Especially original CDs that haven't been remastered and vinyl when it turns up.

I was wondering if anyone else has come back around to the music of their youth and what the experience was like. Is is nostalgia, or do you find yourself genuinely enjoying the music again? Has anyone moved on completely from what they used to listen to?

I don't mean to exclude younger members - any insights they have on the evolution of their tastes is welcome, too.
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post #2 of 16
8/10/09 at 11:00am
My pals, running all over the Government Street neighborhoods of Mobile, Alabama in the '70s were all into ELO, Rick Wakeman, and YES. The rollerskate rink played "Do the Hustle" and "Shake Your Bootie."

Our next-door neighbors went from 'Bama hippies to Young Christian Conservatives, and I was permitted a long-term loan of their old record collection when I got my first separates system (all the pieces were in the clearance section of MusicMakers! in the Mall). That was the first big education for me: The Beatles, Bo Diddley, BB King, The Doors, Hendrix, Motown, Otis Redding--And The Dave Brubeck Quartet _Time Out_. I wasn't sure what jazz I wanted, but I bought all the Brubeck, Glenn Miller, and Dixieland vinyl I could get my hands on.

So that was the backbone of my pop-musical education. Two years later, it was college in Montreal, and it was Husker Du, The Replacements, Fugazi, X, and all the 80s hits coming out of the UK. I still have strong affections for that formative music--with the exception of YES, and it was only because I didn't get on with the kid who was the biggest YES fan. But I wouldn't doubt that I'll grab a used copy of _Close to the Edge_ sometime soon.
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post #3 of 16
8/10/09 at 11:11am
I'm 19 going to 20. I am currently listening to the music I listened to during my rebel years. Such a nostalgic feeling every single time I listen to them.
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post #4 of 16
8/10/09 at 12:34pm
When I was a kid I used to listen to this sesame street version of "rhapsody in blue" where they would introduce all the instruments before they played. I listened to it hundreds of times. Recently, I got a version of the London symphony orchestra playing it with Andre Previn. Pure ecstasy. I think there's a certain familiarity on some level that no matter what you grew up with, if you hear it you like it. Or maybe it just reminds you of a more innocent, more blissful time. Or maybe I have no idea.
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post #5 of 16
8/10/09 at 12:55pm
I think this goes deeper than nostalgia. I know that the records I heard when I was a kid introduced me to various musical concepts that I still enjoy. So, I've put some effort into recovering those songs from the 50s and 60s. Eydie Gorme, Little Eva, the Dixie Cups, the Rooftop Singers.

As the years go by I just keep adding music to the collection. I still listen to the old ones and enjoy them for what they are. My interest has become broader, with classical, New Age, Celtic and even some of the rock that I didn't much care for years ago.
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post #6 of 16
8/10/09 at 2:43pm
My music taste were really bad when I was younger, mainly billboard top 10. Up until the time I turned 13 when my older brother introduced me to some real music.Also Head-fi has helped with my music taste to.
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post #7 of 16
8/10/09 at 2:46pm
Seeing that I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and was listening to the likes of The Beatles, Cream, The Allman Brothers Band, The Rolling Stones, Queen, The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Foghat, Yes, etc., etc.,....well, you betcha!

But I don't listen to as much rock these days as I do jazz. But just yesterday I was spinning an original pressing of Toulouse Street by The Doobie Brothers and lovin' it!

--Jerome
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post #8 of 16
8/10/09 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Chaos View Post
I think this goes deeper than nostalgia. I know that the records I heard when I was a kid introduced me to various musical concepts that I still enjoy. So, I've put some effort into recovering those songs from the 50s and 60s. Eydie Gorme, Little Eva, the Dixie Cups, the Rooftop Singers.
Have you ever had one of those little epiphanies in which something that 'made sense' musically when you were a child suddenly lit-up a thousandfold. I grew up loving the entire _School House Rock_ series on ABC. I swear I wouldn't know the Preamble to the Constitution without the song, and I still give my 20-something kids a shot of intense embarrassment in composition classes by singing "Conjunction Junction."

