What's your music taste like?
 

I know there are plenty of less direct ways to figure this out. There are journals and threads like the last.fm week threads and so on where you can sort of get an idea of what people listen to. There are even quite a few threads that are similar to this one, but I haven't found one which just poses the simple and honest question; what is your taste in music like? I realized I only have very vague knowledge of this concerning a lot of you guys so I wanna know!


I'll try and sum up mine. I'm quite explorative and so I often listen to music I don't like in search of something, but it also means I have at least something I like in most genres. Still, my number one decade is the 70s, my number one country in the world is England and my favourite genre at the moment is prog rock. This will be confirmed should anyone check out my most played artists on my last.fm. Caravan, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, Yes and Camel are at the top 6 of my all time most listened to. Frank Zappa is also in there, but he's not english of course.

I'll say though that prog rock is relatively new in my life compared to a lot of the other stuff I like. A couple of years ago, the top bands on my last.fm probably would've been stuff like Boston, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Deep Purple, Megadeth, Metallica, Dio. It was mostly hard rock and metal for quite some time.

Aside from Prog and classic rock, I think jazz which I'm a little new to still is my big number 3. I'm quite fond of a lot of the fusion sounding stuff from the early 70s. I'm just now discovering some of the great jazz-players from my own country.

I have a soft spot for pop hits from different genres, like Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight or Bee Gees' Staying Alive. Sometimes the crappiest pop hits are good I think, but I'm not at all up to date. Most of what I listen to from this decade are new albums put out by old artists. Popular artists from all kinds of genres including some of the stuff my GF likes make up a sort of background level of music in my life.

So that's it. Anyone else? ;)

I used to be something that i see so much of in this country which is the young, narrow minded, British indie follower who may as well carry a copy of the NME around in their breast pocket like a security blanket or a Bible instead of keeping a copy in the john for when you run out of toilet paper like the rest of us. I don't remember liking any music other than really awful 90's dance and pop music when i was a kid, then i really got into MJ then the first guitar band i ever got into was Oasis when i was about 10 and so the transformation began. Oasis, The Who, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Jam, Weller, OCS, The Beatles, The Stones, The Pistols etc. I even quite fancied myself as a mod at one stage, which makes me cringe now it was so pathetic because i had never actually had anything to back that up at all. I then hit the whole garage rock revival scene hard at the turn of the decade and a few bands also kickin around at the time. The Strokes, The White Stripes, B.R.M.C, The Music, The Vines etc.

I've kept a lot of that in my collection. Sure, there a few bands from around that time that i've grown out of but i still like alot of it, just maybe not as much these days. Since then i've developed an appreciation for a wider range of music and am much happier because of it.

Now i would say my favourite genres are heavy metal but more specifically doom metal and stoner rock. Bands like Orange Goblin, Clutch, Electric Wizard, Pentagram and as is often the case with fans of these genres, i have a great appreciation for Black Sabbath who may or may not still be my favourite band. I also have a liking for quite a lot of 80's thrash metal.

60's and early 70's psychedelic rock and garage rock, which as of late i have been simply allowing to control my life.

Post-rock is a genre that certainly has its limits but late at night if i need something atmospheric with real mood and emotion to throw on then this genre gets a good beating from me. If you can throw a string section into the equation too, then im golden. Trip-hop i would say i dig for the same reasons but am no expert with this genre just yet.


I've also scratched the surface with funk, any electronic music outside of trip-hop, blues and am looking to get into more hip-hop. Theres alot more genres of music i feel like i should include if im trying to sum up my music taste but i think what i have mentioned above will suffice because i genre hop a lot and just tend to move on rather quickly.

I thought this thread was entitled, "What does your music taste like?". That would be interesting.

Are you me? Except I wasn't 10, I was a bit older when I really discovered Oasis.

Heh i actually had a feeling from your posts to date that you may have been quite similar in that sense but as i said it's not hard to find teenagers like that in this country, even now really. Ever go to an Oasis gig? The place will be swarming with them. I detest Oasis fans, even though I am one.

