When did you truly become interested in music?

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

It's interesting to think back on just how much my taste in music has both changed, and hasn't changed. I still have those good old bands and groups I listen to years long after I first heard them, and there are still so many new ones I find every day.

But I didn't truly understand what kind of music I liked and wanted to listen to until I was about 13. Yeah, I guess some people would say I started kind of late. Until then music was just kind of noise to me. I didn't really care for the latest bands or popular singers. I just listened to whatever my father put on (typically metal and rock, which is evidently what shaped my music tastes early on).

The first band I fell into was Disturbed. I couldn't get enough of how "hardcore" it made me feel to listen to it. It's still one of my favorite bands to this day. I had posters, CD's, t-shirts, anything I could to show how much they were to me. I was about 13 at the time. Ten Thousands Fists was the first CD I ever bought myself.

When did you first become interested in music? What was the first group/band that sparked that interest? Did your parents influence your tastes, or did you develop it on your own?

 

[PsychicTaco115]

You think 13 is late? I didn't get into it until I was 18

I dunno any particular artist

Developed my own. Put it this way, I'm the only one in my family who listens to hip-hop

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

You think 13 is late? I didn't get into it until I was 18

I dunno any particular artist

Developed my own. Put it this way, I'm the only one in my family who listens to hip-hop

Hehe, I only say it's late because a lot of people I knew from ages 9-13 were referring to singers and bands I have never heard of before, even if they were big names. (I'm the same way with movies now, can never place an actors face with a name)

 

[PsychicTaco115]

Hehe, I only say it's late because a lot of people I knew from ages 9-13 were referring to singers and bands I have never heard of before, even if they were big names. (I'm the same way with movies now, can never place an actors face with a name)

Trust me, I give no cares about the person portraying another person on a big screen

I didn't even talk about music, I had more important stuff to do... Like... Fuck, I don't know what I did was a kid, bad memory

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Probably about 13ish. It was a long time ago and my brain is fairly mushy these days. I can't really remember which band particularly. Maybe G'n'R, Nirvana, Metallica, Sepultura. I do remember hearing Sepultura's "Beneath the Remains" at my cousin's house and then going down to Carnaby Street to try and buy it for myself a few weeks later. Couldn't find it, but got their "Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation" album instead. That was the 1st album I ever bought, so maybe it was Sepultura. Still got the album.


I did listen to a few of my Dad's old Beatles records before that but I wasn't really into music then, it was more curiosity.

When I was but a little kid, I'd listen to old tv theme songs on my record player...

*snip*

You had a custom Technics 1210 when you were a kid?

 

[Musette]

When I started playing percussion at 16. Yeah, I listened to music plenty growing up and was really into video game soundtracks, but when I started playing the marimba specifically, I became absolutely smitten. Six years later, I'm probably even more smitten than I was before. I'm working on a Masters of Music in Percussion Performance (with a cognate in Ethnomusicology) and I begin my doctoral auditions next year.

Drum set still scares the shit out of me though, because I didn't pay much attention to drums when I listened to rock in my early childhood, and I don't listen to a lot of music with set at the moment. I can read notation just fine on the thing, but having me improvise over a groove just doesn't work quite yet.

 

[Drathnoxis]

23 and I still wouldn't classify myself as being "interested in music," despite knowing how to play a couple instruments. I just put whatever songs sound good to me on my ipod, and beyond that I don't really care who wrote them or what other songs they wrote. Really, the only time I listen to music these days is when I'm driving (just the radio, on any station that isn't talking or commercials), or doing something that takes too much thought to listen to an audio book but isn't interesting enough to do without music.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

When i realised it plumbed the depths of human emotion so rawly (new word?). So whenever i first started feeling and thinking too much. Quite young i guess, no idea what age. Tis why i base my life around creating it now probably. The more you learn of music, the more you appreciate styles you never thought you would. Every genre has its beauty, if performed with pure emotion. But every genre has its sellouts too. Much to be learnt in music. I don't want to sound cliched, but it really is the language of our soul.

 

[Elfgore]

Around 12. My friend got Rock Band that Chirstmas and I came over and played it for literally hours. After that I started listening to a lot of the tracks from the game. Which started me listening to music on a daily basis.

