COIL
what else?http://www.lastfm.it/user/francis_bacon
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!
When people ask what I listen to I usually just say 'everything,' though that's not strictly true. I've never been a country fan, though some of the modern alt-country bands, like Wilco, have managed to stroke a chord with me. (And I have a hell of a soft spot for Johnny Cash.) I can't stand modern dubstep or most of the top 40 stuff out there. Katy Perry is probably my least favorite 'artist' of all time. Opera is torture. (Sorry, opera lovers.) On the whole, I'd say I like a pretty even blend of the out-there and the mainstream, particularly the 'classics' and modern alt/indie. As for the out-there stuff--I could probably spend the rest of my life listening to stuff like Coil, Sunn 0))), Skullflower, Zorn, Nurse with Wound, etc., and be perfectly happy. I love it when music pushes boundaries, especially if it's capable of making you uncomfortable in the process. Still, it's nice to have something safer and more familiar to fall back on occasionally. I don't know if I'm capable of determining what my all-time favorite albums are, but I think that probably the two that really struck me like a lightning bolt, more so than any others, were The Clash's London Calling and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, by Charles Mingus. The latter, in particular, almost gave me a heart attack. Upon listening to it for the first time, I felt as if I'd somehow wasted my whole life listening to the *wrong* music. I snapped out of it eventually, but still. It was a life-changer.
And that's about it in a nutshell. A very, very tiny nutshell.
oh yea i forgot about the 90's stuff. i too had a "grunge" faze. it was a bit more than a faze actually, come to think of it... i was well into nirvana, pearl jam, smashing pumpkins (whose album "adore" also had a part in introducing me to the more electronical side of music), alice in chains and all that lot... i was born too late to be a grunge adolescent and i kept wishing i was born a generation early... i feel really stupid now about all that.
anyway, to this day i have the whole nirvana discography (including some live performances) on cds wich for the life of me i cant bring myself to get rid of. even though its been years since iv actually listened to any of that stuff, i guess it still holds some emotional value somehow... this is also kinda silly come to think of it...
I love spending hours searching for new music, that feeling when you stumble across a track that just melts your mind & soul and your discovering it for the first time. Something inside you just sings. It's a beautiful thing!