Those first albums were very formative to me, I didn't really like music before this much, but when I first heard those albums it made me actually love music.

As to how this came about I think it's a combination of things. My biggest influence would surely be people, like my older sister had a HUGE influence on my taste, it was really through her that I heard the music that I ended up getting in to, then later friends played a big part too.

Then there's the environment around you, like when I first started getting into music the surf scene and local alternative Aussie music scene was very influential to me through my sister and then later when we moved to Croatia the small grunge and punk scene was more influential, and I started listening to more American and also some local Croatian bands. This was very important at a young age, later on environment became less important.

I think genetics plays a part too, like perhaps intelligence which potentially may give a person the analytical ability to be more introspective and think outside the square. My parents had very little influence apart from genetics though, my dad hates music full stop and my mum used to listen to the Beatles which I never got into.

The generational thing is odd. People of my generation (actually I'm not a baby boomer but just past that, more a 70s me-generationer) experienced this big gap between their parents tastes and their own. Usually this was the case, anyway, and if it wasn't, if the parents co-opted their kids music, it was considered kind of "icky" on the parents' part, creepy, like that dad of the redheaded girl on That 70s Show.

These days it seems very common for kids and parents to listen to and like the same music, mostly the stuff the parents grew up with! I find that bizarre. I'm sorry, but I think it is bizarre. It deprives the kid of that natural rebellion he or she should be expressing against parents.

I think Quiet Riot and Motley Crue are pretty fucking embarrasing.

And here's something--my kids love the Beatles and Stones and Dylan and all that, but, while my daughter does like some newer stuff mostly in the alt-folk/country vein, they hate my Sonic Youth records, my punk, post-punk, and so on. What is up with that?

You, sire, don't like pop, therefore I find it VERY difficult to reconcile two facts: First, that you can't have a soul. And Second, that you appear to listen to what is, in essence, pop music with guitars.

*Whistles*

my family moved from Puerto Rico to Houston Texas in 1980. My parents listened to a lot of latin music salsa etc, with my mo being very heavy into bee gees, paul anka, neil diamond, the platters, etc. Horrible shit really.

I just happened to live in an apartment complex that got cable TV very early on, and got to watch the MTV for a couple of years before I bought an actual album. by that time I just felt an affinity to the metal and hard rocking stuff.

the only album of any of my first 5 that I still listen to and love unconditionally is VAN Halen 1984. Pyromania I never listen to, and shout at the devil is 90% CRAP, unmitigated CRAP, with the single worst cover of helter skelter ever. Metal Health is 75% filler, and the first def leppard album sucks royally.

I had none of that sharing of music tastes with my parents, mostly because they never really had a love of music, it was more a vehicle to be popular or trendy, so in their eyes what I like to listen to makes no sense because it is and was when I was a kid more in the realm of the unpopular and unaccepted type of music so I think it's not so much a rebellion as just seeing the world from two different perspectives.

my top bands ever

sonic youth
beatles
dinosaur jr
butthoel surfers
pavement
sebadoh
neil young


how is that pop music with guitars?

HOW THE JESUSING FUCK CAN YOU POSSIBLE THINK THE BEATLES ARE NOT POP?

hehe what can you do? they might come around!

Sorry, I didn't mean to shout.

that is it. the beatles. one band out of many. you said the majority of what I listen to by your estimation was pop with guitars. to me that means Blur, Oasis, soul asylum, and bullshit like that.

I mentioned Michael Jackson except I can't remember much about this as I was really young, dunno, Bad or something? I just didn't like much music before the age of 10/11, and if my music selection after this age was hip then it was thanks to the hipness of my sister

Blur were awesome.

Pavement's Silence Kit half-stole a melody from a Buddy Holly song, and this isn't their only nod to the notions of 'a melody' or 'a singable chorus'. The same goes for most things. It really doesn't matter what I think, really it doesn't. Only insofar as I'm right does it matter, but perhaps you'll never realise this.

Simple maths, ok?

Right.

What makes a pop song? Words. Melodies. Choruses. Middle-8s. Verses. Bits you want to sing along to. Do, I ask, most rock songs, of the majority of stripes, not possess at least one of these things, if not all?

different definitions

to me pop songs are standards, musical theatre, showtunes, celine dion, barbra streisand, sinatra, fluffy shit, you know, like britney spears, mindless melodies, mindless music.

The pop beatle was Paul. John rocked out. everybody's got something to hide cept for me and my monkey.

Buh... don't care. Pop to you is music you don't like. What pop actuallly is is something different. The Carpenters have some of the bleakest music I've found, short of Dolly Parton or Hank Williams. Meanwhile, the old guard of rock - your Led Zeps and the like - are capable of some of the most insipid and frankly sexist tripe imaginable. I'm not singling out Zep...

I'm whinging in public. Get me to a fucking Quaker society.

gee, what an authority just zinged me. ouch.


frank sinatra was not pop, he was tremendously popular but his shit ranged from swing to jazz to r&b.

and you say you hate pop but you like sebadoh, therefore you think sebadoh is rock...hmmm, i don't see much "rock" in playing kumbaya acoustic guitars while singing out of tune.

seriously, you think sebadoh rocks? they have like three punkish songs, compared to 5000 too stoned to croak hippie bullshit songs.

and the beatles, well, john wrote imagine and woman, besides recording a whole album of sixties POP songs with phil "girl group" spector.

