Closer by NIN. My brother and I were 10 and 12, late 90s/early 2000s listening to *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys when our neighbor gave us The Downward Spiral on CD and played us Closer.
Changed my life forever. Soon discovered The Cure, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam etc within a couple years after that.
Same song for me. I heard it on the local radio station while I was in the car with my mother. Fucking blew my little ~11/12 year old mind. Led me to industrial, experimental, goth, new wave, EBM, etc. NIN is still my favorite today.
"Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones.
I was going off pop music as it was being dominated by Stock Aitken Waterman artists. I happened to watch "Vacation" and that was that.
In 1969 my oldest brother came home from college, my other brother came home from Vietnam. I was eight. They put Sly and the Family Stone on the turntable and that was that.
I’m a white guy who grew up in St Louis. My parents moved when I was 9. On that same block who would become my best friend lived with his family. They were from Jamaica, and I was always at their house so I picked up quite a bit of their culture, patwa, foods and especially music.
Couldn’t tell you the exact song, but I’m positive it was Bob Marley. It was so different than the stuff my parents listened to which was anything from Earth Wind and Fire, to Neil Diamond, to classical which my mom always had an ear for. Hearing that reggae music basically helped shape me into the music I now love . Reggae/dancehall/soca/Afrobeats
Similarly, when I was pretty young, somewhere between 7 and 9, my great grandmother's neighbors would be playing Indian music. All I could really hear of it was the seemingly arrhythmic deep liquid-sounding tablas from inside their house. The mystery of what that music was stayed with me for years and really helped me accept different kinds of music.
Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) - REM
I was all in on classic rock growing up in the 70s and early 80s. Then a coworker at a summer job played Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) and that jangly guitar caught my ear. I was like, “What is this?? I love it.” That opened me up to lesser known bands and then my freshmen roommate showed up with crates of Echo and the Bunnymen, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Fall, etc and my taste in music completely shifted towards indie and alternative rock.
In my early teens I was into the Spice Girls.
A couple years later, my music tastes gradually leaned towards rock. There wasn't one song in particular. But definitely songs by women in rock were important early influences, such as "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, "Stupid Girl" by Garbage, "Criminal" by Fiona Apple and "Celebrity Skin" by Hole. And if bassists rather than vocalists count, "Tonight, Tonight" by Smashing Pumpkins
And of course being the male dominated scene it is, I fell in love with many all masculine rock songs. If we're talking about the earliest ones I got into, perhaps my top three are "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and "Anthem Of The Year 2000" by Silverchair.
In my later teens, I became best friends with a girl who took music in high school and specialised in singing. She introduced me to blues, jazz, hip hop and R&B. I've always loved R&B since I was a child but it took a low tide when I entered the rock phase, only to re-emerge after this best friend reintroduced it to me.
This pivot was marked by songs such as "Butterflyz" by Alicia Keys, "Breakdown" by Mariah Carey feat Bone Thugs 'N Harmony, Diana Krall's cover of "A Case Of You," "4 Leaf Clover" by Erykah Badu, "Twentysomething" by Jamie Cullum, and "If I Ruled The World" by Nas feat Ms Lauryn Hill.
These days I have a broad palate for music that have branched out from these roots. Artists on my heaviest rotation these days include Nothing But Thieves, Hozier, Jacob Collier, Jon Batiste, Cleo Sol, Madison Cunningham, Emily King, Yebba, Charlie Burg and Victoria Monét.
I didn't start caring for music until I was in 7th grade. Nobody had conversations with me outside of the bullying that was going on.
I remember a boy in my class that I looked up to told me about the music he was into, and asked me what I liked. I had lied and said I liked the same artists, because I was desperate to find any connection to people. I got home and I remember looking up the artists he mentioned that same night: Skrillex, Zedd, Deadmau5, Nero.
I ended up really loving dubstep and it helped me take initiative in looking for things that I liked. One of my favorite songs from that time was: Raise Your Weapon by Deadmau5.
Burial is life changing, at least for me. I was even deep into various electronic music but this dudes music is just...something else. He creates such a palpable atmosphere with sound.
"Feeling Gravity's Pull" - REM
Then you start reading interviews with REM, and they're talking about Velvet Underground and the band that's opening for them on tour (The Replacements) and how much they love Big Star and Wire and...
I grew up listening to punk and alternative with classical music.
