Albums Influential to My Future Taste in Music (Full Album Links)
I don't know how other people came into their favorite artists or genres, but I was that kid who would put a blank tape in his boombox and hit "record" when the radio played a song that I loved. It didn't matter if I knew who the artist actually was (or the actual title of the song, for that matter), but the amount of music I came across in junior high pretty much informed the rest of the music I would listen to later on.
I had a pretty wide range of interests, from grunge to hip hop to jazz, which remains a characteristic of my love of music. There aren't many genres I won't listen to (except for country, which I can't stand).
MTV used to play music videos at one time, believe it or not. There were tons of great programs for those of us without a lot of radio options: Alternative Nation, 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps, so on and so forth...It was a pretty phenomenal resource until it became some kind of patient zero for this shitty reality TV epidemic we've been living through for the last 25 years.
Anyway, these are just a small taste of my collection, much of which I still enjoy listening to these days. I have some really good memories attached to a lot of these albums, as I'm sure many of you have strong memory-based attachments to the albums that made you who you are today.
Bjork - "Debut"
Roni Size - "New Forms" (This video is just disc one, but this was my introduction to drum'n'bass as a genre and I couldn't get enough)
Soundgarden - "Badmotorfinger"
Mudhoney - "Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew"
Miles Davis - "Bitches Brew"
Digable Planets - "reachin' (a new refutation of time and space)"
Arrested Development - "3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life Of..."
Rollins Band - "Weight"
Great tastes man! Glad i saw artists like Sound Garden and Miles Davis. My taste of music is a big chaos too and I can't stand country music too 😄.. i'd put some deep electronic styles in there too though. Keep listening to good music!
I did the same thing with the cassettes. To this day, I still prefer a variety mix over listening to an entire CD from one artist. That Bjork album was one of my favorites though. I wore it out. My tastes started with my parents music - 50s-70s. Then I discovered pop music, rock, metal and industrial with help from MTV. Heather introduced me to the world of house & techno. It wasn't until I got on the internet that I discovered everything else. I also like a bit of everything, including country. I blame my parents for that :P
My tastes were largely guided by curiosity - I was interested in learning more about how the sound of an artist or band I liked came to be by diving into their influences. Gives you a lot of perspective when learning more about a genre.
absolutely! once i got into Tool later on, i read that they were heavily influenced by King Crimson (who i came to enjoy immensely as well). certain labels put out certain kinds of music (Impulse, Blue Note, Subpop) and you could pretty much guarantee quality, or at least a high likelihood of enjoying the music without hearing it first.
but the influences of my influences are always interesting to explore. it'll be fascinating to see the influences of the bands that will be "popular" in ten years.
Guao, great music, thanks for sharing it