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

[rt052192]

I've always been a fan of metal and dabbled with some rap for as long as I can remember. Something about metal that other music doesn't have and what seperates it from all other music, for me at least; is that it can pump you up, reinforce a belief, display emotion with which the listener can connect to, and it just really reaches out to who I really am. I'm sure most music does this and not just metal, but bear with me. Also, I'm generally a shy and reserved guy, but here I am listening to metal!

Well, now that the introduction is over back to my point. I'm essentially paying homage to what spiked my original interest in my music preference and the eventual expansion into other genres/sub-genres.

I'm a huge New York Yankees fan and all fans know that Mariano Rivera runs onto the field with "Enter Sandman" by Metallica playing to pump up the entire stadium. Now back in the day I used to think this was the heaviest stuff out there; oh the naive bliss of childhood...Well this is what got me into Metallica, which is now my favorite band. At first I loved the Black Album, because it's metal for the mainstream, but then after hearing Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, and And Justice For All I knew there was so much more better music out there and that there existed a music outside of hip/hop which is just terrible in my opinion. No one in my family like metal or even rock for that matter. The closest thing anyone in my family listens to that is rock is Bruce Springsteen, my dad did I guess like Led Zeppelin a bit, but that's it...I was musically deprived as a youngster.

Other bands that I used to really listen to: Avenged Sevenfold, Disturded, Linkin Park, Korn, Drowning Pool, Alice in Chains, Pantera, Breaking Benjamin, Godsmack, POD, the list goes on. You can sort of see the rap influence with LP, POD, and Korn. I still listen to these bands, but now my library of music is much more expansive and it's mostly because of these bands which I used to listen to a lot more than I do now.

This is pretty much me saying thanks to the metal genre because without it I would be "jamming" to probably either hip hop or country(why people listen to this I'll never understand...)


here's a list of some of what I listen to now, spoilered as to not waste space...

Spoiler

AFI
All That Remains
Attack Attack!
Alexisonfire
Bayside
Blink 182
A Day to Remember
Black Sabbath
QOTSA
Kyuss
Tool
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nirvana
Slayer
Bullet for my Valentine
Bob Dylan
CKY
Cream
Darkest Hour
Haste the Day
Underoath
Devil Wears Prada
Dream Theater
Five Finger Death Punch
Four Year Strong
Gorillaz
In Flames
Iron Maiden
He is Legend
Strung Out
Pennywisw
Reel Big Fish
Led Zeppelin
Mastodon
Opeth
Mudvayne
Pink Floyd
Rise Against
Slipknot
Stone Temple Pilots
Pearl Jam
Trivium
Them Crooked Vultures

 

[unoleian]

Tough question. Too many factors and influences, and it's hard to tell what influenced what.

And, it's constantly in flux. I'm finding new styles of music all the time I may not have even considered a couple years ago.

Started with classic rock and folk. Found I like hard rock and some metal. Then, there's hip-hop, too. Somewhere along the way, after many years of staunch denial in the face of ignorance, I found out electronica such as, but not limited to, EDM and IDM and the like, are rather kickass. Then, there's also funk. And Trip-Hop/Acid Jazz. And even some new-agey style stuff. And then also, World music. Dub. Reggae. Classic Country. Americana. And on and on it goes.

Damn, I like a lot of different stuff. I think it's fair to say that somewhere in there is some kind of damn logical progression from one to the other and so on, but then again, I don't rightly know.

I guess what influences my music is simply hearing something I like. That's all the influence I need. Trying to say "thanks to this for making me like that," or whatever, just sounds weird to me. Cuz I can't really identify how one of anything made me like anything else.

I just like music. With a capital PERIOD.

 

[Berethond]

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.

<youtube=UIGsSLCoIhM>

 

[Sacman]

My mom she is a huge Nirvana fan so she introduced me to the band...

 

[ae86gamer]

My brother definitely had a huge impact on what music I listened to. I always followed him around, so I ended up listening to euro beat, techno, indie, rock and a few other genres too.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

My love for punk rock actually stems from my brother's music when I was a kid. My parents had very different musical tastes (mom loved '60s pop, dad had a thing for Rush and Queen), but my big brother listened to a lot of punk and grunge when I was growing up. He was the one who introduced me to Green Day and Nirvana

Really, though, a lot of the music I listen to was introduced to me by friends. A few of my coworkers hooked me on Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly, an old pal introduced me to nerdcore, and my best friend got me hooked on J-Pop. (I am semi-ashamed of this fact.)