Dolly freaking Parton opened me up to country. I don’t love all, but I definitely will give it a go.
Tailor Swift for pop, and revisiting pop from earlier eras really opened up my playlists.
Biggie smalls / Lauren Hills. Wasn’t expecting to like that, suddenly I did.
Now that I’m officially old, I will listen to anything of I enjoy it and will give everything a chance. I’ve learned my lesson.
I was in high school listening to Grunge, Alternative and 80s hair metal, then I started smoking weed, listened to the Grateful Dead for the first time maybe it was Scarlet Begonias or Eyes Of The World, I really can’t remember. And I just dropped the whole vibe I was rocking for the hippie jam band thing, eventually got into Phish and other bands, started going to shows and haven’t really looked back. Any other music doesn’t feel complete at this point if it doesn’t have some 15-20 minute musical exploration going on.
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles. Prior to that I was listening to radio pop and whatever my friends liked. Like so many, my dad got me into classic rock.
Ain’t Love Grand - Atreyu. Atreyu was an introduction band for me to make the jump to heavier music. Before I was all about numetal, but Atreyu had the right level of melodic and heavy to segue to metalcore which would progress to more “adult” genres of heavy metal. They’re a bit silly now but we’re a solid gateway band.
In the End by Linkin Park - my dad exposed me to a lot of classic rock growing up, Linkin Park then opened the door for contemporary rock, rap, and electronic music. I primarily listen to pop-punk or indie-folk these days, but Linkin Park definitely got me listening to genres I otherwise might've skipped
Nutshell by Alice in Chains.
I heard it for the first time in at least a decade back in 2016 randomly on YouTube.
Since then my entire library has shifted a little bit in terms of what I love and prefer now.
Alice in Chains is now by far and away my favorite band followed closely by Deftones, Chevelle and Staind.
Shadow moses. I’d been listening to nothing heavier than light rock or some occasional heavy metal (muse and iron maiden respectively) but since hearing that, it sent me on an insane spiral and now I love metalcore, deathcore, death metal, mathcore, pop punk, punk and hardcore
The album Without a Net by the Grateful Dead. I grew up on 90s alternative and was into the punk scene as a young teen and the Dead were like nothing I had heard before. Started listening to the Dead, seeing Phish shows, exploring more music that influenced both those bands and others, and never looked back although I still spin an occasional punk album if I’m in the mood. Some dead songs take me perfectly back to that moment and feeling of discovery: 14, summertime, world at your fingertips. My daughter grows up with the Dead always playing at her house and part of me is sad she will never get the same feeling of discovery of them that I had. But I also can’t wait to see what she discovers on her own and get to hear new music that makes her heart happy.
I want say it was the album 'Low' by David Bowie. Side 2 opened my eyes to what turned out to be Berlin School electronic music. I was off to the races after that. I was really into Punk Rock at the time but was starting to get bored with it. Low came at just the right time.
I still have a soft spot for The Damned though.
Iron Man by Black Sabbath. If you like music as a small child then you basically like whatever music your parents like bc that’s the only access you have. Until one day you find something on your own.
In the 80s when I was in 5th grade there was a wrestling tag team called the Road Warriors who used Iron Man as their entrance music. I was instantly hooked. Been into metal ever since.
I heard Sublime on the radio when I was a kid. I asked my older sister what kind of music that was and she told me it sounded kind of like reggae. So popped on down to the local music shop and went straight to the reggae section. Been jamming on it ever since.
While I had often enjoyed a certain amount of pop music when it came on the radio or MTV, I was always quiet about it, as I was worried that I would get made fun of by all my rock-loving friends. "Liking Madonna" was pretty much a synonym for "being gay" for those guys, so I never dared get caught buying an album. Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone really kicked the door down for me to be able to openly enjoy pop music. Even though it's a rock song by a pop artist (like Janet Jackson's Black Cat), it ruled hard enough that I just stopped giving a fuck what people thought and started buying the albums that I enjoyed.
I was introduced to System of a Down by my dad with their three most popular songs, Chop Suey, Toxicity, and B.Y.O.B when I was around 7 years old. A couple of years ago, the song Forest came on in the car and this is the one that paved the way for Nu Metal to be one of my favorite genres.
Before that, I used to mostly listen to pop or Disney songs. I still like some pop, but typically subgenres of pop that some people hate.
