Music you grew up with.




Posted by Raptor

In this thread, we discuss bands/artists/songs/albums you grew up hearing often or listening to, through your parents, friends, or what happened to be popular around you. What forms of music were you most exposed to when you were younger? Does listening to that same music today give you a sense of nostalgia? How has it helped to influence your current taste in music?

My father was big on music, and he was responsible for playing most of the memorable music I heard as a child. He listened to quite a bit of blues, Woodstock '69-era hippy music and classic rock, which I never really took to and still don't to this day (aside from Pink Floyd and APP), but also quite a bit of fabulous 80's music, the following artists and albums being a few examples of which I'm still very fond of today and have quite a few joyous memories attached:

Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust, Blue Sky Mining
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
The Police - Regatta de Blanc, Ghost in the Machine
Peter Gabriel - So
Howard Jones - Dream into Action, Cross That Line
Pet Shop Boys - Please
David Bowie - ChangesBowie
Sting - Nothing Like the Sun, Ten Summoners' Tales
U2 - pretty much everything from the 80's.

We also listened to a lot of reggae by artists most Americans have never heard of, even before we started living in the tropical islands where it's so popular. There's some very good material in that genre.

By the time the early 90's rolled around, I started hearing hip-hop and rap left and right. I recall enjoying it then. It actually seemed fresh and fun to listen to, much like techno or breakcore does to me today. This was back when Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer, and Sir Mixalot were all the rage. I took a liking to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince as well. Fun times. When I listen to that music today, I can barely keep a straight face, though it truly reminds me of when I was younger.

It was around 1994 or 1995 that we finally got MTV in the isolated little corner of the world we lived in and I became introduced to a thing called grunge, which coincidentally was very near the height of its popularity. "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden was the first music video I ever watched, and from then on I got heavily into bands like STP, Alice in Chains, Sponge, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I remember watching MTV quite regularly, as it was my source for good music (or what I considered good back then) before I discovered the internet in 1997. I went through a metal and Dreem Theatre-obsessive phase (of course!) and eventually became turned on to the splendor of techno and electronica, which is still the primary type of music I listen to today. I think listening to a lot of synth-heavy, danceable 80's rock when I was younger helped to inspire my taste in electronica over the years.

But aside from my babbling, I'm genuinely interested in others' responses on this subject, so have at it.




Posted by Omni

My folks always listened to a lot of old rock music. My father likes Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones. My mother likes the Doors and Led Zeppelin. They both like the Beatles and Cream, so I remember hearing those bands a lot, too. Despite my enormous love for them, they never really listened to Queen or David Bowie, though they do play the albums I bought for them quite often nowadays.

Both of my parents also like blues, reggae, and country, so I remember a lot of songs from B.B. King, Bob Marley, and Johnny Cash. They also listened to some Bob Dylan and Neil Young, which cemented my love of American folk-rock. I still enjoy this kind of music sometimes.

My father also used to watch MTV with me. Grunge just started to get popular was I was four or five years old, so I remember a lot of bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, which are still some of my favorite bands today. The songs I remember the most from this period are "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Even Flow" by Pearl Jam, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana. I don't really like Nirvana a whole lot, though.

Rap was also really popular, but I was never able to really get into it. Most of the kids in my school liked rap, and if they didn't like rap, they liked pop music or some of the horrible 90's rock that nobody remembers today.

Some of the other music I remember hearing a lot when I was wounger is Guns N' Roses. They were really popular at the time, and my father absolutely loved them. I think they were my first absolute favorite band, and I still listen to them occasionally today.

I also remember my older brother liking a lot of old metal like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. He used to play guitar a lot, so I remember hearing the riffs from songs like "Iron Man" all the time, plus he used to play the albums a lot. He also liked some newer artists like Powerman 5000 and Nine Inch Nails. "Wish" is a song that always stuck with me, and it's part of the reason why I like Nine Inch Nails so much today.

My sisters both liked a lot of the contemporary pop acts, such as Britney Spears and the Spice Girls. I've never much cared for them. My older sister has progressed into listening to alternative music. My younger sister likes emo music now. She also likes it when I play all kinds of metal and rock music that she's never heard that I like, and she even thinks black metal is cool.

