Started out in my early teens not really caring about music, i just kind of tolerated whatever was playing on the radio, then i started getting into all of the music my mom used to listen to, floyd, clapton, zeppelin, gnr, acdc and such, then i just grew from there to loving classic rock, hair metal, and a bit of grunge (nirvana)
We may find out that people search music though out much of their life as they learn about themselves. I feel most of my research was from 18-40 years old. We are exposed to sound through our social environments then start to expand and look for more.
I think the main quest for this searching could be in our twenties but may not ever stop for some. This is not even to make note of the external changes in new music styles which a person may or may not like. I used to think that waves or trends had a limited life and had apexes and falls. It seems after some research that even with no commercial success many forms of music seem to burn underground and not even be noted in the mainstream.The only way a person is going to find these forms is by reading and maybe continuing with styles they already like.
So just for the research level folks could spend years with Bach then have it fall out of favor. I think that there is also a big influence of external change which have nothing to do with the musical trajectory a person is on. If they are going through hard times maybe they want soft music. If they are rebellious maybe they want angry music and so on. So each person has a soundtrack which fits who they are on the outside and on the inside. They are shown stuff by friends and by the media. They are remembering stuff from the past. They are finding things just by random. If you believe in random.
Today more than ever there is a bigger world of music for people to explore. Bigger does not always end in it being better as it is daunting the amount of information out there. People will play the same CD for a month everyday even if they own 3000, that is human nature. The ability to discover even more small aspects in a work they may have played 30 times. There was a time when the only way people were able to get music free was by recording off the radio or recording a friend’s record collection. There seems more ways than ever now to explore music!
I really didn't even begin exploring music until I was 25 or so, and I wasntreally serious about it until I was 40. When you're young you listen to what your peers listen to, and any exploration is drilling down further into more of the same music. Most people never go further than that and listen to the music of their youth their entire life.
The people who start spreading out do it in their 30s and 40s. I havea theory that a plentitude of attention from the opposite sex makes one less interested in new music, but that is a different issue.
Interesting, I became fed up at seventeen with the mainstream after a while and even gave up on TV and almost on radio. I am glad I live without TV for a while now.
The 'attention-from-the-other-sex-factor' does play a role though. If I were to seriously make time for a partner I would have less time to invest in this hobby and my other hobbies. In my teenage years I spent a lot of time devoted to studies, sports and trying new things. The exploration of music is a stayer though.
[size=medium]1st record, Telegram Sam – T.Rex at the age of 11. Spent the next 2 or 3 years buying stuff by David Bowie, America, Mott the Hoople, Slade & Status Quo. [/size]
[size=medium]Turned heavier, getting into Rory Gallagher, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple & Led Zeppelin by the time I was 15. First gig, October 1975, The Who (Original lineup). Discovered Blues for the first time.[/size]
[size=medium]At 18, punk hit town and I was blown away by Never Mind the B0ll0x. Reggae followed shortly afterwards and I got to see Bob Marley in June 1977.[/size]
[size=medium]Early 80’s, I got caught up in the New Romantic thing (complete with silly haircut), followed by a brief hippy period (Tangerine Dream, Gong) before hearing Miles Davis for the first time, which blew me away. [/size]
[size=medium]Early 90’s, it was Madchester. Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Charlatans, Primal Scream and later, Oasis. Plenty of blues too, as I recall.[/size]
[size=medium]For the Millennium, I got into club/dance music (mid life crisis), but soon found myself back on planet earth. Purchases included Gomez, Leftfield, Groove Armada etc.[/size]
[size=medium]For the last few years, I’ve listened to pretty much anything from Jazz, classical, folk, reggae and rock. I recently bought a turntable and started listen to my old vinyl, filling in the gaps in my collection (I couldn’t afford much at the time) with mid 70’s originals by Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Clapton, Wishbone Ash and Reggae classics. Favourite artists of the moment include Jah Wobble, Seasick Steve, Massive Attack, J J Cale and Chatham County Line and John Martyn.[/size]
[size=medium]Last batch of music I bought included Mahler, Snow Patrol, Doves, Elbow, Robert Plant and Strange Sensation, Dave Brubeck and John Coltrane.[/size]
Starting around age 15-16 (and even earlier, now that I think back) my friends always picked up music from me, not the other way around. I honestly can't remember ever getting into a band because one of my friends in high school or college played it for me. Someone's gotta buck the trend, I guess.