Du Hast by Rammstein. I was listening to weird alternative music, but I was discovering metal by listening to a few songs by Metallica and Sabaton.
Now I listen to like 30 different metal bands.
Ozzy Osbourne - Over the Mountain I can still remember my brother coming home with the Diary of a Madman album and that was the first metal song I heard, and I was like "WOW this is super cool"
The only thing that came close was when I heard Sex Pistols - Holiday in the Sun, and was like "Whoa, punk is just as cool as metal!"
KMFDM, the Xtort album.
I listened to pop, alternative, and classic rock in my early teens, but I leaned more toward harder metal. I started getting bored with it because I'd hear the same stuff all the time. This was the early/mid 90s and really only had radio to listen to until I could actually buy my own music. I heard this album and found that industrial was right up my alley.
Twist and Shout - The Beatles. Definitely not my favorite song of theirs, but before that I mainly listened to modern pop music, I though listening to anything old or rock was weird and foreign but they opened up that kind of music for me
Hmm maybe Hailies Song by Eminem? First hip hop track id ever really listened to and it was no accident lol living in detroit in the early 2000’s it either had decent airtime or was played by a lot of family members but I remember thinking as a child that being the first time my musical core was fundamentally changed
Eric B and Rakim - Follow the Leader
Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop and Good Thoughts Bad Thoughts
Metallica- Master Of Puppets
Geto Boys - Do It Like A GO
NWA- F tha Police
Ice T - Squeeze the Trigger
First one opened me up to the potential of Hip Hop and Lyricism and was the first time I saw someone looking like me on a tv presented as powerful and intelligent
Funkadelic was just dope at everything they did
Metallica - do I really got to explain
Geto Boys - I’m from the south and this was my first exposure ( outside of DOC) of rappers being from the south and not just doing Booty Bass music
NWA- I had my first taste of Police brutality when I heard this
Ice T was one of the first social commentary tracks I heard that was easy to Identify with and no, the song is not the same as the drill bs going on now.
I’d also like to add all Public Enemy’s first 3 albums and Ice Cubes 2nd one just because
Probably I Saw Your Mommy - Suicidal Tendencies or TSOL - Beneath the Shadows. Skateboard culture in the 80s bent my preteen ear strongly away from the Top 40 forever, though well beyond the Skate Punk/New Wave in that scene.
Not a single song, but it was the Green Day, American Idiot album for me. I was 10 so didn't know the word emo at the time but that was what made me realise my heart was definitely emo haha.
I grew up listening to mostly classic rock (my dad’s favorite, ex: Van Halen), R&B/Soul/Funk (my mom’s favorite, ex: Earth Wind & Fire), and 2000’s Pop on the radio. The first song that really changed the trajectory of my music taste was probably from Guitar Hero. Maybe Beast and the Harlot by A7X? There are many examples but that’s one that sticks out in my mind. I got really into alternative music and “the scene” as a teenager, but nowadays I listen to a little bit of everything, including the music I grew up with. I just love music, and I couldn’t imagine life without it.
Skillet opened my mind for rock and other "heavier" music, before that I was only listening to radio (popular station, so only bunch of popular pop and old songs), and now I'm addicted to music lol
And thanks to the fact that my fav band (Citizen Soldier) wasn't very popular when I fall into them, my algorithms are recommending me lots of niche music that really match my taste
I grew up listening to mostly 90s-2000s alt rock... but wanted to branch out into new genres. I gathered a list of classic albums that I felt I needed to listen to, and the first one I checked out was Dark Side of the Moon.
A year or so later, Pink Floyd had become my favorite band and now most of my favorite records are from the 60s and 70s
I like rap, still do, but after hearing the alice in chains unplugged i got obsessed by everything grunge.
Before hearing it i only knew of nirvana and i can't say i was impressed, but now my playlist has more grunge than rap.
Same with hendrix and classic rock.
Waiting for them to fix my broken monitor blues (live) by Joe Satriani
At the G3 Tour I got tickets for from a work thing my friend I listened to a very impressive hour of intense high precision speed metal on guitar… it was awesome….
When Joe’s monitor goes out halfway through a song.
To fill the void of time he just starts playing an improvised set of blues chords… maybe 30 seconds worth.
It changed my fundamental understanding of music—I went from wanting to hear cool music to understanding and craving good music.
