Make a tracklist of your music life (read

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    Read at least the bolded part, because on other forums I've posted this on, people just stupidly write down a loada of their favourite bands from various eras, which is not interesting to read, and involves no effort to post:

It's not neccarsarily about bands/songs taht have influenced you personally per se, but influenced your musical development. Say, if Led Zeppelin turned you onto a lot of blues and classic rock, you'd include them, or if you heard a Pantera song, and it turned you on to heavy metal, and include a representation of bands that have been your very faves at one point or another in your life, as they're obviously important to you, even if they didn't neccersarily influence your music tastes much. That's what I intended anyway. Basically - remember - it's NOT a list of your favourite stuff across various eras of your musical life - it's bands that you think may have had a profound effect upon guiding your musical direction where it went. 

-----------Misplaced Childhood------------------

I didn't really listen to music until I was 11 or 12. I thought it fairly pointless, and nothing really appealled to me. I knew crap that my sister played to me (like Take That), but i had no interest in music at all, bar the 2 musicals below when i was VERY young, and Handel's water music (but this was when i was around 6 or 7 or something)

Jesus Christ Superstar - Gethsemane - I only wanted to say

- for some reason, I used to love this album as a child. Perhaps because I was religious back then, and it was fun. However, I think it had profound effects upon me likeing classic rock music, and over-the-top dramatic music with dominant vocalists, such as PoS and Devil Doll. I rediscovered this album in 2005, and realised i still adored it. 

Phantom of the Opera - Overture

-this, along with Handel's Water Music was the classical type stuff I listened to as a child, and loved. Again, over the top, concept albums. I rediscovered this album in 2005, and realised i still adored it. 

Bob Dylan - Rolling Stone

- who i grew up on, and then grew to love as i got older - influencing my keeness on good lyrics and folk. He's my Dad's favourite artist by a mile, and so I used to hear it constantly. I didn't especially enjoy him as a child, bar Mr Tambourine Man, and I thought some of his lyrics were cool. It was only when I was 16 or so that I actively listened to him myself, and tried to shake off my previous immature attitude towards stuff my parents liked that I realised he was brilliant. 

-------------First Blood---------------

I started listening to Radio 1 when i was 11 or 12, and started to get some sort of interest in music. I liked chart stuff, cos that was all I knew at all, but I had no specific taste, and didn't really know what I wanted from music. After getting into the Manics and Nirvana, I met a guy who was a couple of years older than me who was a massive Manics fan, and he lent me and shared a lot of music with me (Metallica, Slipknot, Iron Maiden, assorted punk and metal)

Offspring - Pretty Fly for A White Guy

- the first single I heard from the first album I ever purchased of my own choosing. 

Slipknot - Liberate

- I always liked it heavy. Slipknot aren't very good really, but to me they meant a lot back then. If i hadn't got into this band as a child, i probably wouldn't be a fan of heavy music nowadays. I also listened to a fair amount of the old nu-metal bands when I was 14/15 too, not that I'm proud of it, but I used to enjoy it back then. 

Manic Street Preachers - Yes

- The band meant so much to me for so many years, and this song sums them up fairly well. Dark, great rock music, intelligent lyrics, and very well executed, and off the only album of theirs I still listen to. 

Iron Maiden - Infinite Dreams

- brilliant riff, songwriting. classic rock fell into me easily as I loved old NWOBHM, and old classic Brit rock bands. They were also the first live band I went to see when I was 14, and it sparked my love of live music which has grown ever stronger over the years. 

-----------Going Under-----------------

By this stage I was firmly starting to get a real real real passion for music, and was constantly spending what little money I had on music (hurrah for no internet!). I knew my tastes were different than most people I met, because even when I was 14/15, I was listening to stuff that was way more obscure, varied, old, or 'weird' in comparison to everyone I knew. I didn't care, I liked what I enjoyed, even though it made me a bit of a musical outsider. I was always still looking for new good bands, because I knew taht there must be other bands out there that I could get obsessed with like I was with the Manics. 

Dead Kennedys - We've Got A Bigger Problem Now 

- I used to be big into punk, and the DKs are about the only band from that stage that I still enjoy. Funny, intelligent well written punk, unlike most of the other punk I used to listen to (mostly old school) which I now consider fairly embarrassing.

