Progression through musical taste

[russell]

The dawn of my involvement with real music -- i.e., not the random songs you like in 4th grade -- was Dream Theater, if I recall correctly. I was fascinated by the intense talent and musical power, which I'd previously never been exposed to. It was mind-blowing. It must also have been The Mars Volta, because one of the first concerts I attended that I really wanted to go to was TMV with System of a Down in 7th grade. So my musical adventure began in the realm of progressive rock, augmented with Weezer, which my friend had given me a mix CD of (also 7th grade). I hated it at first but months later realised it was amazing.

From here I wandered, until the last year or two, within the Rock genre. I liked Dream Theater, Weezer, some classic rock, Porcupine Tree, Beck, The Postal Service (I remember distinctly this being a favorite), Franz Ferdinand by way of another friend, and many similar bands. I could split my library in two halves: complex music like Dream Theater, which I felt was definitely the "real" music, and alternative rock that was more along the lines of catchy than uniquely talent-exhibiting.

I do not remember when, but at some point I downloaded Thievery Corporation's album The Mirror Conspiracy. It was a great and wonderful departure from what I listened to. This probably wasn't the first major step toward diversity I made, but it was one of the most defining. It actually wouldn't be for months that I revisited it and actually explored the downtempo/acid-jazz world, but now it makes up a healthy portion of my listening.

The next evolution was into the punk and slightly emo albums of Cursive. Their dark, emotional, and pleasantly not-shitty songs thrilled me. When Happy Hollow came out later, it became a staple of my listening.

In the fall of 2006 I was introduced to Murder By Death's album Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them, which was did not differ vastly from other music I liked, but certainly was one of the first absolutely fucking amazing in every way albums I listened to. The Mars Volta's De-Loused in The Comatorium was another. Both of these bands have remained my favorites for years.

Eventually -- probably around the time of Murder By Death -- I lost interest in Dream Theater and the weird progressive metal niche they filled. My focus on a band that dominated in every way the essence of musical ability had shifted to The Mars Volta, which is an opinion I still have today (not exclusively, so don't take me up on it). My tastes were rapidly expanding, for whatever reason, and by last year you could have found a respectable collection of classical, hip-hop, jazz (new and old), indie, alternative, chillout, electronic...

The next major change, and the one I notice is happening presently, is one moving me away from my musical roots. Alternative/indie rock in general fails more and more to please me, with the exception of a few notable bands (Weezer; The Plastic Constellations; Andrew Bird; Murder By Death). I feel like every combination of power chords in 4/4 has been exhausted (which is ironic because Weezer is the epitome of this); that I'm just watching the same movie over and over with a slightly different twist. As a result of this my listening habits have shifted to support rhythm-based genres such as chillout/acid-jazz and hip-hop as much as, or more than, "rock" in general.   

Edit: It should be noted that Gorillaz and the release of Demon Days was definitely influential and probably is the single root of my admiration of hip-hop, which I wouldn't probe for years. 

One of the most profound changes I've noticed in my musical taste is a moving away from absolutely hating anything. I've revisited a lot of things I swore were the worst at the time -- American Idiot, notably, and countless radio hits. You can find Jay-Z and that stupid M.I.A. song Paper Planes on my playlists, in there with The Mars Volta and Ludwig Van and Miles Davis and innumerable artists from every genre.

What I've noticed about myself regarding music, possibly more than anything else in my life, is this dramatic expansion of taste, and I think it's interesting how there's a lot of people who  say "oh, I listen to everything" but really have no taste, and people who listen to everything who have some evolved form of appreciation.

I felt like working that out for myself to see more than telling Boyah, but ITT discuss your expanding taste in arts, if any.

[Samus Aran]

Well, my tastes in music have certainly expanded, but maybe not to such a large degree as yours. I think I was doomed from the beginning to always love the same bands for all eternity, since  a lot of them were exposed to me at a very young age (my mom played The Doors, The Eagles, The Beatles, and Fleetwood Mac a lot).

However, like I said, I've still expanded. I started out with one of those stupid "only old music is good" attitudes, but I eventually came to enjoy much more. Currently, I am still almost entirely a rock n' roll guy, but I also have some trip-hop (Massive Attack and Portishead) and a good amount of electronic (Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and many more).