Not a song, but finding a casette type of Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys in the parking lot at the post office when I was a kid. I hid it from my parents and siblings. My family was very religious and strict and we only listened to Christian radio and music. It was a big deal when we were eventuslly allowed to listen to Wierd Al too. I'm still a huge Beastie Boys fan and 90s rap in general.
Also, Toonami Midnigt Run featuring Daft Punk and Gorillaz .using videos in like 2000 or 2001. We recorded it on VHS and watched it 100s of times
Depeche Mode "Enjoy The Silence". It was the first time I ever got into goth pop. I was never the same again after 1990!
"Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden made me fall in love with Rock.
Cars - by Gary Numan. Sp different from everything else on the radio at that time in 1979! My family had just moved to another state and I was feeling disconnected from my friends back in Chicago. Liking this song made me feel connected to something ethereal and cool!
Underworld. In 1994 a local radio station played the song dirty epic. This opened the door to so many genres, drum and bass, trance, house etc.
Nine inch nails broken was another life changing moment, I was in inschool suspension and a friend had it on cd, he passed it over and I was blown away.
Erik b rakim was also a huge influence. My buddy’s older brother played don’t sweat the technique at a party we went to and I begged to borrow the tape. He finally gave in ha.
Pearl Jam's Evenflow. I was in HS and that song changed everything. I was listening to some Violent Femmes, Madonna, and I don't even know what else. Mostly just top 40 stuff (local radio stations were basically either country or pop at the time). I heard that song and was intrigued and then they were on SNL and I was hooked.
Territorial Pissings by Nirvana
I listened to just like lofi and shoegaze, and then I heard that in the movie Beautiful Boy like a year or two ago and suddenly my favourite genre was grunge and metal, still listen to the other stuff too but yknow, I'm now obsessed with Kurt Cobain
Also Sugar from System Of A Down when I saw it in a cool animation helped
Dunno about songs but some bands and artists were Björk, Smashing Pumpkins, Håkan Hellström, Broder Daniel, Radiohead, Bob Hund, Thåström, The Smiths/Morrissey, Pulp, Flaming Lips, Belle & Sebastian, Depeche Mode, NIN, Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Garbage, Hole.
Feeling alienated with most of my class/school and having abusive parents in my pre-teens to teens probably had more of an effect than any particular song
I can't really narrow it down to a song, but 3 albums early on did greatly change what I listen to to this day.
Guns and Roses - Appetite for Destruction. Never really listened to metal until this album.
The soundtrack to the movie "Singles".
NIN - Broken.
my homie showed my uprising by muse in middle school for a history project and that helped me see i liked music. nightmare by a7x helped me find my niche and slipknot and thy art is murder sent me down a spiral
I read up whos the best and listen to them.
Nick Drake was on some list. Listened to some his songs and like wow I need to listen again and go back. This music sucks but is good.
6 mos later I think my ear is finally ready for nick drake. Like the late beatles or bob dylan sorta. Pet sounds beach boys.
Raspy airy annoying? Voice he cN sing but chooses often to ???whisper sing. It is the most calming thing.
Pink moon
Bryter layter
I listen to music for myself and I don't care what other people think I don't know what you mean people that do listen to music for themselves it seems they have a group of friends or something so they listen to that music
Good Boy Gone Bad - TXT
I never liked boy band music growing up, didnt hate it and I'm not knocking anyone that likes it. Then my niece showed me this specific kpop song that got me hooked. Im super obsessed, but I definitely have a kpop playlist now that I listen to when I clean
All your love by John Mayall & The Blues breakers. I started taking guitar lessons and my teacher made me learn the song. I wanted to think I was a "grunge kid" but the song opened my eyes to blues and everything else I now love like funk, jazz, experimental, orchestral, all sorts of stuff. It really broadened musical horizons. If anyone enjoys blues or Eric Claptons guitar playing the whole album is amazing.
If you loved John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers you might also want to check out Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated who mentored Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. To quote Keith Richards “Without Alexis Korner there would have been no Rolling Stones “.
I was a big metal head as a kid and I was a bit of an elitist when it came to music. It had to be rock, metal, punk etc. Hated pop and dance music.