Metallica - Outlaw Torn

- I used to adore Metallica a lot. I could have inccluded a more classic sounding song of theirs, but decided to include my very favourite song from their catalogue. I suppose it's a lot more experimental than most of their material, and I used to listen to this song on repeats for hours. Also, Metallica's S&M album, recorded with an orchestra must have helped me realise that I liked classical mixed with metal, which is probably why i fell in love with Dream Theater so much a few years later. Also, their covers album, Garage inc, introduced me to about over 10 bands that i grew on to love. 

Pitchshifter - Microwaved

-electro metal. Pretty politcally oriented band, and really fused metal with dance etc. The drumming is totally not like normal metal or rock a lot of the time, and their use of samples is also quite unique. I think liking them helped me get into stuff like Venetian Snares and Shpongle - electronic music I listen to nowadays, as it made me realise that electronic music can be good, and that I shouldn't dismiss it. I'm glad I found them, because otherwise I may never have given electronica a chance, and wouldn't have found Shpongle. 

Budgie - Parents

- Along with Led Zeppelin, Diamond Head, Deep Purple etc, I adored, and still do adore classic rock, and Budgie made some of teh best I've ever heard. Their singer put a lot of people off their music I think (their name and artwork probably did too), but the music is just brilliant classic rock, experimental, and very ahead of it's time (Black Sabbath get credited for their music a lot, but Budgie were doing similar things at exactly the same time)

Mercyful Fate - Nun's have no Fun

- A bit of balls to the wall metal. King Diamond I suppose was one of teh first 'weird' vocalists I enjoyed, and I supose started me to be more interested in the darker side of metal.  

Muse - New Born

- I listened to this album an unbeleivable amount when I got it when I was 15/16, and fell in love. Before then, I'd never really listened to any music that heavily featured piano. It's probably down to this band that I fell into prog rock, as it's essentially lite-prog. 

Damien Rice - I Remember 

- this album re-ignited my adoration of mellow acoustic music. My sister had brought it home for my Dad to hear as she thought he may like it, and I gave it a spin and immediately fell in love with his voice. I'd never really listened to anything like it much before, and it led into getting into mellower emotional music, as opposed to rawk and metaaaal. Beautiful touching music. It's also an album that my housemate used to play in his room constantly, so it reminds me of chilling out with him last year. 

-----------Enlightenment----------------

6th form. Made some friends who were into more slghtly less mainstream music, and we'd share and discuss a lot of music, and I started using the internet, and reading reviews and downloading the odd free mp3 on my 56k connection. 

Dream Theater - Metropolis Part 1 - The Miracle and the Sleeper

- I made a friend in my 6th form at school who liked Metallica and other old and new rock that I did, and his favourite band were a band called Dream Theater that I'd heard of, but had never heard, and had no idea what they sounded like because I'd never heard prog, and had no idea what it was (even though I'd owned Pink Floyds DSOTM for a few years by then). He lent me the album 'Metroplois Part 2 - Scenes from a Memory' - the follow up to this song, and I'd never so immediately fell in love with a band. Within a month or 2 I owned their whole catalogue and listened to them obsessively. At the time, there was nothing that could come close to them, as they represented everything I wanted in a band back then. This song has pretty much always been my favourite DT song, and it represents them fairly well - interesting lyrics, good musical technicalty that sounds great (and isn't just an attempt to show off like a lot of bands try to do, but is actually damn good to listen to too), great singing, and just generally f**king good. The band meant EVERYTHING to me when I was 16/17. They were my gateway into music that I consider genuinely amazing - i checked out their influiences, and bands that I knew were meant to be in the same vein. From there I realised there was a whole world of amazing music that never ever gets noticed by the mainstream at all, and that you have to have an open mind to enjoy it all. Through their forums, and the people I talked to from them, I discovered more music than can be imagined. I don't really listen to them now because I burnt out on them after 2 years of absolutely constant listening - there's not really much point in listening to a song when you know every note and melody off by heart. They basically caused my music taste to explode hereafter. There is little point trying to say every influencing band from here on in, as there's simply too many, so I'll keep it limited. Immediately from DT though, I was branching out into old style prog, and more technical prog metal. 