 

[Barbas]

I don't remember the age, but it was when I first listened to a piece of music that made me cry. A couple of others have done the same since then, but it was the first time I ever realized that a certain arrangement of notes could have such a profound effect.

It was this tune, but accompanied by a choir singing a farewell to one of our departing teachers:

Spoiler

To me, it's become associated with loss of people and fragile possessions. My family and friends didn't influence what I listened to much at all; it was usually hearing something I liked the sound of in a film that did it. I've never had a favourite band. In fact, I'm lucky if I find an album with more than half a disc's worth of songs that I can play again and again (unless it's a compilation of different artists), with the exception of some film soundtracks.

 

[Wary Wolf]

Probably around 9 or so when I first started to listen to the radio and hitting the record button for my favorite songs. Taste wasn't actually too bad looking back, things like Queen and INXS stick out. Didn't get my first album (Fat Boy Slim) until I was about 12 and then stuck with one Alternative band (Regurgitator) pretty heavily throughout my mid-late teens. Although I still listened to the radio pretty much every day.

These days I don't listen to as much of the contemporary music, but I've broadened my horizons in some older music. So I enjoy some of the classic blues, jazz and rhythm and blues (and I ain't American). As well as much of the rock from the 80s to 90s. And I still enjoy certain dance music like Fat Boy and Jamiroquai.

Music is funny. I can't say there's any particular genre I like, but if I like it. I like it...

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Right around the end of middle school going into high school. Grunge was in the limelight, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Cobain had just shotgunned his way into immortality and Stone Temple Pilots were at the peak of their career (RIP Scott Weiland).
From there I delved into my Dad's collection of classic rock, Tull, Eagles, Dire Straits, Clapton, Nash & Young... And progressed into industrial because a 9 year old me had once bought the debut album on tape because it was a cool cover but never listened to it until I heard Closer and saw the video... which progressed into a whole phase of Manson, Bauhaus, Skinny Puppy, VNV Nation, Sisters of Mercy, etc. And also into prog rock, TooL, Dream Theater, etc.
Then metal creeped in. And steeped itself into my soul.
From Megadeth, Metallica, Maiden, Slayer, Pantera and such to Machine Head, Nile, Testament, and more.
And an old school punk infatuation led to Misfits, GWAR, Dead Kennedys, list just keeps going.
All sparked from happening to like grunge music. That and wanting to play guitar helped.
I did also delve into the rave scene in 99-2002 or so... so I've got an eclectic taste in audio beauty.

EDIT: Although thinking about it you could say I was also a child of the 80s musically because you can just about play anything from that era, pop or rock or whatever and I'll get misty eyed nostalgic for MTV when it was about the music and not a whole lot else. Cheesy hair metal or Cyndi Lauper, I'll smile.

I leave you with the best of the 80s in my humble opinion.

Spoiler: Sledgehammer

 

[SmallHatLogan]

When I was a kid there were albums my dad would always play in the car that I enjoyed. But I didn't really get hooked into music until I started listening to rap music when I was maybe about 10 years old. It was the mid/late 90s and I was living in New Zealand where rap was already fairly mainstream (compared to Australia anyway, where it didn't really take off until the turn of the millennium). I would listen to a hip hop radio station (can't remember the name, I think it was based in New Plymouth if there are any Kiwis here that care) and tape songs off it. Things like Puff Daddy, Busta Rhymes, Warren G, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Bone Thugs N Harmony, and The Fugees.

That lasted a couple of years. Then I went through a bit of a transitional phase where I was just listening to commercial radio, not having any particular bands or artists I was really into, I also had a bit of a Jamiroquai fanboy phase too.

Eventually at around age 13 I got into Creed and Limp Bizkit. Not something I'm proud of but they were essentially my gateway into rock and metal. Ever since then I've been expanding my musical horizons, although discovering new bands has tapered off a bit in recent years.

 

[BodomBeachChild]

My whole life I think I've been pretty interested. My grandmother listened to a lot of opera and jazz (Dean Martin is from my hometown. Almost a necessity to listen to him) and sang to all of us grandkids. My dad, when he could drive, would always have his music on (late 50s-mid 60s) and would sing. Elvis was my hero as a child. King of friggin' rock n' roll. Later I found out he blew at guitar but whatever.