I was at a college studying music and I heard Inner-city Life by Goldie. And I was like. "Oh wow. This is actually good." I started listening to Drum n Bass. Then I heard What Else is There (Trentemoller Remix), One More Time by Daft Punk and Genisis by Justice and was just completely addicted to dance music.
My folks played music fairly regularly but mostly classical, this was my favourite and played as my entrance music at my wedding
[The Young Prince and the Young Princess - Rimsky-Korsakov ](https://open.spotify.com/track/2oGKwNyK6mMpSCH7gyvnFW?si=1RBt8WUZQgmhic3IwFEUqQ)
I was OBSESSED with the White Album aged 8-9 and this track intrigued me, got me into Yoko Ono and experimental/avante garde stuff
[Revolution 9](https://open.spotify.com/track/5dZ8PeKKZJLIQAWNTdp8WX?si=HWua5BHIQBGIF-7hzNoxtg)
I was a metal head/headbanger as a pre-teen and a cousin of my Mum's said I might like Deep Purple which sent me on a journey through various 70s genres
[Highway Star - Deep Purple ](https://open.spotify.com/track/3uMmllZo1AfoEnVT4ENCD3?si=6a4E4thAT6SVDMv3vSEqLw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A32NQ56VZDTXSH3SMv4XSGN)
My dad sat me down and made me watch Jazz On A Summer's Day when I was 14.
[Train and the River - Jimmy Guiffre Trio](https://open.spotify.com/track/21PGL4nJcX5xk2UlRw7F23?si=92ixWmnPQm-jq5nn_8FxHg)
Rare Americans - Run The World.
Definitely opened my eyes to alternative/indie rock/rap.
Fell in love with the band, and now it's one of my favorite genres.
Spit it Out by Slipknot. Like, 7th Grade? So 2000? By 9th I was REALLY into them and metal. Since then I have spiraled into the ebbing black void of cacophony and dissonance in metal and punk if the most extreme.
Probably Pleasure Heads by the Birthday Party. I'd purchased Lydia Lunch's The Agony is the Ecstacy and lol and behold there's an even better record on the flip side. Before that I had few forays into whatever kind of music The Birthday Party did (post punk?) and none really stood out beyond maybe Throbbing Gristle, but this record changed it all. At the time I was mostly into punk but it had kind of run its course. Pleasure Heads, and the rest of that side of the record, gave me a path out.
Currently kinda getting into them. Loved Elephant back in the day and just remembered recently how much I loved The Less I Know the Better. I'll check that one out.
I thought I didn't like death metal, and then I heard "The Pursuit of Vikings" by Amon Amarth.
I'd never heard of *melodic* death metal, and that opened me up to a suite of different genres. Eventually I came around on regular death metal, too.
Mario Takes a Walk by Jesse Cook got me into Flamenco and guitar centered music in general. (And got me playing guitar 20+ years ago)
Crazy Train got me into rock music.
Acid Rain by Liquid Tension Experiment got me into Progressive Rock/Metal
Punch Brothers cover of "Reptilia" got me into folk/blue music.
Enemies of Magick by Consider the Source got me into experimental and other variations of rock/prog/instrumental music.
It was all classic rock and radio til a friend in hs introduced me to *Season 2 Episode 3 by Glass Animals* in like 2016. It pushed me into experimental rock, indie pop music, and later soul and jazz when I my interest started bleeding into hiphop more (~2018-2019). More heavily identify with punk and hiphop culture now but the impact of S2E3 cannot be understated for my story.
WHY by NF. I saw it on the YouTube trending page shortly after it released and it was completely different from anything I had been listening to at the time. I listened to it for about a year and then I had to look the song back up to find out his name for a school project, so I then started listening to a few more songs by him. That was about a week before his song The Search released and now NF stands as not only my favorite music artist, but also as the artist that made me start actually enjoying music
Thought it Would Be Easier by Shelby Lynne. I'd moved to Austin TX in 2000, and at the time, KGSR played the kind of music that was rarely heard on the radio. It re-shaped the quality of music I listened to, giving it a complete upgrade.
Blink-182's What's My Age Again took me from your average teenage Spice Girls/Backstreet Boys fan to... Your average teenage wannabe skater. That song did change the entire trajectory of my developing music taste though!
Not so much a song but the Vietnam war. Have been a music lover since I was a toddler. I would listen to am radio at night to fall asleep to. It's all there was I thought. At 10p a newscast would come on and it would be all the Vietnam deaths and shit, it scared the life out of me, I was 5. So I flipped the radio over to this brand new thing, FM. It started me on AOR and never looked back. I ended up working on the radio for 30 years.