Marillion - Script for a Jester's Tear

- Marillion mean a lot to me, even though I realise perfectly that they're not the best band ever or anything. This was the first song I ever heard by them, and I was immediately grabbed by it, and it has always remained a favourite of mine, and I think is one of the few songs that's ever moved me to tears. From the very first second, the song drips power. I immediately fell in love with Fish's voice, despite the fact that technically he's not particularly good, but he's so honest and powerful. In a way, Marillion sort of replaced the hole that had been left by the Manics after I got bored of them, as there's a lot of similarities (main group member left, leaving a band that became completely different after he was gone, some of the best rock lyrics I've seen, and great British rock). Marillion have moved me in a way few other bands have, and they've always remained an honest band with a lot of integrity, despite the changing of singers. This song can't represent Marillion - no single song could - as they've done everything from classic prog rock, to literally every other type of rock in the whole spectrum, and modern day Marillion is completely removed from anything to do with Fish-era, so I chose to put the first song I heard by them. 

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Meeting of the Spirits

- I'd never ever thought that anything to do with jazz would be my thing as all i thought it was was boring meandering music that went nowhere (yes, I was really ignorant). I was browsing progarchives.com one day when I was 16 or so, and saw this 'jazz-fusion' band that were really highly rated by a lot of people, so downloaded this song which they had as a sample mp3 (was on dial-up back in those days). I was astounded by the music - the technicality and brilliance of the music astounded me, and I knew I wanted to hear more, and more stuff like it, and it spurred me to check out more fusion, and then eventually to check out jazz. 

Orff - Carmina Burana start piece

My girlfriend at the time was really big into classical music, and I only knew a few things that I'd listened to from my Dad's collection. I had enjoyed a fair amount of it, but I certainly realised that I preferred more dark classical such as Beethoven's symphonies etc. She realised this, and lent me Carmina Burana, which is very dark and interesting. It re-ignited my interest in classical, and got me to search for more dark composers (which i found in Berlioz and Glass etc)

Ayreon - Day 12

- I got this album because one of the many great guest musicians on it was Dream Theater's singer. It's a cheesy as f**k prog rock concept album, but is very fun. There's one reason it's very important to me though, and that's because before this album i'd never listened to any music with growled vocals before. In this track, Opeth's Mikhael Akerfeldt growls a few lines, and it really piqued my interest in growling, and I realised it wasn't all stuff that sounded like Fear Factory (who my friends used to love). I realised there was more way of utilising vocals in a song, and that extreme metal could actually be of interest to me after all. It was also thanks to this album that I checked out Devin Townsend, because the vocal parts he sang on this album astounded me (he's not in this song), and Devin's music introduced me to a whole world of powerful atmospheric heavy music. 

Pain of Salvation - Beyond the Pale

- I loved this band for about 5 months or so in 2004/5, and I didn't think music got any better. 6 concept albums, brilliant proggy metal and hard rock, very very intelligent well thought out lyrics, and a beast of a vocalist. I kinda burnt out on them due to CONSTANT listening, but this song is one of the best metal songs I've ever heard, closing off the Remedy Lane album with the highest high ever. It's so incredibly dark and powerful and represents everything I loved about them. Their emotional nature, and their songs concerning love and pain etc also really helped me when getting over a really bad break-up. 

----------Acceleration-----------------

Uni. Broadband, and a lot of new people with varied tastes. I used music forums to get a lot of music recommendations from people who approached music in the same way that I did, and was able to discover a lot of music, and really expand what I knew, and finally discover stuff that really blows your mind. 

Opeth - Blackwater Park

-I randomly downloaded about 40 melo-death and death metal albums that some guy on the Uni network was sharing when I first started Uni, andamong them were Opeth. I'd wanted to check out more extreme metal because I'd heard good things, and I knew I loved heavy music. I got stuff like Edge of Sanity, Green Carnation, Arcturus, and a load of other stuff. When listening to EoS and Opeth, I realised that I loved heavy technical music, and that I was also beginning to love growled vocals, and Akerfeldt's are still some of the very best I've heard. 

Necrophagist - Foul Body Autopsy

-Among the death metal stuff I got from that guy that day, there was this, which was a lot heavier than most of the stuff he had, and I didn't really enjoy it, yet it was different to me, and so I listened to it quite a few times. It was my gateway into TRULY heavy as f**k music, a style of music that is often looked down on by those who don't listen to it. Such amazing technical competence is commonplace in the genre, and the intensity of it can be brilliant. 

