Some years back, when I was really getting into music, this was probably around.... 2000? 2001?, well anywayse,I developed the assumption based on the radio music at the time, that all new music was garbage. I then went into a three year long classic rock phase. I did it all, Zep, ACDC, Sabbath,Beatles, Skynard, and even Yes. I must have heard some of every band created between 1960 and 1978. Here you can discuss your most intresting phases in music you listened to. Was it glam? Japaniese Pop? Doom Metal? Culture Club?

1996-1998: I was first starting to get into music, and the first place I naively went was MTV. Back then they still played a lot of rock music, though, so it wasn't quite as bad as it is now. Then they changed their focus and started only playing boy bands and rap, and I lost interest.

1999-2001: This is the 'WAAF' phase. When I listened to mostly post-grunge stuff. I also liked mainstream-alternative a whole lot. Bands like Fuel and Eve 6. Then I started gradually hating all those bands.

2001-2002: Classic rock phase. I heard some Beatles and realized how much better it was than the stuff on MTV and the radio. So I told my father: For birthdays and christmas, start with 1965 and introduce me to the best music from the classic era.

2003-2004: Late classic rock phase. I started looking at year end lists and getting into bands like Wilco, Flaming Lips, and so forth. But my father had only gotten to 1971 or so, so I still mostly listened to classic rock.

2005-now: Indie phase. I started looking really closely at the new indie stuff that comes out. I bought up some of the best indie stuff from 1976-2004 and ended up getting 85 albums released in 2005. Music was pretty much 80% of my spending last year.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
2005-now: Indie phase. I started looking really closely at the new indie stuff that comes out. I bought up some of the best indie stuff from 1976-2004 and ended up getting 85 albums released in 2005. Music was pretty much 80% of my spending last year.

It must be so much cheaper to like MTV and the radio than to like indie music.

My story was pretty similar... I grew up in Dave Matthews Land (near Charlottesville VA) and liked them through the 90s, when I was also learning about classic rock. Some classic rock I found timeless (Zeppelin, some Pink Floyd, Beatles), some I quickly came to loathe (Eagles, Steve Miller). I stuck with this for high school and the start of college, until about 2002, but I ended up hating classic rock radio because they played the Eagles so effing much. I was aware of the Stripes but never bought any of their albums before 2003. That year I roomed with a couple guys who were really into late 80s indie punk (Pixies, Fugazi) and I heard Bright Lights and realized that new music doesn't have to suck, though I wasn't quite sure how to find it. I was also exposed to Pavement in college, since I went to Stevie Malk's alma mater (UVA) and he was a big deal on our college radio. 2004 brought my first exposure to Modest Mouse, the Arcade Fire (I know, they sound dated already, but a year ago they were unlike anything else I'd ever heard), and of course P-fork. I'd stumbled upon Funeral somewhat randomly, loved it, and felt pretty validated when I saw its review in the Fork.

Late 1950s-Early 1960s: Louis Armstrong, Andy Williams, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin. (Radio & TV)

Mid 1960s: Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, Dylan, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Neil Diamond, Herb Alpert, Mamas and Papas, Peter, Paul & Mary, Wilson Pickett (Radio, TV, Records)

Late 1960s: Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival (!!), Stones, Kinks, Who, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Doors, Sly & the Family Stone, Monkees, Steppenwolf (Ditto)

Early 1970s: Stones, Who, Kinks, Deep Purple, Guess Who, Grand Funk, Chicago (Ditto)

Mid 1970s: Doobie Bros., Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, 10cc, UFO, Thin Lizzy, Steely Dan, Roxy Music (Ditto)

Late 1970s: Elvis Costello, Wire, Ramones, Dave Edmunds, Clash, Talking Heads, Nick Lowe, Jam, Cheap Trick, Television, Vibrators, Sex Pistols, Undertones, Specials (Ditto)

Early 1980s: Shoes, Pere Ubu, Gang of Four, U2, R.E.M., Big Country, Robyn Hitchcock, Trio (Ditto)

Mid 1980s: Smiths, Replacements, Prince, Camper van Beethoven, Los Lobos, Go-Go's, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, Leaving Trains, Hoodoo Gurus, Lyres, Del Lords, Del Fuegos (Ditto)

Late 1980s: Angst, Pixies, Crowded House, They Might Be Giants, Beat Farmers, Chris Isaak, Felt, Woodentops, Dinosaur, Jr. (Ditto)

Early 1990s: Public Enemy, Nirvana, Posies, Yo La Tengo, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Matthew Sweet, Sebadoh (Ditto)

Mid 1990s: Grant Lee Buffalo, Radiohead, Uncle Tupelo, everybody you love (Ditto)

Late 1990s:PJ Harvey, Bjork, eels, Sleater-Kinney, Dylan (again!), Wilco, I'm losin' it! (Ditto + CDs)

Early 2000s: White Stripes, Radiohead, Andrew Bird, eels, Loretta Lynn, OMG! (I;ll add some when I'm able to grasp it better )

I guess we're into mid 2000s, but not yet for me.