I was mostly into just chart stuff, then my sisters boyfriend had a Bonkers cd and I asked for a loan of it. I was hooked on Bonkers for a few years, then I would only listen to people who have Dj'd for Bonkers. Then I found out Marc Smith, and a few of my other old favourite Dj's were playing at a "Rave" called Fantazia - Clash of the titans and it was on my 16th birthday, so I went and ended up getting into other genres of electronica. Fantazia was the shit back in the day, now its just an excuse for neds to get out their box really. Now I'll have a listen to anything, before I joined this.. I was strictly electronica, now I can listen to almost anything :) I think.

I'm mainly into indie rock and hiphop. Thats not to say I don't listen to other genres b/c I definately do but right now those are my staples.

I also tend to follow new sounds that I like in a very cultish fashion. If I like an artist I dig and dig until I've heard most of their work, and along the way I typically find a few gems that otherwise would have went unnoticed.

Started out on NME indie and "classic rock", started to branch out into US indie by getting into Pixies and Arcade Fire at the end of 2006.From there went to the earlier great bands within the genre(Smiths,Stone Roses etc),and ended up being able to listen to much any music within two years. That said I remain fairly into indie/alternative and I don't know why.

Hmm... I don't know really that's a bit hard. I'd honestly say that despite how I come across on here if I really stop and think about it, I'm definitely still developing my music taste. One thing I love in music is a heavy dose of noise. Most bands with elements of noise I like from all sorts of genres, and especially noise rock, noise pop, and experimental noise stuff. I love shoegaze and dream pop. Alternative hip hop stuff usually does it for me, be it ATCQ and De La Soul or Alias and the anticon collective, as well as instrumental hip hop. I have a harder time finding more mainstream rap that does it for me, a lot of that just doesn't click. Trip hop and post rock/metal are good at times, but there's a lot of bad bands in there. Stuff with a drone to it, anything from Sun Araw to Trouble Books. And of course, old and new indie and alternative rock. Lots of good stuff in there. I've been trying to get into more jazz and 60s and 70s psychedelic rock as well. Lastly, I'm a sucker for indie pop of all sorts. Still, the biggest thing that generally hits with me is noisy music.

I started out with a hardcore CD (Hardcore Warriors Vol. 2) I stole from my brother's friend who was a German exchange student. I was 8 and never heard anything like it but I knew I loved it. When I gave it back I didn't have any other way to listen to electronic music so I then went on to rock and metal. I loved Korn, System of a Down, Mudvayne, and As I Lay Dying. I also listened to stuff like Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, and David Gray. Once we got a computer and I was able to get more electronic stuff I started listening to ALL trance. Eventually I would start listening to everything but for awhile it was all electronic. I would then be introduced to black metal and it scared the **** out of me.. which was a very good thing. Nowadays I listen mainly to Trance, Black Metal, Alternative, Electro, Hardstyle, and other weird **** mixed in. Everything from Sigur Ros to Peter Heppner to Ruoska and Burning Spear. The only genre I won't go near is Country. WAY too plain and boring.

Oh and I can't listen to the same stuff for a long time. I have to clear out my iPod and add new stuff every now and then. Then eventually when it's been awhile since I'd listened to the stuff I deleted off, I'll put some of it back on.

I did, I got a cup of piss on my head inside the first few minutes. Even though I am a fan just like you, I hate the ones that are like 'Oasis the best rock n roll band since The Beatles.' Both amazing bands, don't get me wrong. But music lives and dies with them two as far as a lot of Oasis fans are concerned because they're too ignorant to explore other stuff. I still love Definitely Maybe and WTSMG though, more than most albums. I've got drunk to them albums, I've had good times with them albums, played football with them albums, them albums have been the soundtrack to many summers.

i probably started like most here, getting into indie rock first and branching out from there. however, i never really caught onto the latest wave of it (stuff like Animal Collective & Grizzly Bear) and it's somewhat lost its appeal on me. i still listen to the occasional indie album but i find myself enjoying it less and less, and not much (if anything) from the past decade.

since then i've been poking into earlier music, more specifically post-punk from 1980 onwards. most of what i consider my "favorite" music is of this era: bands like PIL, Swans, Foetus, Mission of Burma... recently i've been developing a taste for '60s psychedelia and underground hip-hop, but i can't really speak extensively about either and my knowledge is somewhat limited.

i am open to all kinds of music, but i can be extremely picky about the garbage i force myself to listen to. :)

What? Country isn't plain and boring, man!