I like Led Zep.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe I forgot this next one.

I bought this on the same day I bought that Jewel album.

I shit you not.





I felt really, really cool.

Anyway, yes, I did not much care for rock music at that age, with the exception of whatever my parents listened to (because I grew up on it, and thus it was familiar to me).

The first album with any rock songs on it that I can remember owning was the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You. There were some guitars on that as I recall.

It took T. Rex to actually get me into rock n roll music.

there are not too many of us here that were buying music pre-cd, i don't remember 8track tapes, but when i started buying music only had the choice between vinyl and cassette. and the home computer wasn't around either...

I was using tapes for ages, all those 5 albums I put down in my first post were tapes and I used tapes for years after that even when things were coming out on cd just cause I couldn't afford to buy originals but copied tapes from my friends onto my own blank tapes. I remember not knowing parts of songs for ages cause songs were cut off at the start or end of a tape.

mine are shocking...

Blink 182 - enima of the state (i was really into the vandals, suicidal tendencies and that kind of stuff for a while but didnt buy anymore albums til this shit)
Marilyn Manson - Holywood
Korn - Life is Peachy
Limp Bizkit - chocolate starfish
Papa Roach - Infest


It's kind of weird how far I've come and yet people my age still think its cool... I'm embarrassed by this stuff - but at least i was about 13 at the time.

I will say that I got a healthy dose of the beatles and annie lennox when i was younger though. I find it a bit odd how some of you have fairly reputable lists for the first albums you purchased.

the spice girls - spice - i was 7/8
the spice girls - spice world - i was 9/10
madonna - ray of light - i was 11
the smashing pumpkins - adore - i was 12
red hot chili peppers - californication - i was 12

Is it odd to think that any kid growing up in the late 1960s wanted Beatles albums? Those albums were must haves.

What about Donna Summer "On the Radio"? You can't tell me seriously that that is a bad record. Really? No.

Also, Abba rocked, hard. Just watch the Abba 1977 movie. I think they were fucking brilliant. Just forgetting the showbiz/hype part of the equation for a moment and just looking at it from purely musical perspective.

I love you.

There was a Spice Girls documentary on TV the other night, and half way through I thought "I should've video'd this for Contre". Sorry it took me so long to think of that.

Pavement have made some great Pop songs.

I partially read a book once where it studied Theodor Adorno's concept of Pop music. The opposite of Pop music being 'Serious Music', as he put it. Pop, being 'popular' (obviously), but in the sense of 'popular song structure'. There's a set structure that a song can be established upon that can be classified as Pop, or a Pop song. Where as serious music, would be, say, Sonic Youth. A band that follow their subconcious, if you want, who have no set structure, or a structure that doesn't necessarly follow a popular foundation anyway.

everyone should read adorno, particularly his essays on the culture industries, such as hollywood and the business of selling culture to the masses, i recall adorno also did make refernce to the then music business companies who were intrinsically tied to the film industry due to cross ownership etc....

This is the only post of yours that I have ever agreed with.

I remember Tumbleweed too. Interesting seeing them mentioned here.

I have never figured out my taste or forced myself to like a certain type of music. Like someone else already mentioned on this thread, I too was brought up in a very musical household where there is still a hi-fi system in every room, my mum and dad played Sardinian folk songs all the time, they sang together at party time, and we always had music coming out from the tv, radio etc etc. Music magazines were a necessity as much as food and shelter. Art-making was encouraged, rather than supressed.

There wasn't a specific type of it that I would listen to at any particular time (apart for a huge crush on grunge in the early 90's).

I thought about this yesterday and it's one of the trickiest things to work out. I went through the pop music phase, indie phase, indie-dance phase, hip hop phase, rock phase, grunge phase, noise rock phase, crude noise phase, apocalyptic folk phase, crooners phase, psych rock/garage phase (to this day one of the strongest musical influences on me), electro, synth pop, world music (I hate this term), soundtrack collector phase, punk, you name it. It's only now that I've completely stopped caring about what music I listen to and just get on with it.

The only short-lived and slightly embarassing mini-phase that I went through is the new age one. It lasted only one album that scarred me for life and was buried in my mind until I read this thread. Buried, you understand, both mentally and physically.

kids these days have it soo easy... my first albums were probably these....

age about 5 or 6

i was too young to actually get the john foxx era

sorry, still a classic!

I don't consider the lieks of Britney Spears and all that tripe as Pop. I don't know what I describe that music as... shit probably best describes it, or synthetic. Pop to me is not a dirty word.

again, still a classic although not as good as scoundrel days

and this absolute "gem"

The whole pop thing really is a gray area, Britney Spears is Pop, also the latest Sonic Youth RR is pop. The meaning of pop really comes down to the person, and that will always change with each individual.

here are some classic singles i owned as a kid...



i still have this as well, not yr reissue crap!

classic! 4ad labels first and only number one single by the way!


i know this is the album cover, i had that too!

and who can forget this classic!!!



i forgot about this one too...


man im off to the attic to find my box of 7 inchers......

Whoa! I must have played that single a million times when it came out. I also really liked 'I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' by him, do you remember it? At the end of the video, Nick Kershaw storms out of a concert hall with all his fans. That is a classic. I like Thompson Twins' 'King For A Day' too. People don't have hair like that anymore.