I really didn't even begin exploring music until I was 25 or so, and I wasntreally serious about it until I was 40. When you're young you listen to what your peers listen to, and any exploration is drilling down further into more of the same music. Most people never go further than that and listen to the music of their youth their entire life.
The people who start spreading out do it in their 30s and 40s. I havea theory that a plentitude of attention from the opposite sex makes one less interested in new music, but that is a different issue.
I grew up in a house full of music, or it always seemed to be. I don't remember watching tele much, but my earliest memories involve music - either 70's pop music via the "wireless" or the HiFi. My parents would play the likes of Roxy Music, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, King Crimson, etc. As a youngster, I didn't have tastes per se, I just liked listening to music and taping stuff off the radio.
I started to develop my own tastes around my middle teens, Big Audio Dynamite, The The, Rush, Led Zeppelin were amongst the first artist that I actually bought. Around 18 I got heavily into Classical music. I think that I was always aware of it since a very early age, and I don't think that I ever disliked it, but it didn't really start to play a part until I took music lessons at school, a gradual process over time from then and getting a job. The "trigger" was a BBC Proms broadcast of John Tavener's "Protecting Veil" (which I luckily taped!) This piece of music completely stunned me - it was so bloody powerful, I'd never heard anything like it - so that was it, I dropped everything else and just listened to Classical music for a good four or so years, much to the derision of a few people!
I started to become "normal" around 22, when I bought Bjork's "Debut", this was quite a refreshing change - I don't know why I actually bought it though, as I hadn't heard a note of her music before (well except for the Sugarcubes in the late 80's). I think that I just got tired of just Classical Music constantly - time for a change. So Portishead, Manic Street Preacher, Radiohead followed, later I got into Tool, Soundgarden, Sebadoh, REM, Dinosaur Junior - the usual suspects, but it was all new to me then. Also by that time Club Music and Drum and Bass had become mainstream, and I liked that stuff too, even though in the early 90's I didn't care for Dance music at all.
Circa 1998 I cautiously started branching out into more underground stuff. I used to travel to London on the train and spend time browsing the shelves of the stores there, especially Tower Records. They used to have a little section dedicated to Avant-garde music, this is where I discovered the likes of John Zorn and Keiji Haino/Fushitsusha. All though I didn't really appreciate it at the time, it sowed the seeds for my interest in experimental music a few years later on.
Around my late 20's other interests had taken the place of music (computers, gaming, movies), it's not that i didn't care for music at all, it just lost its thrust for me, my ears were becoming jaded. I tried the Warp/Ninja Tune stuff for a while, but got tired of it pretty quickly.
I wasn't purposely looking for a new direction, but mid 2003 I had for some reason become aware of a new kind of music very loosely referred to as "Onkyo" or "EAI" or "Reductionism" or "TAOMUD" or "Lowercase Improvisation" by different people, an idea of how difficult this varied area of music was to pin down.
Looking though a copy of Wire magazine from 2000, a couple of CDs caught my eye, Toshimaru Nakamura and Sachiko M's "Do" and "Addy en el paîs de las frutas y los chunches" by Francisco López, so I bought them. They were a revelation for me for different reasons, "Do" at first was a little shocking, very austere with laser sharp sine waves cutting through the air, but it was very compelling. The López disc comprised of manipulated field recordings, with its emphasis on sound and use of silence was refreshing, like listening with new ears. So from then until now I listen to a lot of Avant-garde music, old and new - Taku Sugimoto, Richard Chartier, Steve Roden, bernhard günter, Kevin Drumm, Eliane Radigue, Zoviet France, etc. I did become a little side tracked by the noise/drone thing a couple of years ago and still like some "normal" music every now and then.
I just love hearing about how everyone has come to their music and sound preferences.. From where people began and where they are at presently.. it's quite lovely. Some change drastically, feverishly across the music spectrum to some who start out and find that beat of their drum in one to a few music genres. I'm finding it even more interesting to hear how people were influenced by family, friends or just being exposed somehow through chance. Please keep sharing
1960s - I was a child and my parents were not particularly into music. Cricket commentaries from the radio was the most common sound in the house. My influences are from my own experiences.
1970s - I remember Abba winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with Waterloo. Eurovision was a huge TV event and in the 1970s the UK did quite well. Abba and then James Last joined cricket as the house sound. It was about 1975 that I started to get interested in music properly. Queen's Night at The Opera was the first album I bought in the summer of 1976. But at the same time I was avidly watching Top Of The Pops, punk hit the scene. My parents, just like many others were horrified and I remember the Bill Grundy's interview with The Sex Pistols controversy. Music had a seriously bad name after that. I had to be careful what I listened to, problematic as I seemed to prefer less mainstream music and could not stand pop and disco, which dominated the charts.