 

[Sleekgiant]

Nothing, I just pick random shit to listen to.


Currently on this.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Well all my favorite bands influenced me to play music but Chris Carrabba was basically the man who made me want to play!

(He's single ladies ;] )

 

[Aerodynamic]

I have no idea how I got this taste. I don't care about the classification of music very much, I only care if it sounds good to me, I am not picky, so I can listen to alot of kinds of music.

 

[rt052192]

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.

<youtube=UIGsSLCoIhM>

I can has soul? That was awesome, thanks for sharing

 

[no oneder]

Everyone in my family. Mom, dad, and my sister influenced me and my brother a lot.
For example, my sister was the original Generation X-er, that's were i got all my alternative roots from. My soul and passion.
My mom and dad were more old fashioned, but they taught me most of what I know: Tom Petty, Canned Heat, David Bowie, The Police, The Who, The Stones, CCR, a lot to mention really.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

My father, he had me In rock from the beginning, I remember listening to Buddy Holly, Steely Dan, Joe Walsh, Queen, and of course The Beatles. Too many other bands to count really. I now try to branch out a bit, I still love rock but I've been checking out nerdcore, as well as a bit of techno and rap.

But overall It was my dad, who had me listening to The Drive everytime we got In the car, that influenced my musical pallette.

 

[valiantcid]

I was a huge fan of 90's alternative rock growing up, but that just naturally expanded gradually from the likes of Live and Pearl Jam to heavier stuff like Disturbed and System of a Down to more progressive stuff like Dream Theater and A Perfect Circle, which then evolved into a heavier progressive sound like Tool, Karnivool, Portal (the canadian band, not the aussie death metal one).

So nothing really influenced my music taste more than music itself, it just evolved... kinda....

Edit: Also, the 60s-80s rock fit into that progression also somewhere... unsure where... but it's there

 

[Berethond]

I can has soul? That was awesome, thanks for sharing

You're welcome, it's always fun to share great music.

 

[rt052192]

I can has soul? That was awesome, thanks for sharing

You're welcome, it's always fun to share great music.

Yea it is!

 

[Blue_vision]

My music is generally centred around the alternative rock genre, with a lot of punk. But I really like any music that I can relate to.

 

[theSovietConnection]

My friends really influenced my musical tastes, but the biggest influence was picking up bass. I've found many songs while roaming teh interwebz looking for good basslines to draw influence from. Here is one of my newly liked recent discoveries

 

[A random person]

Probably a mixture of my dad, brother, video games, anime, and the internet. This explains my affinity for alternative rock in the vein of They Might Be Giants, J-pop/rock, a variety of melodic songs I can't classify genre-wise, and 80's music.

Also, one of my friends is slightly influencing my taste; thanks to him, I was just listening to Daylight by Matt and Kim. Another friend reinforces my pre-existing liking of Journey.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Most of the artists you listen to make me very angry. Fucking "nu-metal" and shit.

I won't list all my favourite bands or anything because there are more than a hundred. I will say that I do love metal, old and a bit of new. It really depends on the genre, for example I love deathmetal despite that it's a recent creation.

Genres I listen to:
Metal Genres
Thrash
Death
Progressive
Power
Folk
Industrial(some at least)

Non-metal
Jazz of various forms
Progressive Rock
Some Classic rock(Floyd, The Who, Zepplin)
Blues(sometimes)
Post-rock(a few bands)

and a mention goes to The Strokes, for being one of my favourite bands but not really being in any of the aforementioned genres.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

Above all, the biggest influence has to be the internet for me. As long as I can remember, I was on the internet listening to music and looking up bands. I remember spending hours on iTunes back when I was little listening to 30 second samples of bands, just following the "similar bands" links. Or an even broader way of looking at it, media in general. Video games, TV shows, movies, and especially just listening to a ton of music influenced my tastes. Everything I see or hear influences me somehow.