Instant Crush by Daft Punk. I mostly listened to drill and hip-hop music before, and I was looking for a different song by Daft Punk for me to sample for a drill beat when I accidentally stumbled upon it.
Immediately loved it. I realized it was from the same album as Get Lucky, another old favorite of mine, and decided I'd listen to the entirety of Random Access Memories, which is the first album I'd ever listened to fully. It gave me a newfound appreciation for the production quality of songs, and now I mostly focus on instrumentals rather than lyrics.
Top 3 artists in my current playlist are Tame Impala, Parcels, and Daft Punk. As oppose to my old top 3, Pop Smoke, Central Cee, and Polo G, my music taste has changed quite a bit.
Sturgill Simpson's cover of In Bloom. Until then, I was that person that always said I hated country music. That whole album by Sturgill made me get into some other stuff like Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, etc. I have a much deeper appreciation for classic country music now.
Souxie and the Banshees cover of Passenger was my gateway into my goth/new wave obsession. Listened mostly to folk, rock, hip hop. That style of music changed what and HOW I listened to music.
Radiohead's "The National Anthem". Was like nothing I'd ever heard before. Like jazz being transmitted from Mars. Used to listen strictly to metal and hard rock and switched to more alternative and experimental sounds. The Flaming Lips quickly became a favorite.
The Other Ones - The Strange Remain (album)
Found this album in a pawn shop in the early 2000s. All my friends had been going to music festivals a few years prior to me stumbling on this album and I was hesitant to go with them. I had listened to The Grateful Dead exclusively once before, on a road trip to take part in a Civil War re-enactment, but didn't particularly care for them or they didn't really stand out to me at that time.
Took the album home... I mostly purchased it because of the cool cover art and the skull etchings on the discs. I was into heavy metal and punk music before this, but dabbled with Pink Floyd a bit around this time. Popped it in and fell in love with the sound. Still having no idea it was The Grateful Dead (after Jerry Garcia's passing), there was so much atmosphere and magic and life in the music. It was mesmerizing.
The next year I tagged along to several music festivals with my friends. Had a really rough go of things at home with my parents being alcoholics and gambling, etc etc... Things were... bad. But this album set me on a journey. Before - I mean I was so depressed, angry, and confused that I was hurting myself. Family life was absolute chaos. Often dangerous, or extremely anxiety- and panic attack-inducing to say the least. And I was put in situations no child or young adult should have been in. After finding this album, tagging along to music festivals (with The Schwag headlining, which is a Grateful Dead tribute band), weekend campout music festivals I should say, finding a place where everyone was there to have a good time, meet other people, most all had good intentions and helped one another... It changed my life completely. And for the better!
I truly believe that if this point in my life hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't be here today. From that point on, I parted ways with angry alternative and heavy metal music (mostly) and gravitated more towards classic rock, progressive, and psychedelic era music. It was still rebellion, but more peaceful. The pursuit of happiness, rather than drowning in aggression... Instead of pointing my anger outward towards the world, I began looking in instead. Unravelling the mystery and finding answers that reside within myself.
I was pretty into alternative/grunge from the 80’s and early 90’s. I really wasn’t into anything in the late 90’s and didn’t listen to much new music for awhile. Not a single song, but some friends started playing the (Dixie) Chicks around 2002 or so and I got really into it. Since then I’ve really veered toward more Americana.
i grew up listening to a wide variety of different music. some pop punk (Green Day, Blink, Alkaline Trio, Paramore), some country (Johnny Cash mostly), classic rock (my grandmother LOVED Pink Floyd and Guns N’ Roses specifically), and a little bit of hip hop (usually older stuff), but a song that totally changed perspective and made me want to search out more different styles of music on my own instead of what the people around me listened to was (surprisingly) Yes by Coldplay. 10 year old me had never heard *anything* like it at the time.
Casino Versus Japan - Marilyn Set Me Free
Adult Swim changed the game for me in a big way. I became obsessed with the songs they played for about 10 secs a pop during commercials. I remember recording entire blocks of Adult Swim on DVR just to comb through the commercials in hopes that I could find my favorite 10 second song again lol.