My preferred TOTPs presenter was John Peel as he would take the micky out of the mainstream stuff, so I would try and catch his radio show as much as possible. He would later become a punk/new wave/metal champion, but back in the 1970s he would still give time to prog rock which was becoming my preferred genre. I had a near miss in 1978 when I got Queen 'Jazz' and opened it up to find a big fold out poster of naked ladies waiting to start a bicycle race!
In 1978 Tommy Vnace started his Friday Night Rock Show and that was now my big music event of the week. By the end of the 1970s I was into Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush, Deep Purple Genesis and Peter Gabriels solo work and after a big boost to the pocket money in 1979 was buying an album a month. As well as prog rock I was into the strangely titled New Wave of British Heavy Metal (where was the old one?) and Rainbow, Saxon and Whitesnake saw me into the 1980s.
1980s - my best pall was a punk and we would listen to The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Dead Kennedys, Crass and Stiff Little Fingers. I could not stand that the music press had such a downer on prog rock becuase I liked punk. Why could you not like both. Occasionally I would watch The Old Grey Whistle Test, but I though the attitude of many of the presenters, especially Andy Kershaw stank. TOTPs was full of modern romantics and I was stuck at getting an album a month for my music. In 1980 I unfortuantely declined a chance to see U2, but later that year started to go to concerts at The Apollo, with Whitesnake, Saxon, Robert Plant's first solo tour (1982) and Peter Gabriel the first four.
In 1984 I went to Uni and joy of joy met others who were into prog rock and there was much less tribalism regarding music. Bands ranged from Dr Feelgood to Clannad and since I was away from my punk friend, punk and prog rock made up most of my music collection, which now had more cassettes than albums as I was always moving about. In 1986 I worked for the summer in Bostn and loved listening to all night radio with WBCN, the Rock of Boston who would play Led Zep at midnight and a long song about 3 in the morning (I worked night shift). The big hit that summer was Areosmith and Run DMC with Walk This Way. Neil Young's hated Landing on Water was another album that had just come out, I bought it along with various other of his albums and came home with a bag full of cassettes.
1990s - still had prog as the core of the collection, but this was the decade when a whole load of other influences arrived, first being the likes of Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Brian Eno. Then there was Brit Pop with Elastica and Pulp and during the 'Battle of The Bands' I went with Blur. In 1994 I went to the first T in The Park festival and saw Bjork, Pulp and Blur as my highlights. Rage Against The Machine played a part joint headline set with Cyress Hill who were late arriving. Towards the end of the decade was trip hop, electronica with Massive Attack and Faithless.
2000s - I lived in the wilds for a good few years and concerts were few and far between. Now they are once a month and the big new genres for me are Post/Math Rock and the prog rock scene that developed particulalry in Sweden in the 1980s. Check out my music threads on the appreciation of Nordic Prog Rock, Post and Math Rock and Modern Prog Rock.
Through all of that, my favourite band - Pink Floyd.
0-13 - My dad always played classic rock on his stereo while he worked from home. I grew up on stuff like Deep Purple, Cream, Foghat, Led Zeppelin, Mountain (my first concert, even got a drumstick from Corky Laing), Grand Funk, and The Who. At this time I wasn't really into music yet, so I listened to whatever he played. 14 - My brother (who is a few years older) began driving me to and from school. He mostly listened to the same stuff my dad had when we were kids, but he also listened to KROQ a lot. They played newer rock like Chevelle, Muse, Weezer, Jet, Franz Ferdinand... so I began to realize that music hadn't stopped after ~1980. I don't listen to these bands anymore, but it did open my eyes to newer music. 15-16 - My music tastes began to mirror my brother's for a couple of years. Mostly classic rock (lots of Hendrix), mixed in with some newer rock. I listened to unhealthy amounts of Chevelle, Thrice, and Muse. 17 - At this point, I had my license, my own computer, and my brother had graduated. So I began to drive myself to school and discover music on my own. Looking back, I think I only listened to ISIS, Porcupine Tree, Tool, Muse, Minus the Bear, and Radiohead the last two years of high school. Again, this was mostly stuff my brother had found and given to me. 18 - My music tastes were mostly the same as at 17. But by this point I had found Head-Fi and the music forums. I began to look for anything I could. I think my true love for music began here. I got my pair of Grados for Christmas. I would spend hours on Head-Fi looking back at old threads and scouring YouTube and Last.fm. I also had an unhealthy obsession with mewithoutYou's Catch For Us the Foxes. I listened to this album every other day for about a year (burned out on it too). 