I don't listen to a whole lot of country, but the country I do like (stuff like Chet and Jerry here and Earl Scruggs), I love. :)

Well that's not the ONLY reason I don't like it.. it's a more a summation of reasons and that's just one of them. Another is that when I hear it just reminds me of rednecks drinking at a pig roast.. which there's a lot of around here. It's like.. living in the country, listening to country which revolves around lyrics written about living in the country. It's all really redundant. Of course, not ALL of them sing about it but if they don't.. I still don't seem to enjoy it. I really can't pin down any one reason.. it's just not for me. I do remember enjoying some songs from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack but that was bluegrass and folk. Not enough to research it any further though.

Throughout my childhood I was afraid of growing up, and I saw music as a means of growing up. My mom would always play Jazz like Diana Krall and Miles Davis for me and I had hated it. I can remember being on some forum in around 7th grade and there was a post about Smells Like Teen Spirit. I had heard the song before and immediately couldn't get enough of it. I can remember listening to the 3 Nirvana songs over and over again for weeks on end and this went on for around a year until I opened up to more Grunge. I was the biggest Kurt Cobain fanboy ever (and nowadays some of my old self is still prevalent.) and would get personally offended when people talked about Nirvana in a negative way.

Then last summer I went to one of my best friends house and he had just found this genre that was completely new to me, hardcore punk. He played me Pay To *** by Bad Brains and at first I didn't like it all that much, but knowing that Bad Brains was one of Dave Grohl's favorite punk bands I kept listening and it finally grew on me. From there I got a hardcore punk compilation album (American Hardcore) and got introduced to some more bands from there (Like Circle Jerks and Flipper.)

I'm not gonna bore you with all the details about when and how I got into all the bands I like today, but MB has had a major impact on what I listen to and what I respect. I'd call Nirvana and Sublime my favorite bands, Punk wise I'm into a lot of 80's hardcore punk like descendents, Black Flag, and Minor Threat, but I also really like the Angry Samoans and The Germs.

As of now Ska-Punk is my favorite genre with Operation Ivy being my favorite out of that genre. From Ska-punk I got into Skacore (Or crack rock steady) and really like bands like Choking Victim, Leftover Crack, and INDK.

I still like some Grunge too, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden have always been kind to me along with Green River. and although they aren't Grunge Dinosaur Jr is up there in my favorite bands.

I like a lot of Ska too, The Specials, Pepper, The Redskins and The Toasters being some of my favorites.

I also like a lot of Noise Rock and Math Rock or Mathcore, some of my favorites being Lightning Bolt, Hella,and Shellac.

I like some folk too, I'm big on the Bright Eyes and find Wingnut Dishwasers Union to be highly underrated Folk Punk.

And I guess that's it, I see my taste as pretty bland although I may dip into some genres that aren't so popular I tend to like the most popular bands out of that genre.

tastes like chicken

^ troof

My tastes at the moment are pretty well defined, though I'm always trying something new.

Unlike some here, I was into mainstream rock, metal along the lines of Queensryche and classical music starting off. Early in high school though, I got into progressive rock and jazz related music, with Pink Floyd and Yes hooking me into the old stuff from the genre while groups like Frost* and The Tangent and Mars Volta kept me interested in the here and now. My mom's interest in groups like Chicago and The Beach Boys also made me want to explore more pop and jazz-rock, so those genres followed suit.

However, over the last two years I've really begun to branch out. Although I still love jazz and proggy stuff to death, I'm finding that industrial, folk, electronic and soul are the genres I've been gravitating to most in terms of pure interest, and to a lesser extent dub, hip-hop, post-rock and death/black metal.

Although I don't consider myself having bland taste in music, I feel that there's always room for me to expand my tastes, which is why I'm glad I joined MusicBanter last year. You guys are awesome! ^^

It either has to rock , groove or confuse the hell out of me.

