who/what influenced your taste in music? Also, how has it evolved over time?

[Guest_Star]

I have an immense dislike of metal. It just seems like a waste, to me. I like jazz. Here's the first song that really got me into jazz. If you don't like it, you ain't got no soul.

Whattabout thiz jazz?

I don't get people disliking entire genres of music. If you don't like very spesific stuff, like Finnish Grunge-Techno Fusion with Folk elements, that's fine, but dissing entire genres that span ten thousands of different bands, that's just lazy.

OT:
Last.fm recommendations, Spotify's "related artists", music progs on radio and music reviews are my prime influences today.
Don't remember what got me going, but I think Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull was the starting point. Nowadays it's mostly an eclectic mix of metal (in all it's forms), old blues, contemporary classic and electronica. And some other shit that sounds good, like old-school french hip-hop and goth-americana.

 

[Outright Villainy]

snip

I think a lot of teenagers went through a faze of listening to nothing but Linkin Park over and over.
[small]I still know all the lyrics[/small]

But also like you, I found music opened up to me a few years ago, now I'll pretty much give any genre[footnote]Except dubstep. That can fuck right off.[/footnote] a shot, hence why I even asked the Escapist to recommend me some jazz. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.226113-Jazz-recommendations]

Right now, Devin townsend is my favourite musician, because he can apply a ridiculously high songwriting quality to nearly any genre. Industrial metal, progressive rock, pop-metal, Ambient rock, alternative (or whatever the hell Ocean machine is) and so forth.

 

[Hosker]

Nodame cantabile got me into classical music.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Whattabout thiz jazz?

Excellent stuff!
I most certainly will check out that band...

 

[Bato]

My introduction into music was weird.
I was never really into music as a kid, sure my parents would always play "Classic Metal" (or whatever name they've taken on these days) You know, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest etc..

But I was never really interested in it, I never payed attention really.
it wasn't until I was constantly barraged by people asking me what my favourite music was in my last year of Middle School did I start to explore. I started with Modern metal mostly because that's what my uncle listened to and I was around him when it was on my mind.
Well, that sucked, but I listened to it anyway because it was all I was introduced to.
Then I got a hold of my dad's Black Sabbath CD. And it went off from there.

Though there's always non-metal artists I love.

 

[Hateren47]

I will listen to any genre, except growling metal and opera, as long as the singer and the producer are good. Basically anything that sounds good to me and where I can understand the lyrics. My favourite is still hip-hop if I could only choose one genre. It has been for a while though I grew up on eurodance and I still like that as a genre. Go barbie-girl

 

[Fingerprint]

For me I listened to whatever was on the t.v. and radio throughout most of high school though I didn't really pay too much attention to that, I just didn't know what else existed. When I went to 6th form a lot of my friends were listening to bands like All Shall Perish, In Flames, Black Dahlia Murder and all sorts of metal, though I never really liked it, I like to hear the lyrics. So I got into Punk Rock instead. Bands like Strung Out - still possibly my favourite band; Good Riddance, A.F.I.'s older music - albums like Black Sails in the Sunset and the Art of Drowning etc.; Sick of it All, Bigwig, Bad Religion, CapDown, Five Knuckle, Social Distortion, Leftover Crack... the list goes on. I still like that music though I don't listen to it nearly as much. Another big influence was my older brother who listened to a lot of Jazz, Blues, and rock so Counting Crows, Van Morrison, King Kurtis and various others were always there or thereabouts. Now however, my music has taken another turn because of new friends in NZ. Now a lot of reggae inspired music and "Island music" (Pacific Islands, that is) is on my playlists. So at the moment bands like King Kapisi, Nesian Mystik, Kora and Che Fu are right up there for me.

I've always liked listening to all sorts of music though the previously mentioned bands were my favourite, but now it's not just a case of just being able to listen to other genres, it's a case of genuinely liking them too.

 

[DSEZ]

my brothers overall

my oldest brother loves all kinds of music and introduced me to my first metal band slipknot(dont argue with me if there metal or not)
and i went on to death metal,thrash metal,symphonic death metal,progressive metal

and my middle brother listens to nothing but rap

so he got me into tupac,eminem,B.I.G

 

[katsabas]

K2G from Puffy Ami Umi.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

My Music folder is easily the largest on my entire Hard Drive and looking through it one would be forgiven for assuming I'm a Schizophrenic. I'm ot going to list every band or musician I enjoy because I don't have all day to do that but I'll give you the basic rundown.

My Father was a big Hippy back in the 60's and 70's
From him I acquired a taste for Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Arlo Guthrie.

My Mother was more of a Country Gal and she introduced me to Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams.

My Grandfather always had some sort of Blues, Jazz or Swing playing and so now I have a healthy collection of Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong.

On my own I discovered bands like Madness, The English Beat, The Meteors, The Ramones, The Buzzcocks, Angelic Upstarts and Iggy and the Stooges.

Through various friends I was exposed to bands like Wumpscut, Skinny Puppy, Bigod 20 and Funker Vogt.

With the possible exception of Gangster Rap and New country you would be hard pressed to find a genre of music that I'll completely ignore.

