most influential music

Hard to say, but most likely either Sly Stone or Duke Ellington.

What do you mean by "influential"?

I can't get enough of this song, although I may be biased as I am a Zguy.

The music track,

The words,

The voices.

Absolute magic for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqYLrT_IM20&feature=related

Zeitgeist Ending

P

Music that changed my listening habits? I'd have to say Demon Days by Gorillaz. Its the album that swept me away into the world of music. Its the first album that I really liked, too.

Nothing Is Sound by Switchfoot

I started listening to Metallica...

Now i'm into metal, mostly melodic and goth. 

I can't say "most" -- different times of life, such broad tastes, etc.   That said, I'll have a stab at two:

Television's debut album, Marquee Moon.  I was 14 years old when that came out, obsessed with Prog, mostly. Gave away most of my lps.  I still liked Pink Floyd and King Crimson from the prog bands, but that was all.  (I won't say I didn't get into a lot of music that doesn't hold up, too, but really it changed listening habits in a large way, both with later bands and earlier bands).

Bill Frisell -- I was interested in jazz already, but was such a guitar freak, and here was the most original thing I'd heard coming out of a guitar.  This is what got me deep into jazz from Ellington and Monk through AACM and on and on.  The Paul Motian Trio is still one of my most listened to bands, and has some of my favorite Frisell work. Unlike Television, I kept returning to the records ("In Line" and "Rambler") with a furrowed brow.  Kept taking them off because it  wasn't quite getting me where I wanted to, but I kept having to put them back on a minute later just to check my hearing.  Two weeks of this silly ritual daily, probably, before it clicked.

madnanny1:

Bit of the same here, save my taste was forged in the "electronica" artists of the 90's like Aphex Twin, Autechre, Orbital, Underwold...etc. I love all the artists you mentioned but the gateway was definitely the prior mentioned group. 

Electronic music has always been square one for me. 

Pink Floyd were the band that got me thinking about music and I have a lot of music that has derived from that (or you know, have some sort of connection) like Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and all that jazz. The next big step was probably The Kinks and Fairport Convention. Those are the biggest ones that really shaped the sort of genre-scope that I listen to most.

It really is difficult to pick out one band and say this was it! I mean, I listen to a whole load of other genres as well, some probably the total opposite of the above mentioned.

I like listening opera music, and some classical...

Later on i decided to go for something different, with the same instruments of classical music. Im a big fan of Apocalyptica.