That's why post rock can go fuck off

I pretty much got into music when I was 12, and I listeneds to basically pop punk, and post-grunge/alternative bands like Fuel, Creed, Coldplay, Chevelle, etc. which makes me cringe now. I also had a very brief hip hop faze, even though I really only used to listen to Eminem and Snoop Dogg. My tastes changed slightly at 15 when I started getting into pseudo-emo and metalcore bands like Hawthorne Heights, Taking Back Sunday, Story of the Year, As I Lay Dying, Unearth, and Atreyu just to name a few.

My tastes really changed a year later, when I got into heavy metal, and paticulary thrash and power metal. This was also when I completely lost interest in just about anything I listened to before other than some metalcore. Then about a year later, I started getting into glam metal as well as some 70s-80s rock/hard rock. Then when I was 18, I started really getting into 80s new wave and synthpop which to an extent would lead to my current interest in electronic dance music.

Recently, I've been hardcore into house and trance music along with some cheesy eurodance, and some drum & bass like Dieselboy, though I still listen to alot of rock and hard rock (though mainly from the 70s and 80s) and metal, along with 80s pop. I'm even starting to get back into some of the pop punk and metalcore bands I used to listen to a while ago along with some I would've never listened to in my metalhead days.

Diana Krall is to Miles Davis what Nickelback is to... good music.

And I like Diana Krall...

^ As do I, I after being forced to see her live I've come to like her more, and I finally got "kind of blue" from my mom and really like it.

I really can't figure out what I was listening to for my first 16 years of my life. I considered myself as a person with a difficult taste in music, not listening to any song on the radio. So I listened to just some of the stuff on the radio.
Then I discovered I love metal music, and the first band I listened to was Metallica. I don't know why in here, a metalhead should listen to those 3 bands: Metallica, Nirvana and Iron Maiden, and that's what I did (I really don't know why Nirvana is in this trinity). I loved that kind of music (but didn't expand my knowledge at all), and on that stage I was 12.
And with being 12, comes the stage of being a cliché pre-teenage girl, so I listened to Avril Lavigne, Evanescence and t.A.T.u, still considering myself as someone who knows in music. From the age 12 till the age 16, the only band that I loved, and still do, is System of a Down.
At 16 I joined a couple of local forums (we've got the same active users in all local forums), and as I was beginning to be one of the main active users, I kind of showed like someone who knows what the hell he's talking about, and it wasn't the case at all. So feeling how mediocre my knowledge in music was, I began memorizing the name of the bands always mentioned in all discussions. So it was Pink Floyd, The Doors and Led Zeppelin.
... I just noticed that I've been rambling stuff out of topic.

Returning to the topic:
The beginning of my quest was at 17, with Pink Floyd's The Wall, I got addicted to it. Then by mistake I discovered The Zombies. I started listening to The Beatles last year, and memorized their whole discography in 2 weeks, and that's when I realized I love the 60s music. It was then The Doors and the rest of Pink Floyd's albums. Plus I got to know Radiohead last summer, after I found out one student is obsessed with them.

And with this pathetic knowledge I joined this forum.

After few months on MB, I still think my favorite genre is Psychedelic Rock, but to that I added maybe more than 15 genres. I've even been enjoying some Electronica.

Awesome and ever evolving. I will still be doing this shit until I pop my clogs I guess.

I can't believe i knew so little about your music taste N9D! I thought you were well into your 60's psych stuff long before you joined this site. I had you down as quite a knowledgeable listener to begin with, more so than what you seem to be suggesting you were.

And i didn't know you really liked metal either, to be honest. Damn it, those Spotify playlists could have been so much better ;)

I probably have to thank my older sister for getting me started with music. When i was around 8 or 9 she'd copy tapes of Oasis, Blur, The Verve, Ocean Colour Scene and a few others for me. Including bringing me to my first ever concert which was Oasis. But up until i was 14 my music collection mostly consisted of mainstream chart-bothering rock bands like Travis, Stereophonics, Coldplay, Oasis etc.
The first major turning point was my discovery of Nirvana. With me becoming an angsty little teenager Nirvana just seemed perfect to me, they were pretty much the gateway to the music that my parents would describe as a "****ing racket", the rebellion had begun :). Not long after that i discovered Metallica and metal and hard rock in general and so i went through a mosher phase up until my late teens. But i was always open to other music, in my last year of school one of my friends copied The Cure's Greatest Hits for me and it really opened my mind to how powerful, beautiful and emotional music could be.