19 - Continued to look for new music. Discovered progressive rock and began to get whatever I could in the genre. Listening to Tool and Porcupine Tree helped get me started, so I looked for bands similar to them. I mostly listened to King Crimson, Oceansize, and Opeth during this time. 20 - Head-Fi and my search for more progressive rock led me to jazz. Like every newcomer to jazz, I bought albums from Brubeck, Coltrane, and Davis. I couldn't get into Davis at first, but Coltrane blew me away. I also quickly began to burn out on progressive rock. I would discover a genre or sub-sub genre, quickly buy everything associated with it, and subsequently burn out. At the end of the year, my tastes had swung to more folk and blues. This was mostly a reaction against progressive rock. Nick Drake and Elbow helped me get through night classes that year. I also listened to a lot of Black Keys, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Ray LaMontagne, and Radiohead (In Rainbows mostly). 21 - My love for jazz continues to grow, but I have barely scratched the surface. It is a very intimidating genre at first glance, but discovering new artists and getting deeper into the genre has been a lot of fun. I've also reverted back to the classic rock my dad listened to when I was a kid, and anything influenced by those years. So the Beatles, the Black Angels, the Black Keys, Black Mountain, Led Zeppelin, Sleepy Sun, and Tame Impala are getting a lot of play these past few weeks.
[size=10.0pt]Great idea for a thread. It's nice to step back and retrace the path that led you to your current self. [/size]
[size=10.0pt]1983-1990[/size][size=10.0pt] - For the first seven years of my life, music was barely a part my life. My parents never listened to much music growing up, so cartoon theme songs and television commercial jingles were the meat and potatoes of my musical experience.[/size]
[size=10.0pt]1991-1996 -[/size][size=10.0pt] As I made more friends in school, the importance of music as a social glue became more apparent. I began following mainstream urban radio -- hip-hop and R&B. The first album I ever bought for myself was Dr. Dre's The Chronic album. My mother was livid when she heard it. My shaky defense: "but...it's poetry, mom!" West coast hip-hop ruled most of my playlists: 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Rappin' 4tay. Cheesy R&B ballads (Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey) were also on the menu, as my hormones began sputtering to life.[/size]
[size=10.0pt]1997-2000[/size][size=10.0pt]- My first landmark album purchase that really prompted me to stop being forcefed music, and to begin actively searching for stuff that I liked: Wu-Tang Clan's Wu-Tang Forever. At the time, the radio stations here focused mainly on regional west coast hip-hop. Wu-Tang was blowing up nationally and was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. Around this time, we began getting faster internet (56K and eventually cable), so I could actively search on forums for spheres of hip-hop that were outside of my region (A Tribe Called Quest, Black Star, Atmosphere, Outkast, Canibus). I discovered that I greatly preferred rap music that puts a premium on lyrical content and intellect (rather than gangster themes). During this period of high school, I began discovering writers that I loved such as Milan Kundera and Tom Robbins, and the clever wordplay of my favorite rappers reminded me of some of my favorite authors. [/size]
[size=10.0pt]2001-2004[/size][size=10.0pt]- I was still heavily into the hip-hop scene, but I wanted more. In the later parts of high school, I began smoking weed, so I began venturing into other genres of music. Landmark albums for me at this time were Radiohead's OK Computer, Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold As Love, and DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. When I was stoned, I loved music that had progression (RJD2, DJ Shadow), was psychedelic (Radiohead, The Doors) or showcased great mastery of an instrument (Santana, Hendrix). I also began dabbling into Indie Rock: Belle and Sebastian, Beulah, Santana, Death Cab For Cutie. It was also this period that I read a Vibe Magazine article on the 100 greatest albums, which put Miles Davis's Kind of Blue at #1. I went out and bought Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's Giant Steps.[/size]