As I got older I started listening to hard rock and heavy metal. I picked up a guitar because I was blown away with bands such as Arch Enemy and Children of Bodom. As I got older I got into more tech death and grind and play in a pretty decent (for the area) metal band.

 

[Evil Moo]

I think I got into music at around the age of 14/15 or so. Compared to my peers, who mostly seemed pretty fluent in every pop song you could think of, this was just another thing that made me stand out as the weird kid. When I did get into music it was Tool's Lateralus album that really caught my attention. It took a while to realise that this was what I really wanted out of music though, so I meandered around for a few years listening to songs in the alt-rock and nu-metal area of the music spectrum, like Seether, Disturbed, Korn, System of a Down, Three Days Grace and isolated songs from various artists I've since forgotten about. While not bad, I eventually found that these bands didn't quite scratch the same itch that Tool had done. Now I've found that music under the genre of progressive metal seems to yield what I seek to some extent. This path of music taste was influenced quite heavily by my dad, who would sometimes listen to at least some of the bands I took an interest in.

There is a separate path to my music tastes as well though, influenced by games. While I wouldn't generally actively listen to game soundtracks in the past, I have always enjoyed a lot of the iconic game music from my childhood, like that from the early Sonic games, Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Warcraft 2 etc. This has likely lead to an interest in more synth heavy music in some ways, due to the often relatively simple artificial sounds available to some of these games, culminating recently with me getting into some of the artists behind the Hotline Miami soundtracks and that brand of aggressive neo-retro 80s sci-fi synth (for lack of a better term to describe the precise nature of their music).

 

[SidheKnight]

10, 11 years old.

Limp Bizkit's My Generation was the song that did it for me. A good song to listen to in between episodes of Celebrity Deathmatch.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I've pretty much always been into music. My mom and one of my uncles were in love with Guns 'n' Roses and other rock groups. My other uncle was heavy into the rap scene. NWA, Tupac, Scarface, etc. I grew up genuinely liking rock and hardcore/gangster rap, and I still do love them. I got into metal when I was around 9, and various genres of electronic music when I was 12. The metal was an extension of my rock love. I started off with the softer classic metal and slowly made my way to the heaviest of the heavy metal and the blackest of the black metal. No idea how I started getting into electronic music, maybe from 80's movies (another thing I love) with synth soundtracks?
Now I listen to a little bit of everything, but my most played songs are still rap and rock, and metal.

I'll share a little story that still makes me laugh. When I was a tiny tyke and first got into Tupac, Biggie, and Eazy E, I told my family how I couldn't wait until they dropped some new albums. This was 1997, maybe early 1998.
Needless to say I was devastated when they told me all of those artists were dead. I was so convinced that nobody else could produce rap as good as them that I refused to listen to anyone new until I was 12 or 13.

So yeah, I've always known what kind of music I liked. I add new genres and sub-genres all the time but I still love what I was first introduced to when I was a wittle baby.

Edit: I grew up in a poor area populated mostly by black people. My rap taste fit right in, though I bucked the mainstream a little since I never really liked 50 Cent or other, similar rappers who were huge when I was growing up.
Damn, I can't even remember the other rappers that were popular at the time.

 

[Fijiman]

Funny, I was just thinking about this kind of thing on my way home from work the other day.

When did you first become interested in music?

I think it's safe to say that the first time I had the reaction of "holy shit that was awesome! I must hear more!" was like 2004/5, so I was about 13 as well.

What was the first group/band that sparked that interest?

That would be this.

Spoiler

I remember coming home from school one day and turning on the TV to have this being played and instantly fell in love with it.

Did your parents influence your tastes, or did you develop it on your own?

Bit of both, really. My dad loved listening to the local oldies radio station since that was the kind of music he grew up with so that's what we listened to whenever we were in his car. However, I've also explored other music avenues over the years either from random chance or random recommendations. Hell, I've come across many awesome songs, bands, and such just from poking around on this site.

I leave you with the best of the 80s in my humble opinion.

Spoiler: Sledgehammer

Wont see much arguing about that from me. Love that song.