UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
How have your musical tastes changed as you've gotten older?
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The first records I remember hearing were my aunt's rock and roll singles ... my uncle was a teddy boy ... and as a toddler Little Richard and Chuck Berry were always somewhere in my life. As a child of 1959 though, my real musical influence decade was the 70s. The singles I bought were pretty much all chart initially ... I loved Slade in my early teens ... and T Rex ... and then dropped by way of 'Pub Rock' into punk. I was voraciously consuming the Stranglers the Clash and the Vibrators ... and already gigging in a punk band ... when by chance I bought Masters of Reality by Sabbath and instantly realised that my 'home turf' was metal. I then swapped to gigging with hard rock and metal bands ... while discovering delta and Chicago blues in my spare time.
To date I've gigged in punk, metal and Rockabilly bands, but as I get older I get heavier in my tastes ... and my home listening includes more nu metal, doom and stoner rock.
How have your musical tastes changed over the years?
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Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog
What's funny is that very few learners I teach now are actually playing rock as the lack of a guitar riff in many of the modern bands shows. But I do notice that the use of chord voicings and stuff can be interchanged between styles. Alot of the r n b ambient clean guitar stuff is 7th jazzy chords. Many pop songs now have inverted chords or triads using very few strings.
When I started choosing my own music it was mid-late 90s, so it was all Britpop - I was a massive Oasis fan, and that led to Paul Weller, Led Zeppelin, T Rex and The Beatles, as well as all the usual British bands from the 90s. I recall in 2003 I was obsessed fairly equally with U2 and Radiohead. Then Pink Floyd and all the pretentious British stuff.
Then I discovered Springsteen which led to classic American music since the 50s, Motown, Classic rock, folk etc.
These days I listen to more pop, soul and funk because playing more of that stuff with my band is fantastic fun, and in my more personal downtime I'll often opt for something more alt/country/folk along the lines of Jason Isbell, The National or Bon Iver. American folk in particular is an absolutely gold mine. I still struggle with English folk with its beard and jumpers with warm beer and utterly boring songs.
I think the biggest step-change was discovering a few years ago that I actually like Steve Vai, despite having hated widdly guitar music for about thirty years... I still don't like most other technical guitar music though, there's something different about Vai. Also finding that I like Steely Dan, but that's probably less of a stretch.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
I still play music in a few different genres, including rock, pop, bluegrass, but what I play and what I enjoy listening to are quite different.
Later in life, artistes I liked and/or respected might drop names of their influences in magazine interviews. Who is this Robert Johnson? How can Stravinsky influence Rock music? Should I give a damn about any trumpet playin' band? It ain't what I call Rock and Roll.
As I have delved into the more esoteric music styles, fragments of them turn up in my compositions and playing. At the same time, I have never lost touch with the crudity and directness of, for example, The Ramones or early Magazine.
John McGeoch never fails to hold my interest.
I just don’t seem to tire of music I’ve been keen on all my life.
Although a couple of curiosities - I rarely listen to Joy Division or the Velvets anymore (I never thought that would happen) and I recently discovered Rory Gallagher (through tFB !!) - having a major bond with his studio output.
i realised being ignorant and shutting off new things because it wasn’t ‘metal’ was incredibly immature and held me back from maturing on a personal level.
I've got a lot of friends who only listen to old music. They never seek out new stuff and I don't understand that. I love it when I stumble on an artist or band I've not heard before. Sometimes it's stuff I've heard from a film or TV, sometimes it's from YT or the radio and sometimes it's live at an open mic night.
There are what I consider the gold standard faves. The beatles, Pink Floyd, Kings of Leon which I am always happy to listen to as well but I need new stuff as well.
The problem I have with a lot of the recent chart music is not that it's no good - a lot of it is actually pretty decent - it's that I can no longer easily remember who a lot of it is by, even when I like the songs. I suspect that it is because quite a bit of it sounds very similar, but I'm sure my parents' generation said that about the music I liked as a teenager too...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
I've said it before, probably a lot of times;all music has a shelf life for me. Each track seems to have a certain number if plays in it before it's uninteresting, so I keep looking for new.
I think an interesting part of getting older is hearing the music I liked as a kid but with older ears and appreciate it on a whole new level.
Grew up with classic rock 70's/80's pop and grunge.
Teens: as above plus Debussy, guitar shredders, NIN and Jamiroquai
20's Malian Music, YYYs Hives White Stripes etc plus Tori Amos and a slew of women singer songwriters. Nick Cave, Tom Waits etc
30's: neo folk, Joanna Newsom, Cubans, QOTSA
Now: more open to electronic stuff like Fever Ray and much more Jazz than before.
I also presently play my gypsy jazz guitar more than my electrics
I still like most of the music I was into when younger, I just don't listen to it very often.
Have my tastes changed? No, not really…always been eclectic, but equally always had strong opinions on what I like/don’t like.
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my pop band has always been The Eagles.