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The earliest song I can remember that I really liked was "Jump" by Kris Kross...the two kid rappers who wore their clothes backwards. This was probably around 1990.

Early 90's: rap (I couldn't really help it that I grew up in a household where House of Pain and Vanilla Ice was all my older brother was blasting on his stereo)...and pop (I was 7, cut me some slack).

Late 90's... started getting into HipHop more seriously, I was listening not only to contemporary HipHop at the time (Tupac, Mobb Deep, Wu Tang, Biggie) but also digging into the classic old school stuff as well (GangStarr, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas's Illmatic). Also at this point I was discovering some important neo-soul pioneers like Maxwell, Erykah Badu, and D'Angelo. Lauryn Hill was also taking off at this time with MisEducation Of Lauryn Hill.

Early 2000's: I guess this is where I started to diversify my music tastes...I've become more open to listening to other genres outside what I was normally listening to. Also started to find more depth in rap music by getting into the more socially/politically-aware rap by the likes of BlackStar (Mos Def & Talib Kweli), among many others. While I was up to date with contemporary I was also going retro and getting acquainted with the more pioneering early 90's sound, which I didn't really pay much attention to since I was younger. And I won't forget to mention Alicia Keys.

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early 80s: Michael Jackson; also loved it when my Mom brought out all her old 45s ("Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley was a favorite)

mid-late 80s: Anything my older brother was listening to, which included R.E.M., Talking Heads, INXS, Billy Idol (my first album ever was Billy Idol), Genesis, Psychadelic Furs, Depeche Mode, U2; constantly surrounded by Country (Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash) and Paul Harvey (is it just me or was he always on?)

early 90s: brief Teenie Bopper phase, where I — dare I say? — actually bought To the Extreme (I am unclean!); continued listening to Talking Heads, Depeche Mode

mid 90s: still on the Mode and Talking Heads; bought Stone Temple Pilot's Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop (my first CD purchase) from Planet Music; also got into Nine Inch Nails, Tool

mid-late 90s (College): 2-year phase listening to various Industrial and Electro acts, namely Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Einstürzende Neubauten, Covenant, KMFDM, etc., some of whom I still enjoy; discovered Downtempo (Boards of Canada, Plaid, Kruder and Dorfmeister), Trip-Hop (Massive Attack, Tricky), and Post-Rock (Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Mogwai, Tortoise); dated a musician who got me into Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey; different girlfriend fancied herself a feminist, introduced me to Sleater-Kinney

2000–2002: finally started to get Tom Waits, so I get everything I could

July 2003: Bought Elliott Smith's self-titled album

October 2003: Bought the rest of Smith's catalogue (poor bastard)

2003–Present: I've actually been a little unimpressed with new music, largely spending my time with Waits, Nick Cave, Elliott Smith, Talking Heads; only major discoveries are Super Furry Animals, Tindersticks, and David Thomas Broughton; finding entry points into Jazz (Thelonious Monk)

And now you know the rest of the story.

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Beginning with bands like the arcade fire and bright eyes, I left the classic rock and began to venture into indie, much aided by pitchforkmedia who helped me find new bands. Then i listened to The Flaming Lips "Soft Bulletin" and I fell in love with it, and I began collecting and listening to all their records. But now Im into anyting good, Sufjan, Dangermouse, Kanye, wolf parade, Shins, but i still everyonceinawhile, go back to those classics, mostly with friends cause thats when its most fun. I think its important to understand the origins of what your listening to, in order to appreciate it. I even had a time where i went waaaaaaay back to delta blues like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to see where rock really developed from. It makes me sad to think that most of my generation dosent know music past radio, mtv, and grammys, past green day, audioslave, and all those other comercial bands.

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:

mid-late 90s (College): 2-year phase listening to various Industrial and Electro acts, namely Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Einstürzende Neubauten, Covenant, KMFDM, etc., some of whom I still enjoy;

I find Industrial almost catchy...started listening to some of it recently. There aren't any new acts in the genre are there? It's more of a 90's phenonenon?

quote:

I find Industrial almost catchy...started listening to some of it recently. There aren't any new acts in the genre are there? It's more of a 90's phenonenon?