I remember that in about 1998, when I was 12, I started to get more interested in music, and I remember wanting to hear a lot of old classic rock. When I started to use the internet, some of the first things I did was download all the songs by the Beatles, because I remembered liking them a lot when I was younger.

I started to look for music I'd never really listened to that was supposedly good, especially old bands that were influenced by the Beatles. Queen was a band I only really rememered a few songs from, "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" come to mind. I liked those ones, and I also knew what "Bohemian Rhapsody" was and had always liked it, so I downloaded a whole bunch of their songs, and I really enjoyed them. They're easily my favorite band today.

Around this same time, I also started getting into alternative music, and I remembered a lot of songs from when I was younger, so those were some of the first I grabbed, mostly grunge and similar alternative rock songs. I also started listening to Nine Inch Nails around this time. Jeff Buckley was another artist I discovered on the internet sometime around then.

A few years ago I moved to Florida. I got a job, and I used to hang out with a lot of people I worked with. I remember one of my friends liked all sorts of weird music like Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3, which helped me get used to a lot of the avant-garde and similar stuff I like today. We also used to listen to a lot of Beck in his car. Philsdad is also awesome for helping me get into more avant-garde and trippy music like this later on.

Most recently, coming back to this site sometime last year, I was introduced to a lot of new kinds of music. I learned about black and doom metal, which I really enjoy, mostly from Vampiro. I also learned about a lot of progressive metal on this site, some of which is really cool, like Pain of Salvation.

That's about it, I guess.




Posted by Xero

I wasn't into music until I turned 12. The music I grew up with was my parents's.

My mom loved The Rolling Stones. She use to make me listen to their stuff. It was good. Much better than the rock you get these days.
She also liked Depeche Mode and The Cure. All those bands were awesome. She liked many other bands, but those 3 were the ones I heard most of the time at her place.

My dad had a lot of classics too. He made me listen to Queen, Rush and The Doors. After a while, I kept asking him to put Rush all the time. I really liked




Posted by G-Sides

pearl jam, jane's addiction, and fugazi. :s until i started branching out and listening to music for myself and not from my parents.




Posted by Shade

Grew up listening to The Eagles, Don Henley, Tom Petty, y Santana in en el carro con mis padres.




Posted by Arcadios

Even thou I was born into a Hispanic family I was never one to listen to Spanish spoken music. There were some bands that I enjoyed in the genre of Latin but they seem so vague. My parent's actually stayed to that genre but they never did the same for me. They exposed me to many genres but I never stayed with one until I was 11 years old when I first chose a genre of my own will.

The year was '01.
It was a bright Saturday morning and it was cold outside because it was late December.
I was in a Laundromat with my mother clean our clothing and I see a man walking around with a duffel bag approaching people with numerous CDs in his hands. Ha makes his way towards us and begins to persuade us into buying these bootlegged CDs. My mother tells me to look and see what I like and so I take the stack of cases the man handed to me and start looking through them rapidly only seeing the pictures. I see one photograph that portrays a man in a bright orange suit with a pigeon by his side on top of a wall with a city behind him which is overshadowed by clouds of dark blue and white shade. I look at the back and see a close-up picture of the same man wearing the orange suit in an alleyway. I look at the front of it again and tell me mother I choose this one. My mother pays the man 7 dollars and he leaves. I had my CD player on me which had a disc in it that contained oldies from the 70's since I had no particular taste in music. All I did was grab something my dad had played and I liked. I begin unwrapping the plastic off the case. I open the case to find a CD with my reflection on it and small letters which were the same as the ones on the front of the cover. I take out the disc inside the player and replace it with the new one. I begin playing it and start listening to it and start bopping my head to the beat. I skip some tracks and liked the majority of the sounds.I never really remember any of the words, all I could remember where the beats and how I enjoyed them. After sometime passed I had lost the disc and never really knew who was the artist of the CD since my memory wasn't as reliable as it is today. 5 years later I see the same photo on a CD case in a store named Best Buy and realized it was Nas who was the artist on the disc and it was named Stillmatic. After that I always remembered that day.