When i left school and started college i started to get more and more into alternative rock and indie music, bands like the Pixies, Radiohead, Dinosaur Jr, Sigur Ros, My Bloody Valentine. And course MB has really opened my mind to all sorts of music. Nowdays i'm still mostly listening to indie and alternative, some folky stuff as well, but i'm getting into electronic music a bit more, listening to The Chemical Brothers, Boards Of Canada, Aphex Twin and various compilations.

When i look back there's tons of bands i can't believe i listened to. When you grow older your music tastes really do sharpen.

I feel I'm learning a lot of interesting things about people. Thanks to all so far who took the time to write good answers. :)

To add a little more to my own story, there were some phases I went through that I didn't mention because not much from them have stayed with me. The most embarassing phase was my punk period. It was luckily quite short .. I listened to punk bands like suicidal tendencies, Blink 182 and NOFX, ugh :( Not extensively, but I mean it was part of my playlists. I'm ashamed cause I absolutely hate that ****e.

I also used to make a lot of music on the computer so I had an electronica phase in my late teens where I got a lot of inspiration from artists like The Future Sound of London, Prodigy, Aphex Twin, cEvin Key, Front 242, :Wumpscut:, Kraftwerk and so on.

Then I had a short goth rock/metal period (I was never a goth, but) where I listened to more The Cure, Moonspell, Love & Rockets .. I don't listen to much of this anymore, but hey - The Cure has some great songs and I put on a little Sisters now and then.

From my pre-puberty childhood, I listened to some U2, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, Toy Dolls, REM - you know, stuff my older siblings had basically. Some of it has stayed with me, most notably Pink Floyd.

Now you know more about me than you can probably remember. ;)

Don't lump Suicidal Tendencies in with that shit! :nono:

I don't listen to them anymore, but I would easily agree they're the best of that bunch.

I have no problem singing along to Franzl Lang's "Der Appenzeller Jodler", Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's "Ebony and Ivory" or George Michael's "Careless Whisper" .. But I feel ever liking NOFX and Blink182 are the darkest stains on my record.

That's what I thought too :p:
And metal was the only thing I really enjoyed in my teenage years, especially Doom and Black Metal (but also I don't know much of the bands).

Same.

Grammer School: I liked oldies, which was all my parents listened to on the radio.
Middle School - I started listening to commercial rap and...alot of Weird Al too.
High School - I got into Metal like Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura, etc. Also was into alternative and nu-metal bands. My favorite bands in HS were Bush and Rage Against the Machine.
When I got my 1st job a co-worker introduced me to Electronica and got me hooked, and that's where I've been ever since for the most part, with some metal thrown in as well.
Lately though I've really been branching out into jazz and classical as well though.


So atm, I'm probably 50% Electronica, 30% Metal/Hard sh*t, 15% Jazz/Classical, 5% Hip-Hop/Other.

^I wanted to make this a pie chart since we're talking about taste, but I couldn't figure out how. I tried to figure it out for about 30 seconds and gave up. :|

This is a really cool idea! Mainly because although we get an indication of each other's music tastes through other threads/posts/discussions, it's a lot different to hear someone describe their taste so outwardly.

Anyway, when I first joined this site I had a pretty poor and narrow taste in music. I only listened to a small circle of my 'favourite' bands such as Tool, Porcupine Tree, Karnivool, and other proggy-kind of bands. I was also really cynical when it came to listening to new music and set really high standards with any new artist I listened to, especially with any artist outside of the genre I was comfortable.

Now however, I have much more interest in indie/alternative music. I think as well as Musicbanter, my band has also shaped this attitude because the kind-of music we play would be categorised as indie/alternative/softer kind of rock than what I was used to listening to. Being in a band and finding our 'sound' has pretty much completely turned my music taste around. I am loving indie, alternative, post-rock, avant garde/experimental, pop, even electronic music much more than the closed off little genres I used to confine myself to.