I stopped listening when it moved from the patchy, dense, sample-driven music of Skinny Puppy to the goofy and overdone "EBM" (Electronic Body Music — awful, meaningless name) I think is still prevalent. It's just stupid, angry, dark techno. Those goths are secretly club kids, methinks.

Yeah... I've heard of EBM... I think the direction of that genre was moving away from the traditional industrial sound like Ministry's.

If you want traditional industrial you'd have to check out Throbbing Gristle.

I just checked out Throbbing Gristle. Cool stuff.

Thanks m.leland.

(I just found out what Throbbing Gristle meant in British slang. Very funny.)

I can't recall all of my phases without dwelling on it some, and I don't want to dig up skeletons in my own closet, but I will admit to having a hair metal phase as a teen (my lawnmowing and pool cleaning money did buy cassettes of bands like Cinderella and Kingdom Come). Once I discovered the local scene in Minneapolis (circa 1987) though, I'm in the clear. Except for that brief flirtation with some really bad techno in the early 90's (I was dating a club girl, what can I say....)

I've been through a lot of phases. I started on Sigue Sigue Sputnick 20 years ago and now I'm listening to Sparks. In between there's been death metal, ambient hippy stuff and a peculiar flirtation with minimalism and trad jazz. I went out clubbing at raves for a year. I've seen Mike Patton play live 4 times.

I'm now 'file under miscellaneous'. There's only 2 types of music - good and bad.

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:

quote:

I find Industrial almost catchy...started listening to some of it recently. There aren't any new acts in the genre are there? It's more of a 90's phenonenon?

I stopped listening when it moved from the patchy, dense, sample-driven music of Skinny Puppy to the goofy and overdone "EBM" (Electronic Body Music — awful, meaningless name) I think is still prevalent. It's just stupid, angry, dark techno. Those goths are secretly club kids, methinks.

yes indeed...give the goths glowsticks! We should start a campaign!


right...

early 90s...listened to the radio, a lot. Britpop, Michael Jackson, boybands, old stuff.

also, my mum played all sorts of great music...The Kinks, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles...and the like.

mid 90s...I developed a taste for dance music when me and my sister left the radio on after the chart show had finished! Dave Pearce's 'Dance Anthems' came on, and I didn't know it was crap, did I? I'd already heard the odd Ibiza anthem on the radio anyway...but I didn't really start liking it until then. Also, lots of 'Smash Hits' approved pop, the odd credible indie/britpop band, and so on.


Late 90s...moved on from dance to mainstream hip-hop and the like...then I started to get into specific bands...harder, angrier bands!
Placebo, Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Greenday, Nirvana...etc...

2000 to 2002...this trend continued, and then I started to get into more METAL!!! based music...
System of a Down, etc...also, angry rap in the form of Eminem...more angry rock, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, RATM...more 'intelligent' music, like Muse (heh...)...the odd more 'alternative' bands, like Coldplay, Travis, and so on...and I found myself intrigued by Radiohead...

2003...well then. This was a game of two halves!
I was well into Coldplay, Muse, and the like...I'd taken a shine to 'There There', and this lead me to watch Glastonbury 2003 on TV...most notably...RADIOHEAD!

-----------
The various highlights of Glasto 03 marked a sea-change...particularly Radiohead's mesmerising set. Particularly all the people singing along to Karma Police.

---
then we moved, to stay with our sister for a short while...she took me and my sis shopping; I bought two Radiohead albums and Jeff Buckley's 'Grace'...she had Sky, I started watching music televison...I also went to my first gigs!
---

me, my mum, and my sis moved into a new house.
I started listening to late night radio 1...

I'll continue this in a bit, as it's been quite a ride 2004-2006...

The goths already have glow sticks. I have seen it happen at festivals in Germany.

Goths and techno - 2 things that shouldn't go together. Like a marmite curry.

There's not many forms of music that I can't appreciate, but I find EBM utterly ridiculous.

Speaking of phases - Those poor 'emo' kids with their dark eyeliner and 80s 'kajagoogoo' haircuts are going to feel very embarrassed about the photos in 5 years time. They should be warned. I'm old enough to remember glam metal and emo kids look just as proposterous as those spandex people.

Funny how history keeps repeating itself.

The next 'Nirvana/grunge' revolution is just around the corner...

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Black:


Speaking of phases - Those poor 'emo' kids with their dark eyeliner and 80s 'kajagoogoo' haircuts are going to feel very embarrassed about the photos in 5 years time. They should be warned. I'm old enough to remember glam metal and emo kids look just as proposterous as those spandex people.

