Songs That Shaped Your Musical Taste

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My favorite genres are, broadly, Jazz and Punk (yes, I know they go together like sardines and strawberry jam).

Anyway, these are the songs that turned me on…

I experienced both for the first time as they were being performed on SNL at the age of 12.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ2d0BBClr8[/youtube]
I wish I could find the snl clip... I watched it with my dad. When I expressed how cool I thought it was, my dad introduced me to his stack of vinyl… There I met Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, The Monk, Ramsey Lewis, Glenn Miller, The Duke, and countless more.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnCVBertf0[/youtube]

My dad was a bit less enthusiastic about my affinity for this, but I did get a copy of Combat Rock on vinyl for my birthday... Wish I still had that!

folk rock. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YSh1-XuUKE

melodic classical http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVWq5qRrhg0

Stuff by The Mighty Might Bostones, They Might Be Giants, Bare Naked Ladies, and Devo.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Wake Up by Arcade Fire
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zdNdjF-htY[/youtube]
Chicago by Sufjan Stevens
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azGIf74ICmw[/youtube]
Two Birds by Regina Spektor
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oGrwGCRImY[/youtube]

Siah and Yeshua - Gravity
Brian Eno - Driving Me Backwards
El-P - Deep Space 9mm
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Company Flow - 8 Steps to Perfection
Pantera - Walk
Metallica - For Whom The Bell Tolls
Roc Marciano - It's A Crime
MF DOOM - Vomit Spit


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njxuVPZlraU[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxY9eBqmNaw[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY1cW2gL2IE[/youtube]

My favorite genre of music is dance music, and the song that started it all was "Heaven" by DJ Sammy. The first time I heard it on the radio, I thought, "Wow, this is really getting me pumped! I wonder if there are any other songs that sound like this?" Then I discovered Aqua, Cascada, Basshunter, Toy-Box, Jenny Rom, etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_xDo4RcsYg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjZoW6spXHg[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15JCb6P60Vw[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-O3kYrDPbI[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-EaJZpNNgY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-Xo02_TeI[/youtube]

Here's an Aquabats cover we used to play up in Seattle. Yeah, that's me on guitar.

Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London." I first heard it when I was 8 and it was so different from anything else that was on the air at that time. I think I was the only teenage girl who bought both Duran Duran's Rio and Zevon's Sentimental Hygiene
and played them both equally. I think it gave me a taste for lyrically challenging stuff like Leonard Cohen, XTC, Robyn Hitchcock.
As much as being a Duranie embarrasses me now, I got into The Cure and New Order
through that British Techno Rock.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA[/youtube]

The first time I heard this song I was in awe. It took me a few days just to track down the band at the time...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUa5yJNaLBs&feature=fvwrel[/youtube]

Loved these guys since grade school...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHgziac87-Y&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ojuJdgquI[/youtube]
Got me both into the rock and electronic side of music.

I have had many transitions throughout my short life thus far.

7-10: started getting involved in actively seeking out hard rock and alternative metal bands. Major ones of this time were Sevendust, breaking Benjamin, Mudvayne and Foo Fighters.

10-12: I started getting more interested in dynamic contrasts within the bands and started listening to bands like Nonpoint, Taproot, Breaking Benjamin and Mudvayne mostly.

13-14: I got more involved in a wide range of styles, getting interested in bands like Slipknot, Evergrey, and death metal. Also started looking into industrial metal and other styles of rock pretty heavily, but found hard rock to be the most varied and enjoyable.

15: And here's where it got ugly...under pressure from my dad I looked into all music imaginable, from trance electornic music to international music to reggae...and it was all stuff I didn't like but my dad's pressures from calling me elitist and need for any sense of respect from the world destroyed any sense of good judgment with music.

16: I retreated into progressive metal entirely and was for the only time in my life truly elitist. Hell, I even followed the stereotypes behind the culture unknowingly.

16-17: My mentor returned and did a good job helpig me sort out the elitism and temporary returns to no standards for all other music (something the progressive culture easily breeds.) I currently have 180-200 bands ranging across 10 genres.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuVG2WUlLyw[/youtube]

I first heard this song on Tony Hawk's Underground. From there I began to listen to more Joy Division - Which branched off into more Post-Punk music.

It's hard to say why I actually got to like 80s rock and pop. I think it was a chance encounter with a few 80s-themed radio stations circa 1997; I then realized that, even though I was only a kid then, that the music from the 80s had more substance than the stuff being released then, in the late 1990s. Even now, 80s rock/pop still sounds better than any of the stuff put out right now.

I grew up listening to 80s rock, so now it's pretty much the only thing I listen to, although I have added a few up-to-date songs, and I do like stuff from the 50s to the 70s. As far as rap, I like Eminem, but that's it.

There are a couple of songs that have influenced my flair for the dramatic. One of them is "Nobody's Fool" by Cinderella, and the other one is a song that I think is too personal for me to say out loud.

Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker. (That's Ryan Adams, not Bryan Adams). Not really any one song, the whole thing. When I heard that album in college, it shaped my musical tastes a lot and served as a gateway into exploring types of music I hadn't appreciated enough previously.