Couple of years later....
Another things that drove me even closer toward Hip-Hop was when I was with my parent's and sister buying whatever we needed in a store called Target. I decide to look on top of a small refrigerator which was in front the the lines where you go to purchase your items. It was a box full of CDs and I find a CD with a worn out brown theme that had a man cringing on his knees, sitting on the ground, next to a smoking sewage drain. I remember seeing the man on television before which struck the interest in buying it. I also saw a CD next to it and it had an entirely blue picture of a woman with hand of top of her forehead which seemed to be pressed against it. The hand had a black and red flame tattoo on it and the word "Sinner" on it's knuckles. I look at the back and find a song named "Bodies" which was the same name of a song I liked which I've heard many times. My mom and dad began calling me since they were done with there shopping but where about to get rung up. So I was juggling back and forth on which CD to get and decided to go with the brown covered CD. Later I go home, open it and begin to listen to it on my CD player. A Summer Slam commercial began playing and I start listening to the intro. As the commercial continues, the songs changes and I listen to it fully and liked it. After switching around I finally get to the song I waited for and listen to it none stop. I never lost that CD and IT was Eminem's Marshal Mathers LP. The other CD was Drowning Pool's Sinner.
I've never forgotten those things since I've really began going deeper into Hip-Hop.




Posted by Philsdad

Well, let's start from the very beginning. I had exposue to good music from the very beginning because I had an uncle and aunt who were good musicians (classically trained, college educated etc etc) so they'd come over and bang out tunes on the piano and flute. I was very very young, 2 years old or younger but this is my first real memory of music. I learned a lot of cool classical melodies (I had no idea what they were when I was 2) that I would again discover later on which is always cool.

My parents mostly listened to classical, so there was a lot of that in my earlier childhood years. When I was in 6th grade, I got into Aerosmith which was the first "band" I ever got into on my own.

But by the time I was in 7th grade, I started getting into a lot of the bands of that time. Green Day's "Dookie" and Offspring's "Smash" come to mind. Then in 8th grade, I started getting into "heavier" music like KoRn and Rage Against The Machine. Then come 9th grade I was heavily into a lot of 90s rock. Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Bush, and lots of other bands. Then at the end of 9th grade I got into hardcore, and listened to bands like Sick of It All. Then in 10th grade I got into Cannibal Corpse and other death metal type stuff, and the following two years I got heavily into black metal. This was 1998-2000 or so.

At this time I also started getting more into classical again, and was listening to it on my own, and tons of metal (black, death, and power mainly and a little doom.) Then one day I stumbled upon King Crimson and started getting into 70s prog rock.

In October 2003, I discovered Estradasphere and my music tastes changed forever. It got me into a variety of genres that I wouldn't have probably gotten to otherwise, mainly Romanian/Hungarian gypsy music, bluegrass, and a lot of jazz.

I've since become huge into gypsy music, and other world/folk music and that takes up a huge of the music I listen to today. I also listen to a lot of metal still, though not nearly as exclusively as when I was younger. The rest of my music is mostly classical, ragtime, and other instrumental music I find "aesthetically pleasing."




Posted by Ch

A lot of the music I first listed to was thanks to my Father. He loved blues. He was also a huge Eric Clapton and Santana fan so I would always listen to that in the car. I can remember listing to "Lay Down Sally" and "Black Magic Woman" alot during my childhood.

My Mom on the other hand, had a strange sense of music. She liked more Afro-Cuban catchy rhythms and classical. She bought me a violin when I was 6 and sent me to lessons.

My sister was into the pop scene in the early 90's and I would have to listen to Salt N' Peppa, Madonna, and other crap. My sisters boyfriend on the otherhand, was into Grunge and he introduced me to a lot. I owe him a lot.

The fisrt videos I can remember seeing was "Three Little Pigs" by Green Jelly and "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden. The latter scared me a lot. I was only 5.

So I pretty much listened to Grunge and 80's for a while until I looked more into genres like Funk, Metal, Hip Hop, and others.

That music inspired me and got me into wanting to play my instruments more. I was only good at stringed instruments though :(




Posted by Shade

So this has basically turned into a, "how did you come to like the music you listen to" thread huh?

