Why You Like The Music You Like, Why You Dislike The Music You Dont

[Mardy]

Generally, i tend not to like music that is macho, swaggering and full of bluster. I’m much more taken with the vulnerable, the fucked up, the outsider.  Give me some fey melancholy.

Part of the reason I can’t be doing with the likes of Kasabian is that i don’t believe the world needs any more frontmen who think they’re rock gods. They always come across as 10th generation photocopies of Jagger etc. I’m more interested in the internal, rather than the external journey. Of course there are exceptions, but give me the hopeless lovelorn romantics who are too shy to talk to girls, and sitting in the corner with a book rather than witlessly bellowing "Eez Eh”. 

That said, i fucking hate the Smiths.

[Badlands]

Fairly self-indulgent post incoming but I’ve enjoyed everybody else’s replies…
I was bang into music as a kid. All thanks to my Dad, who force fed me The Beatles and The Monkees at an early age. Many a night we’d spend in the dining room playing all his singles. He took me to see the Madness when I was 4 (Newcastle City Hall) - can remember it now, even their entrance music. I got a kids set of decks a year later which, thinking now in retrospect, was an absolute blinding present. It only fit 7” singles on them but I loved it. I used to get taken to take me to the local department store so I could buy my own stuff – the first single I bought through my own choice was 68 Guns by The Alarm. The problem was the delicacy of the needles along with the dexterity of 5 year old me meant a lot of replacements were required. It probably lasted a year or so.

I wish I still had my single collection , just for nostalgia. Fun Boy Three, Bananarama, Madonna. I used to love collecting them.

There’s no genre that I hate, though I never listen to metal. I’ve never been snobbish about pop stuff aimed at the masses. If its good, its good!

You lot will be able to articulate its power better than me, but there's nothing comes close to it.

 

[ourkid1984]

I got into music at a very young age. I remember loving being close to the speakers at family parties and watching bands at my local British Legion play music from the 50's, 60's and 80's.

I used to like most of my dad's record collection (The Jam, Sex Pistols, The Who, Queen, X Ray Specs) and hate my mum's record collection (Cliff Richard, Bay City Rollers, Shawaddywaddy).

I took influence from my dad and listened to the radio into the early hours of the morning and by 10 was loving Britpop and other similar sounds. My 1st album I bought was Definitely Maybe.

Since then I have listened and enjoyed a much wider variety of music by going through festival line ups, reading reviews, using Spotify and going to lots of gigs and indie nightclubs. 

I've never really liked manufactured pop, drum and bass techno, edm or Eminem era hip hop. There's plenty of acts that I don't like that would fit in genres I usually like and that could be anything really from the singers voice to whether I think they are bad live. Sometimes I can't pinpoint why I don't like an act or why I do.

[tjamest]

Listening to my older brother's album collection when i was about 12 must be the biggest influence on my music tastes and i can still remember just about all his albums 45 years later

I was aware of music on the radio from when i was about seven and remembered buying singles with my mother from about 9 - Puppet on a String, A Boy named Sue, In the ghetto, Harper Valley PTA, and then buying my own Get down and Get with it by Slade, Ride a white swan by T Rex, Son of my father by Chicory Tip, Devils Answer by Atomic Rooster.

By 11 I discovered albums and saved up to buy Electric Warrior by T Rex, Fireball by Deep Purple and Every picture tells a story by Rod Stewart in 1971.

Then came my brothers collection of about 50 albums (a big collection in those days). I remember asking him what type of music he liked and he mysteriously replied "Alternative" and "Underground" which was the first time that i realised there was more to music than Radio one, Top of the Pops or Saturday Evening TV.