My taste in rock has certainly expanded a lot...I never used to listen to alternative rock, indie, post-rock, modern progressive rock, etc. Back then I would've never dreamed that I could like The Flaming Lips or Porcupine Tree, or many of the other bands I love now.

But yeah, by and large, I still mostly listen to rock like I always have. Just...more different kinds of rock.

[Hiro]

Yeah man Demon Days is a great album, fantastic.
Idk, I didn't listen to much music at first, then I liked smashmouth and sugar ray as a kid,  I liked my silly songs with larry cd when I was 9. At 11 or 12 I got a good Charlotte CD that grew on me.
Next I bought Demon Days after hearing everyone on my bus saying how good Feel Good Inc was. Then one day I was on the interwebs and I heard "jerk It Out" by Caesars and I was like, "Hey I know this song, it's cool" and so I went to wal-mart, found a Caesars CD, and they became my favorite from 8th grade on.
Also during that time we got free Sirius radio on our TV so my older sister really got into indie music, and I've just been stealing her music and I like a lot of it (Radiohead, Wolfmother, Spoon, Futureheads, White Stripes, Hard-Fi, Arcade Fire, etc).
Guitar Hero got me more into classic rock and metal, and my music tastes are now slowly branching away from my sister's a little bit more thanks mostly to Last.fm
Oh and my mom always played country when I was a child and she always played Fleetwood Mac on cleaning days so yeah.
My dad likes country,  matchbox 20, and 80's arena rock. His fav band is Rush. So he got me into Journey, Rush is tight too, and there's a few other good stuff too, but I'm not big into it.
The only kind of country I like is 80's-90's country sung by guys. Because they're awesome.
And obviously The Beatles have always ruled, Simon & Garfunkel are cook, and ELO

[Geno]

Pop to Modern Rock to Classic rock to Metal to almost everyone in the rock catagory

[sans culottes]

I used to not care about music much at all. Then I decided to give old rock a chance. Started out with a few songs from Led Zeppelin, some Pink Floyd, some AC/DC, some Guns N' Roses, and some Queen, all of which I've looked deeper into since then. Hard rock led me to a few songs from Metallica's Black Album, which is the root of my taste for metal. I used to hate punk and alternative. Then I somehow started to like the Sex Pistols, which opened by up to alternative styles.

My need for just rockin' out songs ended at some point and led me to enjoying folky stuff too.

[Skylark]

well,

when I was a young thing my dad always played music like Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Janis Joplin, The Dire Straits, Little Feat, Simon and Garfunkel and Doctor John and I liked that and we would all sing it in the car together
and then when we got a babysitter we would always listen to what she liked (The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen were staples and whatever fancied her at any given moment) and I began (around the fifth grade) to really like this.
Upon request she burnt the Cure's Galore (it's one of the singles albums) for me and I would listen to it all of the time.  In the sixth grade we went to Canada and I listened to this album the entire time and I fell in love with The Cure and they were all I listened to for a really long time (which is reasonable considering the amount of CDs they have out and the difference in styles sounds, themes they are really an amazing band)
That Summer Clare (my nanny) stopped working for us but occasionally we would get together and I remember being in a parking garage once in the 7th grade and thanking her for 'Galore' because I loved The Cure so much then and she said she would give me some other stuff which she did.
So I was given some Siouxise and the Banshees, The Velvet Underground (if you're a siouxsie and the banshees fan you would understand why this) and Joy Division and I started listen to this and then my tastes broke off in a lot of different directions 80's synth-rock and The Culture Club, this girl Rachel who I became friends with introduced me to ska (most notably her favorite band, Streetlight Manifesto) she really encouraged my taste in music and would always have me burn her CDs, I started listen to emo/indie (bands that don't matter and then I started to listen to Bright Eyes) and this girl Jade introduced me to some punk music that I started to enjoy more than I had before and that really helped me out.
So I started to like Bright Eyes because of this girl Olivia that went to my school and because of Bright Eyes I started listen to other Saddle Creek bands like Tilly and the Wall and Rilo Kiley
I really fell in love with Rilo Kiley and from this time on (end of the 7th grade) they shared the slot for my favorite band with The Cure. That February I started to listen to a band that was really closely directed to Rilo Kiley, Whispertown2000! I really enjoyed this band and tried to get as much of them as I could (which was difficult seeing as they had yet to release anything) That Summer (summer before freshman year) I went to their concert and they played with Michael Runion and they were one of my favorite bands. Looking at their MySpace sometime earlier or after the concert, I cannot remember I think it was probably before I found an artist by the name of Madeline Adams and I love her in more than one way.
So, that August (just after the Wt2K show) I saw Madeline Adams (it was the fourth) and I loved it so much and her so much and then after that I started to get really into Plan-It-X Bands (defiance, ohio and ghost mice and paul baribeau) and that was pretty much it and that's where I am now. I just listen to a lot of folk punk.

