The Beginning
Back before I had a say in what I was listening to, all I had was the radio. Being a little kid, I lacked the seniority to choose and the knowledge on how to use it. I do remember liking certain songs though. These just being a few of them.
The other big influence was what my brothers listened to. For whatever reason, I don't really recall what my older brother liked. I assume he shared a lot of taste with my younger brother, or vice versa. I enjoyed most of it as well, but not all of it (I don't think I was too keen on Nirvana). It was primarily made up of stuff like Deftones, Counting Crows, Korn, Dave Matthews Band, Green Day, 2Pac, and Snoop Dogg.
Developing Taste
The first sort of "separation" from what I was brought up with was my fondness for Native American music. Funnily enough, what I was buying was actually New Age music created by Germans.
Despite this, I actually do recall liking New Age as well, though at the time I had no idea what it was called. Enigma - The Return of Innocence is one track that definitely comes to mind. I remember also looking forward to the Pure Moods commercials.
To this day I still thoroughly enjoy Native American music, but finding real stuff online is tricky. Either it's an album of short, badly recorded songs from Pow-wows, or having to buy full on CDs for $15 + shipping. Without previews, that's a scary proposition. It probably wouldn't be if I wasn't poor.
Nowadays I have an affinity for most world folk music. I have a particular proclivity for African choir music, Bulgarian choir music, throat singing, and monk chanting. You know, the usual. Of course, this is just a small sampling. There's tons of stuff I like that falls outside of this, like the few Raï albums I have, Bhangra, Kapela ze wsi Warszawa, etc. The list goes on and on man. On and on. Man.
Getting Darker
Around the late 90s my brother had bought a Rage Against the Machine album. I had heard some aggressive stuff prior to that, but for some reason it struck a chord with me. From that point I started developing a like for aggressive music. My first purchase was actually Mudvayne's L.D. 50. I almost bought a Slipknot C.D., but I never got into them. I listened to it a LOT. I loved the fact that it was aggressive, but then some songs had light passages as well, like -1. Headbangers Ball on MTV 2 had opened up my eyes to what else was out there Metal-wise.
I don't know how, but that first episode I watched was filled with songs I ended up liking. It actually made me want to keep watching it in vain, just to hear those songs again. Funnily enough, I don't really remember liking any other songs from any of the other episodes. There was one song that struck me in particular though. It was the last one played.
Naturally I would go out and by Unhallowed immediately. It my first foray into "extreme" metal. The aggression and speed were so perfect. I loved it. Soon after this I would get into Rammstein (I remembered Du Hast from when I was a kid). One fateful day, I would bring Rosenrot into school. My friend said that Rammstein had started getting into Black Metal (in hindsight I realize how much bulls
hit that is). Hm... Black Metal? What's that? Well, needless to say, I was hooked. And not even with normal Black Metal, but DSBM, Blackened Death Metal, etc. Go Satan lol.
Techno Tim
My earliest memories of Techno were hearing small bits of it on the radio. Strangely, my dad's girlfriend seemed to listen to it a lot. At the time I didn't think much of it, but I don't know of many 40 year olds that listen to Electronic music. Well, not here in the U.S. of course.
The songs from that era were quite popular so I'm sure you're all quite familiar with them. What is Love?, Mr. Vain, This is Your Night, Where Do You Go (My Lovely)? I Wanna Know My Lovely By The 90s Hit Group No Mercy, Rhythm of the Night, Be My Lover, Rhythm is a Dancer, Better Off Alone, etc. The first one that made any impact on me was Blue Da Ba Dee. My sister even bought the cassette! :O
On Saturday Nights my dad would take us to the mall. On awesome nights he would take us to Lehigh, which is further away, but it's also bigger. Those nights we'd put on 106.9 and listen to all of the Techno they'd play. After hearing stuff on the radio, my sister decided to buy the Trance Classics CD (on the Moonshine label). If you're wondering why she did most of the buying, she's older than me, so she had that kind of power in the world.
With that CD it changed everything. We knew exactly what we liked. Once we got internet, forget about it. We made mix CDs all the damn time with whatever we could find. To this day I check up new Electronic releases online. Usually every other day, sometimes a few days in a row, or sometimes only once a week. It allllll depends.
Evolution of my Electronic Tastes
For quite awhile, I stuck to Trance. I had figured that's all there was, and then all that other weird stuff I'd download on accident. The first kind of stuff I heard and enjoyed that wasn't Trance, was Hardstyle. I only liked a select few tracks though, this being one of them.
When Tech Trance came out, I hated it.
Hated it. They had those nice breaks I loved in MY Trance (Uplifting/Epic), but the melodies weren't nice at all! They were distorted and dark. No thank you. Slowly but surely I would develop a taste for it, but only for a small number of tracks (same story with Hardstyle), like Tiesto - Traffic.
In 11th grade metal shop class, my teacher loved Techno. He was in his 50s too, so that was awesome. This one kid always complained about it... until he heard Traffic. He asked me to keep playing that song. I converted him in a short period of time. Knowing what he liked, I gave him a mix CD of Tech Trance. I enjoyed doing it, but I hated the stuff I put on there. He, of course, loved it. One day he even asked to borrow my MP3 player to listen to it all. Now we're close friends and is just as into it as I am. He, like me, wants to DJ it.
Now, to abbreviate the further progression:
A few years after that conversion, we started getting into this weird stuff called Electro House. A song called Christopher Francis - Crystals in the Heaven (Electro VIP Mix) would be the first song I downloaded. Shortly after that came the creation of Trash Electro, which is far more aggressive, distorted, and awesome.
In around 2010 or so, we got into this Dubstep stuff. The first song being Bar 9 - Piano Tune. We enjoyed this guy named Skrillex, as well as random other tracks, like Richie August - Side 2 Side, Baconhead - Wookie, Kanedubstep & Budzak - Jabba, etc. After hearing a lot about "true" Dubstep, I would look into an artist called Burial. Holy. ****. The next time I found myself in an FYE I purchased Untrue and fell in love. Now, as for Pop Dubstep, I would grow to not like it so much, but I think Johnny still has a fondness for it.
In 2011 I was trying to broaden my horizons as much as possible, so when someone posted a Techno mix on Basenotes, I decided to check it out. Not so much piqued my interest, but out of nowhere I heard some insanely heavy kickdrums. I thought that was just in Hardstyle? The track was Tommy Four Seven's Sor.
It took some getting used to. There was no breaks, there was no real "melodies", at least what I think of as melodies, so at first I wasn't too keen on it. Little by little though, I would find myself listening to it more and more. Now I think it's one of my favorite Electronic genres, and is one I check up on more than any other.
So, this gives some insight to how I got to where I am now. There was quite a bit of discovery in 2011, but it all happened the same way. Like The Tallest Man on Earth, for example. I saw the album cover, thought it was interesting, downloaded it, enjoyed it. Same story for Sigur Ros - Takk, Hammock - Kenotic, and Arms & Sleepers - Warm. I found Modern Classical in that era too, thanks to Richard Skelton.