Two of my brothers favourites were the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and he had all their albums up to Exile and New Morning, however there was much, much more - going back in time i discovered a Readers Digest 3 record history of the Blues along with an Elmore James album. From the fifties he had a Fats Domino Record along with a  Rock n Roll compilation featuring Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Most of his records were from the late sixties and included Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother and  Umma Gumma, The Doors first album, Jimi Hendrix Are you experienced and Axis bold of love, The Velvet Underground and Nico with peel off banana, Dr John's Gris Gris, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Workingman's Dead, by the Grateful Dead as well as Surrelistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe's I feel like im fixin to die. An Otis Redding compilation, something by Edith Piaf and Trojan Records Tighten Up vol 1&2

This collection was mind blowing for someone used to nothing more adventurous than the Sunday night charts and along with my sisters much small collection which included Leonard Cohen, Carol King and Melanie and an introduction to Motown by one of my teachers this was the foundation of just about everything ever since.

A brief flirtation with Prog and Us West coast bands when i was about 15 then came Dr Feelgood' Malpractice followed Punk and Reggae at the tender age of 16 which once again was a massive influence, but really was only an extension of the old blues, R&B and Ska records i had been discovering a few years earlier.

Obviously  this all happened in the 60s and 70s and i have listened to and enjoyed hundreds of different artists, bands and genres since then, but an awful lot of what i have enjoyed to and continue listen to can be traced back to the influences of those records over 40 years ago. 

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by tjamest

[tjamest]

46 minutes ago, Badlands said:

I wish I still had my single collection , just for nostalgia. Fun Boy Three, Bananarama, Madonna. I used to love collecting them

One of my midlife crisis's was buying a jukebox about 15 years ago, i then spent about 3 really enjoyable years scouring second hand record / charity shops to find suitable singles to play on it.

[Kizzie]

1 hour ago, Mardy said:

Generally, i tend not to like music that is macho, swaggering and full of bluster. I’m much more taken with the vulnerable, the fucked up, the outsider.  Give me some fey melancholy.

Part of the reason I can’t be doing with the likes of Kasabian is that i don’t believe the world needs any more frontmen who think they’re rock gods. They always come across as 10th generation photocopies of Jagger etc. I’m more interested in the internal, rather than the external journey. Of course there are exceptions, but give me the hopeless lovelorn romantics who are too shy to talk to girls, and sitting in the corner with a book rather than witlessly bellowing "Eez Eh”. 

That said, i fucking hate the Smiths.

Oh Mardy you need Marlon Williams in your life, if you haven't already found him.

[Mardy]

7 minutes ago, Kizzie said:

Oh Mardy you need Marlon Williams in your life, if you haven't already found him.

Thanks. I shall investigate this evening. Where's a good place to start?

[Kizzie]

2 minutes ago, Mardy said:

Thanks. I shall investigate this evening. Where's a good place to start?

He's only done 2 albums, 'Marlon Williams' and 'Make Way for Love'.  I prefer the first one.

[mashedonmud]

I have a huge respect for anybody who can lift a crowd and get them moving whilst playing LIVE. Genre doesn't really come into it for me. I've been dragged to some performances protesting about what I'm about to see. Then having to eat humble pie as the performance blows me away. This has happened many times at Glastonbury and especially with the less famous and older bands. It's usually the older bands that I didn't get first time around. Love it.

I detest Chris Martin. Even if he does fit the criteria of my first sentence. 

I still respect the other members of Coldplay. Apart from their choice of friend.?

Edited November 21, 2018 by mashedonmud

[Avalon_Fields]

2 hours ago, Kizzie said:

Oh Mardy you need Marlon Williams in your life, if you haven't already found him.

My little band cover one of his songs, the video for it is so odd I love it

 

[Avalon_Fields]

I can’t escape from loving the first bands I bought 45s of (T Rex, Slade, Bowie) but then turned my back on the poppy stuff and got into ‘serious’ rock and prog (Zeppelin, Yes, Genesis), but somehow crazily still loved all that indulgence at the same time as following their opposites in punk & new wave (Clash, Talking Heads, XTC)....

But since those early days always tried to widen my interests, took forever to appreciate the likes of Dylan, even longer with Jazz, so I try and avoid stating I dislike any act or genre because one day I may end up loving that too....