Fifteen years ago, I went through a phase of trying to rediscover old 50s female torchers--brought on probably by the great period tracks Charlie Haden put on _Haunted Heart_. I got a scratchy old lp at a record fair that had a cool cover, and I was totally taken with the singer--who wasn't the usual belting torch-singer or sultry crooner. Instead, her voice was husky, prosaic like Chet Baker's, and shifted between pouting little-girl wistfulness and sexy, knowing, confidences. Above all, Blossom Dearie's voice just 'made sense' to me.

Years later, when Rhino rereleased all the _School House Rock_ songs on cd, I found out that, in her later career, it was Blossom Dearie who sang both "Figure Eight" and "Unpack Your Adjectives." And it all just made sense.
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post #9 of 16
8/10/09 at 3:50pm
I lost a lot of the recordings that I had in the 80s, but lately I have been picking them up when I see them used. I went from listening to almost all new finds along with some music I've had for awhile to really enjoying the stuff I grew up with.

So, yes, I guess it's ingrained in me, and I really enjoy listening to it again. This is a recent trend for me too.

I still like to find new classical, jazz, well almost everything, but I am spending more time with the old stuff.

A lot of it was not mastered well, but it doesn't seem to matter.
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post #10 of 16
8/10/09 at 3:59pm
There are sort of two phases for me, in terms of the music I grew up with and the music I got into while growing up.

In terms of the music I grew up with (via the parents) - Classic Rock, Blues and Soul, yes, I still listen to it very much, to a point where I've actually surpassed my Dad as far as variety goes. This also fuelled my passion for Jazz and Orchestral music, thanks to the genre-bending that went on in the 70s.

In terms of the music I got into while growing up... I listen to almost none of it. That said, this is where I acquired the taste for other non-rock genres such as Hip-Hop, Electronica, etc. MOST of the bands I listened to while I was younger are long since out of rotation, but I can't say that I'd have the appetite for new music that I do today without the sense of discovery I got hunting down new bands in my teens.
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post #11 of 16
8/10/09 at 4:08pm
I have just in recent years got into the stuff I listened to when I was a kid growing up (18 now) that my father used to play. Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Sade, Van Morrison, Simply Red, Eric Clapton, Queen, Beatles and tons of stuff which I never used to appreciate but now love.
However I am not at all into the stuff that I liked back then.
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post #12 of 16
8/10/09 at 5:49pm
Erik,

It's rather serendipitous that you posed this question now, as I am currently going through my old vinyls from my college days (I'm 53 now) and have been buying them on CD. I actually just received 2 CDs today from Amazon . I have some vinyls which are not available on CD, and I am contemplating the effort of digitizing them myself.

Many of them "feel" just as good to me as before, but there are some others that I have no wish to re-explore.
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post #13 of 16
8/10/09 at 5:54pm
About once a year I go to my cases of old cassettes and start running through them. Some go back to 1980. The sound sucks on these 30 year old tapes but the music still brings me back.

I've also still got all my albums and play many of them regularly.

Bob
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post #14 of 16
8/10/09 at 6:23pm
My music taste is formed in the seventies.
I still like a lot of the music which I grew up with: Roxy Music, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Sparks, Joan Armatrading, Bob Seger, Split Enz, Flying Burrito Brothers and derivatives (country rock and bluegrass), Emmylou Harris, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker, Ramones, Saints, Buzzcocks, Neil Young, Van Morrison and so on....
If it all had ended by the end of that decade, I would be happy with it. Because I feel it sort of did. What came after, is more or less a repetition with variations.
I really hated the music of the eighties, with the exception of the singer songwriter and roots revival in the second half of that decade, and the cow-punk (Jason & the Scorchers and the like).
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post #15 of 16
8/11/09 at 1:16am
Rarely. I have too much other stuff that I know less well that I need to play. I will occasionally pull out Physical Graffiti though.
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