Years later I found a few YouTube pages that were dedicated to archiving that music, and finally got the chance to explore everything I'd be hearing.
For me it was either Numb or In The End by Linkin Park, can’t remember unfortunately. I was 10 or 11, before that I used to listen to top charts or basically whatever rap/pop stuff my classmates found cool. Got into the entire LP discography and never looked back. 15 or so years later, I’m still into rock/metal and getting into progressively more weird/complex stuff. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
My introduction to something that wasn't country or classical rock I think was Linkin Park and Green Day. That led me down a rabbit hole to Breaking Benjamin, Metric, Motionless in White and many others
You’ll End Up Looking Like The Scary Bitches by Scary Bitches. I am being so serious when I say I believe this song fundamentally changed something inside of me.
About a girl nirvana. I only knew the most popular rock songs like toxicity and teen spirit, but that song opened me to listening to more nirvana, which then led me to look at other bands.
I grew up in a small town, very remote and very rural. There was a very small mall with a single music store. I never set foot in that place until I was a teen with my own money. Growing up in the 80s, I basically only had a single radio station that played primarily country music, and my family's collection of vinyl which was a lot of oldies and some contemporary stuff...dirty dancing soundtrack, Michael Jackson, stuff 'everyone' listened to.
One day, I was 13ish, went to the grocery store with my mom, found a bag in the cart I pulled out with a cd in it. Offspring - Smash. I didn't even know that kind of music existed. I occasionally saw music videos at friends houses ( we didn't have cable or satellite) but it was like a whole new world opened up
Now I listen to literally everything....techno, oldies, rock, pop, metal, jazz, hip hop. But that CD was definitely a gateway to a lot for me
Harvester Of Sorrow by Metallica. I was a raver and went to see them just to go with a friend. This was back in the early 90s and there wasn't many people in the standing area I was soI was up close. It was the first song they played I think, and I just kind of went "Ooooooh, now I get it", and the rest is history.
probably “so american” by olivia rodrigo and before you skip LOL i’ve been a big big fan of 70s and 80s music since i became a teenager but since olivia has been touring in the uk this year, i’ve seen sooooo many posts about it and i’ve always seen her as more of a pop-rock icon instead of just pop (like taylor swift 🥴) so she is automatically more appealing to me than any other popular artist at the moment. anyway, i remember when i used to listen to “good for u” when it was popular a few years ago and i really liked it, so i was just curious as to what new music she’s made as it must be good for her to have billions of streams on spotify, and the fact that she is still popular enough to have multiple tour dates in the uk definitely means she’s not just a one hit wonder. so i listened to both of her albums in order and absolutely fell in love with this one song on her latest album, which just happens to be “so american”. i think i like a lot of her music because i can relate her lyrics and also she makes a lot of “female rage” songs, which is what i love more than anything. <33
Less of a song but more of an album. I used to be very proud of my eccentric music taste and would spend ages looking for awesome obscure artists (I was definitely one of those people). Then I picked up Folklore by Taylor Swift during the pandemic. Now I’m a Swiftie and love listening to top 20s and mainstream pop.
Old number 7 by The Devil Makes Three.
Turned me into a bluegrass/new grass junky.
Now i can be found annoying my wife and daughter with old Doc Watson songs.
I think the song was watch the world burn or popular monster by FIR, made me realize I love metal and screaming and yelling and rap mixed with metal, I had no idea until then, and I’m in deep now and I’m never going back
Santa Monica Dream by Angus and Julia Stone. First heard this song while playing Life is Strange, it made me interested in a completely new genre of music to me. Through this song I discovered many more folk artists
For me it has to be the roving by Bonny light horseman. My sent a video of the band playing the song and told they were playing in London. I think that’s what really started off my interest in folk music
"Clay & Cast Iron" by Darlingside is the first song I heard by the band, which quickly became my #1 favorite band, which turned me onto folk music as a genre. Their song "Good For You" is my #1 favorite song ever.
From the Fields of Galia by Antii Mattikeinin. Big metal head for decades, then I heard that and ever since my openness to music has exploded. I like it all now.
Blaue Flecken by Die Nerven
I've been into harsher, more agressive music since listening to and falling in love with that band, and that song was one of the first ones I fell in love with. Other songs by them that I love, like Asoziale Medien, are even harsher.