 

[Flamezdudes]

My brother had a massive effect on my taste in music as he is basically a music fanatic, he has a Degree in Music and listens to all sorts of music. Whilst he was a Teenager and i was still quite a bit younger however he listened to Nirvana a lot, then of course i just looked at Rock myself.

I checked out music channels and prefered Kerrang and discovered bands like Muse and Foo Fighters etc.

 

[CrashBang]

Ahh good thread!

Well the first song I ever heard (which wasn't a nursery rhyme) was 'We Will Rock You' by Queen, thanks to my dad. So my childhood was full of 80s glam rock like Slade and so on. When I was 10 I met a kid who introduced me to Slipknot and Limp Bizkit. I'm still a big fan 10 years later. The same kid told me about Kerrang! TV and magazine and so I then found out about punk rock and, thus, pop punk bands like blink 182 and Sum 41. In time I discovered more hardcore punk bands like Rise Against and, finally, when I was 17, I discovered Gallows. Thanks to my immediate love of them I found out about Hardcore and Metalcore, which are my current favourite genres of music, including bands like Parkway Drive, Converge, Killswitch Engage, Architects, Gallows and more

So yeah it all traces back to a kid I met at age 10 who told me about Slipknot's first album

 

[Virus49]

Used to listen to music based on what I looked like/was expected to listen to. Then as I got older I grew out of it.
Then just listened to whatever I thought sounded cool...
From all that remains, to pendulum, to the strokes. Its allll good

 

[Owlslayer]

The one who influenced my taste in music the most was undoubtedly my brother. A lot of the time my music taste just evolved on its own, going randomly here and there. But my brother lead me to all that crazy J-pop and anime soundtracks, that i quite love. Also, there's a huge amount of crazy animated music videos on youtube, a lot of them are really addictive.


Now, how it evolved. Well, basically, at younger ages i really didn't listen to any music. I didn't have an MP3/CD player, and didn't surf youtube. Didn't watch MTV or any other channels that show a lot of music videos. But at some time, i started liking certain types of music. Can't really describe it, but i guess i had three opinions for music(these 3 still stand at my current age):
1) Absolutely amazing, i could listen to a certain song all day long and didn't get tired of it.
2) OK. This i said to a lot of music i didn't actually like, but i don't like to be negative.
3) Crap. Rarely say it, but seriously, there are songs out there that make my ears bleed.

And all the songs i listen to these days are from 1). There are not a lot of songs that i listen.
But there is no one band that i love indefinably. The songs i like are from a lot of different genres, starting from some classical ones to even heavy metal ( only 1 song i like, and I'm not sure if it is heavy metal. Lots of screaming going on in the song, can't describe it better than that. But still like it quite a lot.)
Wow, I made my post way longer than planned.

 

[WittyInfidel]

Growing up, my family lived deep in the country. My father was a country fan, and listened to artists like Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, and the Roy Clark. My mother was a fan of bands like ABBA, journey, ELO, and the like.

I didn't listen to music much. In fact, I found most of it to be rather distasteful. Usually about cheating, trying to cheat, drinking, and lies. It was during this time I lost most of my faith in humanity.

My parents split when I was twelve. I ended up being stuck with my mother (an alcoholic who had lost touch a long time ago). I was cast adrift, not sure who I was anymore.

Then I heard Enter Sandman (Metallica) for the first time.

Suddenly, whole vistas of music opened before me. Sounds I never knew existed flooded my life. And I was swept away by metal.

 

[[guys_its_ok]]

I'm a bass player with an internet connection. Therefore, I love primus!

Also, my cousin introduced me to Behold...The Acrtopus.

Spoiler: video!!!

also, you know how people sometimes say they're sick of pop music so thats why they listen to metal or whatever? well, it's the opposite for me! I just got sick of metallica (even though i still think they're awesome and am going to see them live later on this year ) and started to listen to daft punk, and this guy who calls himself "Pogo" who makes music out of Disney movies. It's really good!


(also, off topic: new avatar! what do you think? i made it myself (kinda PP))

woah, I just checked my itunes for my most played song, it's bloody Veradis Quo! (33 plays) How did that happen?

 

[FinalHeart95]

Well, my parents are big into classic rock, so they got me into Zeppelin, AC/DC, and such. However, I got into Metallica from Rock Band of all things. I liked Enter Sandman, so I delved deeper into the Metallica library, and eventually to the rest of the big four. This opened my eyes to metal as a whole, so I started getting into prog and melodeath over time, realizing that the real extreme metal just isn't for me.

As for the punk-ish stuff I like, that started with Green Day. Back in 4th or 5th grade, American Idiot was released, and everyone loved Green Day. It turns out my parents had a copy of Dookie lying around, so I gave that a listen, and I LOVED IT. Before I knew it, I had most of the library, even the indie stuff, and I was addicted. That addiction died down, and I started listening to other pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and The Offspring. Then I moved on to melodic hardcore, mainly Four Year Strong.

And jazz pretty much comes from being a band kid. Pretty much all band kids like jazz, at least the ones heavily invested into the program. I pretty much listen to John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Maynard Ferguson.