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.