In 8th grade I bought my first CD, 3 Doors Down's Seventeen Days, and loved it. So I got more rock-type music. Later that year, I was joking online with Sabre about how he owned so many Dream Theater CD's, so he sent me Images and Words, and I guess it just went from there. Folk rock is cool to listen to, too. It's sweet to hear the instrument I play (violin) used for something a little heavier than classical music and cheesy love ballads.




Posted by Frankie Jaegar

[COLOR="Orange"]First album I bought was Blink-182 in the 7th grade.

Go ahead, do your worst! :D[/COLOR]




Posted by Kamek

Good thread.

I remember a lot of old school music on Nick at Nite growing up. I remember hearing Kokomo by the Beach Boys, Super Freak by Rick James and other classics on Nick at Nite. In the 90s I grew up a lot on MTV and VH1. I listened to a lot of the popular 90's rock scene. My first "favorite band" was Third Eye Blind, and I still love their music. I was also a big Matchbox 20 fan. I remember all the different phases of the 90s pop scene, like the boy band scene which I did listen to, the Latin infusion kind of thing and then even some swing music - Cherry Poppin Daddies, anyone remember them? I remember loving Savage Garden, and Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn". "Truly Madly Deeply" was a classic of the 90s. I remember Chumbawumba and owning their first CD. I remember my mom buying a Spice Girls CD and some boy band CD's as well. I remember the Smashing Pumpkins and I also remember the amount of bands that would be on "All That".
Blink 182 was also a big part of growing up.

Being from New York however, introduced me to a lot of rap as well. I remember everyone being into Biggie and Jay-Z growing up in elementary school. Everyone was really into Puffy's (Puff daddy, p diddy, diddy etc)
"All about the Benjamins" and Mase was pretty big back then too.

Ahh I miss the 90s :(.

These days however, I listen to a larger variety of music. I listen to a lot of indie rock thanks to a close friend who introduced me to bands like the Arctic Monkeys and Copeland and some rap, but I find myself often going back to the 90's for the music I listen to a lot.




Posted by Tiptoegecko

I grew up on Pink Floyd and other fine classical rock bands. I remember when I was six, my mom bought The Dark Side of the Moon CD and I listened to the whole thing. I have been a fan ever since. She also got me some Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and from there I got interested into more classic rock.




Posted by Dexter

My sisters often listened to the radio or ABBA while I was growing up.

I didn't get into music much until 1994. I was about 11 years old and two CDs came out that year that brought me into music and that I still listen to today. Dookie by Green Day and Smash by Offspring. That's when I got into drumming and I was devoted to it. I liked punk music. I was all into NOFX and blasting Rancid.




Posted by Captain Cleanoff

In 1st grade, my aunt gave me a 90 minute tape containing music by The Doors. Thus began my intro into rock music. In 3rd grade, my mom began listening to R+B only, and because of that, I now know all the words to many songs by Boyz II Men, Ace of Base, and Toni Braxton. In 4th grade, after my parents' divorce and my dad moving in with his new girlfriend, her son got me into The Offspring, and my mom's boyfriend got me into Iggy Pop and Metallica, as well as some rap at the time. In middle school, I got into the top-40 stuff, but I got back into the local rock station in 8th.

In 9th, I got into rapcore such as Limp Bizkit, as well as stuff like Papa Roach, Slipknot and the Deftones, who became my favorite band for awhile. Later on in the year, I discovered the Dead Kennedys, and slowly became a punk rock fan. My mom's boyfriend somehow found a Sepultura CD, which, along with my chatting with Philsdad, started me on getting into metal. I continued on with almost entirely metal and punk through 12th grade, and in college, my tastes began expanding. I got into the mainstream-indie stuff that was just getting big at the time (Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, etc) in 2003-2004. In 2005, I started getting into country music, and more into rap, as well as jazz music. In 2006, reggaeton started getting airtime on the rap stations, leading me to get into that, and I got my first introduction to some of the good power metal. Later in 2006, I began getting into electronica thanks to Ian, as well as getting even further into power metal. This year I've been getting more into middle-eastern music and bluegrass.

What does all this mean? Basically, I like damn near everything.