Anyway, all in all I think my musical tastes are ever-changing and difficult to put a finger on. But in recent times I have opened up my mind and am pretty much open to give anything a try :)

You mean like this?

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/967/dbtaste.png

It's all in a day's work for .. Toretorden.

Haha, ty :)

I was an NME whore up until about 17 when i put on my Dad's 'Best of Psychedelia' compilation. I was completely submerged in the atmosphere and mood evoked from this album and it changed my outlook on music completely.

I'm still a sucker for melodies and hooks, i have a huge admiration for pop music and the artistry implicit within it. However, these days it's more about the mood and atmosphere music gives me, i actively seek music that's going to take me out of my box, because to me it's when you're removed from the numbing monotony of the mundane that you really learn about yourself and your reality. If that sounds pretentious and/or stupidly obvious i apologise, but this is literally what music does for me; it's an escape from the blinkers.

I wouldnt say i favour a particular genre or two. I'm a big fan of Indie Rock, Folk, Psychedelia, Noise Rock/Punk, Screamo, Underground Hip Hop and Punk (as well as it's offshots, Post-Punk and Hardcore Punk). I'm also getting really into Post-Hardcore, particularly bands from the 90's such as Rodan and Unwound.

In terms of decades, i would say the 60s, 80s and 90s do it for me. Although recently i've made a concerted effort to immerse myself in new music, and the more i hear the more my appreciation grows for the 00's.

I think boundaries are an unecessary evil that can and often do stifle creativity. Consequently i think it's important that music be played without fear and with sincerity.

We'll have to rectify that sometime.

are you looking for an excuse to practice your passion for charts?

this is kind of hard to answer for me because i despise the concept of genres, and i see a clear distinction between playing songs and playing music (like the difference between having sex and making love).

a lot of that attitude comes from a combination of growing up as the child of a musician who wasn't interested in passing along the beat to the next generation as well as the so-called alternative music revolution of the 90s. it's not to say alt-rock wasn't a huge staple of my listening in my youth but it's the attitudes presented by the musicians that really stuck and influenced me as i grew older. like Pearl Jam sticking it to Ticketmaster because you don't need to play for 15 000 people who had to pay $100 a pop in order to be 'successful'. or the guys from Soundgarden talking about the fact that having a modicum of business sense does NOT mean your artistic integrity becomes compromised (incorporate your own publishing company so YOU retain full control on your songs even when signed to a label).

at this point i'm far less interested in hearing 'new' styles that are either rehashes (hey let's all be folkies ....:rolleyes:) or rebrandings (i swear electroclash is NOT the same as 80s new wave synth pop....)

what i like to hear is a sense of aggression, some fire from the soul coming out through the instruments at play. it doesn't need to be furious jazz noodling, it's not necessarily some liquid finger guitar shredding, but it has to touch me in a way that let's me know that the people playing the music are letting it out. complexity and virtuosity are irrelevant if they sound sterile, formulaic anything is garbage that serves little more than an expansion to the ego far more often than not.

on the other hand i also really like lush textured atmospheric music as well, something where there so much sound coming at you that you can't help but get lost within it. enough layers that you can always hear a new combination of sounds every time you listen to it.

as such i find myself listening to stuff that lends itself more towards jamming / improvisation. like stoner rock or free jazz, spastic electro, dub, shoegaze, or Mike Patton.

My music tastes literally began with Music Banter, and admittedly I'm still finding myself musically. In my life directly before MB, on the rare occasion someone wasn't playing techno, I listened to The Mars Volta, Tool, System Of A Down, Nirvana, Guster, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and some of my friends had a lot of like Nofx or The Misfits playing.

Bout that time I put myself in rehab and decided in there to expand my taste, starting by using the counselors to make a list people I should check out. I was very cautions about it and actually convinced the three counselors that I thought had the best taste to go through a couple hundred names and kick out whoever didn't get a 2/3rds vote. My rehab was only for people under the age of eighteen, so needless to say about half of that list was gone an hour later.