[size=10.0pt]2005-2007[/size][size=10.0pt]- Giant Steps was the first jazz album I ever listened to. I hated it. It didn't sound like music to me. Why was this considered one of the best albums of all time, but I somehow just couldn't get it? I gave Kind of Blue a few spins but nothing really hooked me. It was at this time that my friend recommended that I start with Grant Green's Idle Moments album. Upon the first listen, I was hooked. That soulful guitar was steeped in the blues tradition that I could detect in Hendrix and BB King and even hip-hop. I was immediately drawn by the emotion of it, and began reading into the theory behind jazz. Oh, it’s all improvised. That’s cool. There’s a harmonic framework to the solos? Spiffy. The individual self-expression within the larger group context reminded me of rap freestyles that I watched as a kid and really drew me in. I revisited Kind Of Blue at this point and fell in love: the technical mastery of their respective instruments, the well-defined individual styles with which they expressed themselves, and the collaborative improvisation. For this period, I couldn’t get enough of jazz and it was all I listened to: Lee Morgan, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Art Blakey, John Scofield, Brad Mehldau, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk among countless others. [/size]
[size=10.0pt]2008-present[/size][size=10.0pt] – Having been out of college and working full time for a few years now, my extreme thirst for new music has mellowed out a bit. I find that most of my music preferences these days consist mostly of indie pop (Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, Yeasayer). I spend most of my summer going to music festivals (Coachella, SF Outside Lands, Treasure Island, etc.) so keeping up-to-date makes those experiences more worthwhile. There isn’t much good stuff coming out of hip-hop these days. The old artists that I grew up on that still sound fresh are rare (The Roots, Outkast) and fresh new artists are few and far between (Blu & Exile, Pac Div, Odd Future). I find that I listen to music in cycles where I’ll primarily listen to one genre for a period of time. This is especially the case with jazz, where I can get enthralled with a musician’s catalog for a month or so and listen to nothing else. I have yet to fully dive into Classical which I keep putting off. Other than famous landmark pieces, my knowledge of Classical is limited. There is just such a vast body of work that it seems so daunting but I know eventually I will have to start somewhere and fall into that abyss. [/size]
[size=10.0pt]That's basically a Cliff Notes version of my history of sound. I feel guilty that I omitted so many great artists that I love, but neither you nor I have all day here. [/size]
60-65
My family played music together for the fun of it. Some neighbors would join in and they'd play til morning. As a 4-5 yr old, I did my best to take it all in. They'd play at county fairs, circus, VFWs, etc. during the summers and mom let me tag along with dad. They played country & western/30-50s folk. The old man was approached by Ernst Tubb to play steel guitar but declined the travel.
My aunts liked the 40s & 60s pop bands and crooners while the males were country. But my youngest uncle was bringing things like Jerry Lee and Leadbelly, Bob Dylan and Ray Charles. I fell in love with the beats.
65-70
Pop, country and classical gave way to this new FM music of British invasion the Beatles brought. From there the British pop and Motown sound took hold along with new bands like the Moody Blues, CSN&Y, Jimmi, Jefferson Airplane, Grand Funk.
70-75
This was almost exclusively rock in all directions. Jazz, blues, progressive, acoustic, southern, Tejas boogy, Detroit rock, Chicago blues, european progressive. I was going through high school and my first year of military. The time really exposed me to the tip of the musical iceberg.
85-95
Rebuilt my vinyl to CD so mostly replaced the classic rock and shameful favorites.
95-2000
New age, Flamingo, Carrib & African sounds, bluegrass
2000-2005
Started searching for the one hit variety of favs and started getting samples from different parts of the world. Some pretty cool sounds I'll classify as World folk.
2005-now
Found Head Fi and realized how much music (the art and science) is beyond a melody or beat. The initial need changed throughout the trip but I still prefer mellow with energy when wanted. I'm more tolerant to listen across genre but more critical of noise.
The following is the progression of my music preference (see my profile for complete list without chronological order):
1) Middle School / High School
Pop/Rock (e.g., Beatles, Carpenters, U2, Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, ect), Classical (Chopin, Tchaikovsky), Instrumental (Richard Clayderman, Kenny G)
2) College:
Celtic (Loreena Mckennitt, Celtic Woman), Vocal (Sarah Brightman), Rock (Pink Floyd, Dream Theater), expanding on 1)
3) Graduate School
Chillout/Downtempo (Buddha Bar, Enigma, Delerium, Deep Forest, Dead Can Dance), World (Putumayo World Music series, Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole), expanding on 1) + 2)
4) Now
Vocal Jazz (Eva Cassidy, Ella fitzgerald, Patricia Barber, Pink Martini), Bluegrass/folk (Alison Krauss, John Denver, The Wailin' Jennys), Indie (The Shins, Belle & Sebastian), Symphonic Rock/Metal (Within Temptation), expanding on 1) + 2) + 3), I won't say this before: but now I listen to almost anything, except for screaming metal or hip hop/rap.
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