Posted by Auto Rock

My parents were never really into music that much. My dad use to be a big classic rock fan until he found *** and stopped listening to all secular music. My mom listened to the stuff like Backstreet Boys and crap like that. She was really into the pop stuff. At the time, I think I was 4 or 5, I liked it. I listened to various hip hop up until 5th grade at which point I got into rap heavily. Eminem was a big fan of mine back then. Soon my friends said they hated rap and I followed. It just didn't have that luster anymore. I got into classic rock really big at that point. Pink Floyd being a huge favorite of mine. Around 7th grade I got into skateboarding and then Punk music was a new favorite of mine. Rise Against was and is my favorite band of all time, and you can think the good members of VGC for that. I actually think it was CC that suggested it and I download the song and loved it. From then on, I listened to punk and classical rock. Then recently I got into a lot of new age rock, post rock, and actually rap. The rap I listen to now fits more of my style. It isn't gangster really which I like.

I tried the whole Metal thing and it just isn't for me right now. Some of it is alright but I just can't get into a lot of it. Country is another genre I can't get into.

I am always down to listen to new music so you guys should definately hit me up on AIM or Yahoo at xrafallenx and give me some music :)




Posted by Sterling

When I was about 3 I really liked pat benatar and the prodigy. Then, I gradually came to having an obsession with the song "The World Is Not Enough" by Garbage when I was like, 5. My Brother mostly introduced me to the stuff I listen to, like electronica, indie, some great rock bands some psychadelic stuff & some great indie/underground hip-hop. I also actually grew up with Mtv music and some eminem stuff. But now I'm mostly into indie stuff, just seems more interesting and original than 20-year old boys whimpering over guitars.




Posted by Desperado

Soul Music




Posted by Shin-Ra

When I was a young lad, living in Austin, I listened to nothing but the radio, Steve Miller, and The Eagles. The station I continually listened to played a lot of grunge and alternative rock. Thus, I got exposed to a lot of Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Alanis Morsette, Jewel, etc. I still really enjoy just about all those musicians today.

When I was in 8th grade I started listened to heavier music (than previously listed) like Static X, KoRn (Issues had just come out), Slipknot (this was right after their second cd came out), Black Sabbath, Metallica (a lot of them), etc.

When I was in 10th grade I was just getting over my obsession with Metallica and just started to listen to Tool. Soon I could listen to absolutely nothing but Tool and A Perfect Circle. These bands really showed me that I should expect a lot more from the music, both lyrically and especially on the part of the musicians themselves.

In 11th grade I went to see Tool play with the opening band Meshuggah. I bought a Meshuggah cd and thought it was total crap. I also listened to Opeth's Still Life and made fun of it constantly. When I actually went to the Meshuggah show everything just sorta clicked for me and I absolutely loved all I heard. I relistened to the Meshuggah cd later and fell in love with it. I started getting heavily into Napalm Death around this time, bought my first Gothenburg Death Metal cd in the way of In Flames' Reroute to Remain, and got my very first black metal release Emperor's Prometheus, Opeth's ****ation, Opeth's Deliverance; all because Meshuggah thanked them in the back of the booklet of the cd I had bought. This was also the year I registered at VGC.

In 12th grade I got really, really into music in general. I went to a cd store and found a copy of Nevermore's Dead Heart in a Dead World and Nightwish's Century Child. After this I started listened to Nile and Dimmu Borgir constantly. This really was my favorite year for music because everything was so new and good. I also found Agalloch, Tiamat, And Oceans, Anathema, Katatonia, and a bunch of similar bands this year. I remember that someone exposed me to some hardcore too and I absolutely hated that crap, proving I never ever dug it at all. I also looked up just about every artist Raptor would mention because I had such great respect for his taste in music -- not that I don't anymore, he just came off as "the" metalhead at vgc at the time. Dexter is also hugely responsible for my music recommendations this year, as was netman (Therion and Blind Guardian). 2003 - 2004 yo.

After high school I got a computer of my own with my graduation money. Needless to say my music horizons were broadened exponentially. I got really, really heavy into Black Metal at this time and really haven't gotten over it yet. Later on I got into Folk Metal for a long time (I'm sure most people here remember that), Doom of all varieties, Oi Punk, and Ambient. More recently I've gotten into Goregrind starting with Lord Gore. I seem to be growing exponentially each year due to the people I've known, since we all essentially feed off of each other and really help each other out with finding music, you guys know who you are.