After two months there I moved next to the Mojave desert to rely on dear old mommy for all my financial needs. I've been trapped in this god forsaken hell hole with nothing to do since. So I found MB very early on, and every name I saw in an album review or Journal, I instantly would look-up songs on youtube, and after four or five songs if I liked it I'd add that band or artist to the list. Takes me a while to get through a page, maybe a month, and at the end I enter it into the computer somewhere all alphabetized and whatnot and download all the ones I really wanted that I underlined. I actually used to keep up with those downloads but after page three I had so much music I figured I should listen to it, but I'm rambling on.

It's been a while but I remember about a year ago the first thing I clicked with was The Animal Collective, and I remember writing some crappy Air reviews. Some more stuff too I think, Gram Rabbit, Sonic Youth a little bit of The Doors.

I checked out a bunch of bands but I think my personal real music taste began with my sister turning me onto PJ Harvey. I didn't love it right away but her album Dance Hall At Louse point eventually became an old favorite, and since I've listened to at least three quarters of her discog. The next movement I made was into Nick Cave, listened to maybe three or four of his albums but I <3 his music so much. I sing and dance to them regularly. Then from there a couple Leonard Cohen albums, Comus, Leaf Hound, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, I don't know there were so many.

I'm going to stop here. Man, I spent so much time with a few albums but looking back I really feel like I rushed things... now it's just kinda how I do things. For instance I've kinda been on a late 60's psych kick lately. I don't know, I'll do this again in a year and we'll see what I say... for now, this: My music tastes literally began with Music Banter, and admittedly I'm still finding myself musically.

I think you win the award for the most interesting story so far Schizotypic. It's good to see that music genuinely seems to have quite a positive effect on your life and you certainly seem to be checking out a lot of it.

In the mid-80s I began to have my own taste in music (I was about 10). My first albums (vinyl) were J. Geils Band - Centerfold single (Rage In the Cage on the b-side), Def Leppard - Pyromania, and Twisted Sister - Stay Hungry and I loved them. They were the only things I heard outside of my parents music for a long time.

Then I began to listen to the radio so I heard Top 40 pop for the first time. INXS became my favorite band and I bought Listen Like Thieves (my first cassette). After seeing an advertisement for the album on the wall of my school I got Head on the Door by The Cure. Then came a huge onslaught of music and I listened to everything I could and pretty much settled on metal and metal-approved punk like The Misfits and the Ramones. My first 2 years of high school were dominated by that music until the Violent Femmes and Jane's Addiction taught me about "alternative rock". One day around this time I decided that it was OK to listen to Depeche Mode, so I did. Also at the time, shoegaze and other crazy-sounding pop (JAMC) was coming out of the UK and this was my new favorite music by far. My last two years of high school were spent on that and I also liked RHCP, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Fugazi and a smattering of popular indie stuff. I even came around to liking REM who I previously hated but I continued to hate U2.

College years (early-mid-90s) were all indie-math-rock-post-core or what have you. And Jazz and then experimental rock. For a while I started to dislike music that sounded familiar at all and I began to listen to a lot of "world music" like Hindu ragas and Gamelan music. Also got really into Delta Blues during this time. Friends of mine were into electronic (rave) music so I heard of lot of house and trip-hop during these years although I rarely liked it.

This brings us to the late 90s when I got back into metal thanks to bands like ISIS, Matodon, Pelican and all that. I also really got into the "metallic" hardcore bands like Botch, Coalesce and drowningman. I also got into hip-hop during these years thanks to all the underground stuff that came out throughout the 90s. I went back through all of that.

As new finds go I spent most of the 00s listening to stuff that I had missed from the past (like old Dischord stuff and old metal). Listening to instrumental hip-hop got me into other electronic music but I almost exclusively like 'downtempo' or otherwise dark sounds (not like 'darkwave' but like electronic dub). I can't remember why it started but several of my mid-00s were spent listening to vintage reggae, rocksteady, and ska. As for current tastes and current music, I like a little bit of all the genres that I have mentioned here but I'm pretty picky and I don't find much comfort in any one genre because there is so much that I love and hate about every genre.

So the sum of all that is what my music tastes like.