[LCK]

Between the ages of about 4 and 8, the only music I ever heard was from my mom and dad. My dad was a fan of Queen, Meatloaf, Motley Crue, AC/DC, and so on. And my mom was, and still is, an avid listener of country music. During these times I despised the country music(and still do) and loved listening to my dad's music. My thought at this time was that Queen, Meatloaf and the likes were just about the greatest music to ever hit this earth.

Around the age of 9 and 10, while my brother was in college, I started getting into music such as Nsync(YES) and Eminem. At this time in my life I was pretty much a little damn wigger. Aside from the Nsync listening.

Not too much later, I was introduced to Ozzy and Guns N Roses by my cousin. I instantly fell in love with Crazy Train and Welcome to the Jungle. This was what I would call my "introduction" to metal. At that time I considered Ozzy and Guns N Roses to be some "really heavy shit". Because I really didn't know any better.  I eventually experimented with bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, some Megadeth.

I eventually tired of these bands for a while and went into a bit of a "punk" phase. If you could call it that. Rancid, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Green Day(punk lol). This didn't last long, but I do still have a great love for Rancid and the Ramones.

After this little phase I began my Nu Metal love.  Korn, Disturbed and so on. This is also where my System of a Down obsession began. In my eyes, the Nu Metal genre had some of the greatest, most amazingly talented artists you could imagine.
ahahah
I exhausted my System of a Down love after quite some time. I owned every album, listened to them many times every day, and had System of a Down everything galore.

Once I was exhausted with the "brilliant" Nu metal, I started listening to the likes of Linkin Park, All That Remains, Trivium, Shadows Fall and so on. I can't quite say I've tired of any of these artists, aside from Linkin Park.
I eventually expanded from this and became infatuated with Dream Theater after downloading the song "Hollow Years" off Frostwire.
The love of Dream Theater inspired me to check out other similar, and not so similar acts. This is where bands like Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Battles, Machine Head, Mastodon, and Gojira came in.
I later experimented with other acts like Gazpacho, 3, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and so on.
Right now, I'm at the point where I'll listen to anything as long as I like it. That includes everything I was once infatuated with, and more. I wouldn't say I'm into one specific genre at this point. I can't sum it up into one. I like whatever I like. I can't specify one genre to be my favorite. And expanding what I listen to is like a hobby.
I love searching the internet for new music. Discovering new music to listen to just does something for me, as I'm sure it does for many other people.

[Lovefoxxx]

tl;dr, anyone care to sum up this thread in four lines or less?

[Selkie]

timeline summarized:

Classical Music(around 10-11 yrs)
Pop music, whatever was on the radio(12)
Punk rock, Fuse channel shit(13)
Classic Rock, and ONLY classic rock(14-15)
All Music, Pop, rock, rap, classical, techno, progressive, basically good music taste(16-present)

[Nyerp]

Video game music to

[Samus Aran]

Video game music to

to what

nothing?

how boring

[Nyerp]

to what

nothing?

how boring

i'm too afraid to venture beyond :0

[Samus Aran]

i'm too afraid to venture beyond :0

lol

i'd be so bored with my life if all i listened to was video game music

but whatever

[The artist formally known]

Age 0-7 no musical tastes
Age 7-9 Rush, Weird Al Yankovic, some rap
Age 9-12 Rush, pop punk, classic rock
Age 12-13 Nirvana, pop punk, classic rock, small cases of metal
Age 13-15 Children of Bodom, metal, death metal, progressive metal
Age 16-17 Opeth, progressive metal, black metal, progressive rock
Age 18 Opeth, Ulver, progrssive metal, black metal, progressive rock, post-rock, electronic rock

[Nyerp]

lol

i'd be so bored with my life if all i listened to was video game music

but whatever

i skip through most of the songs