Devil Doll - Dies Irae Parts 12 & 18 

- Back when I was 16 or 17 I'd downloaded DD's sample mp3 from progarchives.com - a 2 minute track from this album that was 60% classical, 40% rock, had a female opera singer, and a very strange man doing some strange twisted vocal style. I really didn't like it, I thought it was pointless. Yet, for some reason, it intrigued the hell out of me, and I wondered what their music was like bar that 2 minute track I'd heard. A year later I got an e-friend to send me their disgography, because I was so curious to listen to it, and I'd read a lot of reviews that either hailed them as the best thing you've never heard, or even if they didn't like it, what they wrote was always interesting as it was obvious the music was so unique. I immediately fell in love with the band when I got their albums, and because I'd by this stage started listening to extreme metal, the vocals weren't hard for me to get into anymore. Dark classical music mixed with art rock, a strange unknown vocalist who sings in an obscure classical style called 'sprechgesang', and is one of the best music arrangers I've come across, and one of the most interesting lyricists I've found too, and the music is of the highest integrity and artistic value, and has pretty much infinite replay value. Most of their music is massively long, and most albums consist simply of one song. Track 18 is the closer to the Dies Irae album (1 song split up into 18 sections on the album), and is a brilliant standalone song, and a very powerful album closer that's very chilling. Part 12 is a section of absolute, pure insanity from the song: a nightmare scene in whcih Mr Doctor becomes unbeleivably intense, as does the music (played by the Slovenian National Orchestra), and is wholly strange. 

Neal Morse - I am Willing

 - who taught me that you don't have to agree or like the lyrics to enjoy passionate music (it's religious praise music). After getting into this stuff, I realised that I didn't have to agree with what the musician is singing about, it really is all about the music, and that as long as they are passionate about it, then that's all that matters. It was also during this song that I broke into tears when I was watching the Live Testimony DVD, and Neal was talking about the time in his life that the song is about (his baby having a massive hole in their heart, and his wife praying at a church, and the hole healing miraculously on it's own - true story, honest). The way he spoke about it made me realise what my own parents went through when I was a baby in the same situation (though obviously I had an operation, and wasn't touched by God)

--------Now.------------------     

maudlin of the Well - the ferryman

I discovered these guys in late 2004, but it was only late 2005 that I realised their true greatness. They play everything - literally, rom jazz, to classical, to death metal, to indie, to rock, to doom, to prog metal, to post-rock.Everything they released over 3 albums is mindblowing music. They can change style and genre in a split second, and do it effortlessly, which I suppose represents my attitude to music nowadays - if it's good, I'll listen to anything, and will often make huge genre leaps in what I listen to in an afternoon - one moment jazz, one moment heavy as hell death metal. This song goes: organ music -> jazz -> death metal -> operatic symphonic metal -> avant garde

miles Davis - Spanish Key

- The last 2 months or so I've really been enjoying a lot of pure jazz, and Davis' music is utterly fantastic jazz that serves as a nice little representation of what I love about the genre. 

Frank Zappa - Muffin Man

- I've only recently got into Zappa, but it's hit me really really hard, and I uttterly adore the music. Humour, technical proficieny, intelligence, and utterly great music from a huge range of genres (rock, pop, bebop, art rock, jazz, classical, fusion). Muffin man is a fun as hell song, with a great instrumental section too.  No song could represent Zappa's music, so I just gave up!

Sunn0))) - Bathory Erzsebet

- They're not really a favourite, but they've really pushed the boundries of what music is. Sunn play drone - very very slow doom metal taht is more about atmosphere. It's great to relax with, and when I saw them live, it was the most powerful live experience (And the loudest) i've ever had in my life. It was like a religious experience that can't be described, at all. 

Kayo Dot - Manifold Curiousity

- Kayo Dot formed from the ashes of maudlin of the Well, and create some of my favoutrite music. Long meandering songs that are all across the shop genre-wise. Manifold Curiousity is probably their finest song as a whole, and their music is what I consider to be the best I've ever heard in about 8 years of music listening. 

End of the journey.. so far. Obviously a lot of it isn't stuff I consider favourites, but more musical milestones. 

Edited by richeym - April 26 2006 at 13:50