 

[mashedonmud]

3 minutes ago, Avalon_Fields said:

so I try and avoid stating I dislike any act or genre because one day I may end up loving that too...

Yes, exactly that.

Edited November 21, 2018 by mashedonmud

[henry bear]

Like most, a lot of what I like came from other influences. Music was always in the house, and I grew up absorbing what my older brother and sister bought - Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Bowie, Queen etc. My dad favoured classical music, and I fought with mum over listening to Radio 1 or 2, and she usually won. As I grew older I developed my own tastes more, but while most of my mates were strictly into, say, punk/new wave, I always carried on liking whatever it was I liked irrespective of whether it was cool or not. The first band I saw live was The Specials and the second was Black Sabbath, and that's how it went with me. I saw The Jam a few times in my teens with long hair and successfully avoided getting a kicking by all the mods present. Whilst I went to Glastonbury through the 80's, and also to see many of my contemporary favourites like The Smiths, REM, Ramones, etc, I also saw the bands I grew up with - Bowie, Floyd Queen etc. I would also grow fond of many of the acts I suffered on Radio 2 as well, and went on to see the likes of Sinatra, Glen Campbell and Neil Diamond live. Ultimately, music either moves you or it doesn't and thankfully it means as much to me now as ever it did. Watching Justice and Radiohead at Glastonbury last year was, for me, proof of that.

[MetaKate]

People have given winded answers but mine is a bit more simple... 

Do my feet tap or my emotions stir? 

Gimme either and I'm a fan.

Gimme both and I'm yours for life. 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

46 minutes ago, MetaKate said:

People have given winded answers but mine is a bit more simple... 

Do my feet tap or my emotions stir? 

Gimme either and I'm a fan.

Gimme both and I'm yours for life. 

Up voted for being highly logical.

I think the ultimate music, is that which gives you goose bumps, whether you like it or not.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

PS - I don't mean whether you like the music or not, I mean that you have no control over the goose bumps.

[MetaKate]

34 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

PS - I don't mean whether you like the music or not, I mean that you have no control over the goose bumps.

Nothing like your body telling you you're feeling an emotion before your mind has time to think it. 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

13 minutes ago, MetaKate said:

Nothing like your body telling you you're feeling an emotion before your mind has time to think it. 

I concur.

[MetaKate]

13 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

I concur.

They say everytime 2 efest posters agree on something, a unicorn sprouts its wings ❤

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

7 minutes ago, MetaKate said:

They say everytime 2 efest posters agree on something, a unicorn sprouts its wings ❤

That would be an equinemical matter.  

[MetaKate]

27 minutes ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

That would be an equinemical matter.  

I had to look up the meaning of this but I'm still not sure what I read ?

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

13 minutes ago, MetaKate said:

I had to look up the meaning of this but I'm still not sure what I read ?

Hello MetaKate,

It was kind of a play on words from a comedy series that we used to get over here. So, apologies, because unless you were in to it, you'd never have got it. 

Here's an associated clip (see below). Please don't let this clip rule your judgement though, as it's poorly representative of the show as a whole - in my opinion.

 

[slash's hat]

16 hours ago, Mardy said:

That said, i fucking hate the Smiths.

An upvote purely for this! My mates were very into them...just dirge to my ears, though I like the cure and many would say same about them.

[slash's hat]

15 hours ago, tjamest said:

One of my midlife crisis's was buying a jukebox about 15 years ago, i then spent about 3 really enjoyable years scouring second hand record / charity shops to find suitable singles to play on it.

I want a jukebox too, don't want to settle for one of those speaker ones. How did you get yours?

[MetaKate]

1 hour ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Hello MetaKate,

It was kind of a play on words from a comedy series that we used to get over here. So, apologies, because unless you were in to it, you'd never have got it. 

Here's an associated clip (see below). Please don't let this clip rule your judgement though, as it's poorly representative of the show as a whole - in my opinion.

 

I feel properly informed! Ty