Funny how history keeps repeating itself.

The next 'Nirvana/grunge' revolution is just around the corner...

The 'grunge' look circa 1991-1993 was not quite as embarassing as hair metal or Kajagoogoo, but it was pretty bad. Particularly the $100 flannel shirts from the department stores as accent to show how 'grunge' you really were. For a kid from Minnesota (for whom cheap flannel was a requirement in winter), I found all the flannel-wannabes tremendously embarrassing.

One look that's been around for a while, and shows no signs of retreating: the 13-year old punk kids in Sex Pistols shirts, anarchy symbol shirts, Crass shirts, Dead Milkmen shirts, etc. I find it puzzling that those bands are still the ones kids use to show they are free thinkers. The Pistols stopped being relevant as a symbol before I was 13, and that was a long ass time ago...

Some good points there.

I remember being a 'metaller' at the end of the 80s. We drank beer, wore biker jackets and listened to really fast heavy music. It was THE LAW. Like we'd joined a church or something.

In other corners of the pub you'd have punks, crusties and goths all clinging to their particular religions.

I can now see how narrow I was about music at the time. Also - when you join these movements you give a sizeable amount of money to all the various products that are marketed for your trend (the $100 grunge shirt). You think you're taking a stand against commercialism. In reality you're supporting it.

At my present age I frown on this stuff. I can't tell one emo band from another. They are actually competing with each other for the emo crown. It's like Pepsi vs Coca-Cola, Britney vs Christina etc. It has nothing to do with creating interesting music.

I think the fact that music has become so predictable could signal a change on the horizon. Someone somewhere's got a really good idea...

This may seem like my life story, so forgive the lengthiness of this.

1989-1993: Mainstream Pop/Rock Phase
Thanks to my older brother, I started listening to a lot of music on the radio and from his tape/CD collection. As an impressionable young kid (approx. age 12), whatever he was into, I generally liked as well. Starting with Phil Collins and Don Henley, I went on to get into Elton John, Billy Joel, Tom Petty, and Journey among others. More embarrassingly, we liked Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, and Richard Marx. Out of this period I began my lifelong love for Genesis and U2.

1994-1997: Alternative Phase
With the birth of an alternative radio station in my area, I heard a lot of music that was new and interesting. For the next couple years, I identified more with the "lighter" groups like Counting Crows and Hootie & the Blowfish. When 1996 came around, the Smashing Pumpkins were all over the radio and MTV. At first I wasn't sure if I liked them, but they intrigued me. By the end of the year after hearing "Tonight, Tonight" and then "Muzzle," I invested in a used copy of Mellon Collie (I'm cheap, what can I say?). It was a life-changing experience (well maybe not life changing, but it did open my eyes to a new world of music). I quickly bought Siamese Dream (new!) and kept my eyes open for more sophisticated arty rock bands. The summer of '97 came around and MTV aired a very unusual animated video with 2 kids, a flying angel, and a fat guy chopping his arms and legs off with an axe among many other disturbing things (Paranoid Android). That was Radiohead? I knew "Creep," but this was my kind of music. I began dating my wife-to-be later that year and I noticed she had The Bends in her collection. The rest is history.

1998-2000: Christian Rock Phase
Soon after OK Computer, MTV and alternative radio went downhill fast! I was frustrated, so I looked elsewhere. Coming from a Christian family, we were always surrounded by Christian music. However, what I heard didn't appeal to me. Then I discovered a Christian rock station. What do you know? They're playing alternative-style music that sounds more like MTV did 3 years earlier. A British band called Delirious? captured my attention with their U2-esque guitars and vocals. I also got into Caedmon's Call, Sixpence None the Richer, and Third Day among others. Many of the CCM bands I liked have faded from my mind since, and others have gone on to produce more generic formulaic music that lacks the qualities that initially drew them to me. I still go back to some of these bands albums from this period though.

2001-present: Indie Phase
Thanks to high-speed internet and allmusic, discovering new music became a whole lot easier. These, along with the emergence of new britpop bands on alternative radio like Coldplay and Travis, led me away from CCM radio. I soon discovered Sigur Ros, Cocteau Twins, and Catherine Wheel, which led me to more shoegazers like Ride and MBV. By 2003, I started checking out a lot more indie bands beginning with the likes of the Pixies and Pavement. In 2004, I discovered Pitchfork and checked out their "best of" lists for more recommendations. I've basically continued this method to this day (though now I'd add Metacritic Music Forums as a primary influence). Some of my top discoveries of recent years include Grandaddy, The Arcade Fire, and Built to Spill.