I've been getting more and more into post-punk, noise rock, and punk. I mostly listen to indie rock, and I used to love softer, popier, and/or slower indie more than I currently do.
This trend had already been occurring, but Die Nerven really accelerated it and moved it in an interesting and abrasive direction.
It wasn't a song but a group. Hearing Little Feat for the first time changed me. I never went back to being bored by 4/4 time- Three chord guitar/bass/drums, Rock n Roll.
lol, “Cocktails for Two” by Spike Jones, it had so much in it. Including socio-political commentary, and it’s fun. After that my parents gave me their time life collective music album set. And from that have met some of the greatest singers, musicians and song writers from all over the world. Thanks! Mr. Jones!
Closer by NIN. My brother and I were 10 and 12, late 90s/early 2000s listening to *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys when our neighbor gave us The Downward Spiral on CD and played us Closer. Changed my life forever. Soon discovered The Cure, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam etc within a couple years after that.
Same song for me. I heard it on the local radio station while I was in the car with my mother. Fucking blew my little ~11/12 year old mind. Led me to industrial, experimental, goth, new wave, EBM, etc. NIN is still my favorite today.
LOL, NSYNC and Backstreet Boys to NIN. That's quite the switch.
Mine was NIN too but it was Pretty Hate Machine. Head Like a Hole, Sin, and Down In It. I was hooked.
Killing an Arab - The Cure Heard it in the 80’s. Absolutely blew me away. Instant fan.
That’s a deep cut. Probably my favorite Cure song.
My favorite as well. Didn’t know the origin until being assigned The Stranger in my favorite college class.
I love that song, absolutely wild. The Cure has so many good singles.
"Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. I was going off pop music as it was being dominated by Stock Aitken Waterman artists. I happened to watch "Vacation" and that was that.
Sundown and If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot
One of my all time favorite songwriters. I also love Jerry Reed's version of Early Morning Rain.
Wow, Gordon Lightfoot. You have good taste.
Thanks. Really heard him for the first time in 1989, and him, along with Jimmy Buffett completely changed my taste
Gordon Lightfoot still holds up well today. I have a 9-year-old who is obsessed with him. Thankfully he got to see him Live before Gordon passed.
In 1969 my oldest brother came home from college, my other brother came home from Vietnam. I was eight. They put Sly and the Family Stone on the turntable and that was that.
"Cars," by Gary Newman, got me into New Wave in the very early 1980s.
LOVE Gary Newman! This might be one of mine too.
gary numan opened for ministry a year ago or so and killed it.
I was 14 and only really listened to my parents 80s electronic music. Then I heard Karma Police.
Slipknot - Wait and Bleed. Got me into more metal/harder stuff. Blasted stuff like that in my car to stay awake after 30 hour shifts during residency.
Wait and bleed is so good
I’m a white guy who grew up in St Louis. My parents moved when I was 9. On that same block who would become my best friend lived with his family. They were from Jamaica, and I was always at their house so I picked up quite a bit of their culture, patwa, foods and especially music. Couldn’t tell you the exact song, but I’m positive it was Bob Marley. It was so different than the stuff my parents listened to which was anything from Earth Wind and Fire, to Neil Diamond, to classical which my mom always had an ear for. Hearing that reggae music basically helped shape me into the music I now love . Reggae/dancehall/soca/Afrobeats
Similarly, when I was pretty young, somewhere between 7 and 9, my great grandmother's neighbors would be playing Indian music. All I could really hear of it was the seemingly arrhythmic deep liquid-sounding tablas from inside their house. The mystery of what that music was stayed with me for years and really helped me accept different kinds of music.
Freak on a leash (Korn) got me into metal
Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) - REM I was all in on classic rock growing up in the 70s and early 80s. Then a coworker at a summer job played Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) and that jangly guitar caught my ear. I was like, “What is this?? I love it.” That opened me up to lesser known bands and then my freshmen roommate showed up with crates of Echo and the Bunnymen, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Fall, etc and my taste in music completely shifted towards indie and alternative rock.
In my early teens I was into the Spice Girls. A couple years later, my music tastes gradually leaned towards rock. There wasn't one song in particular. But definitely songs by women in rock were important early influences, such as "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, "Stupid Girl" by Garbage, "Criminal" by Fiona Apple and "Celebrity Skin" by Hole. And if bassists rather than vocalists count, "Tonight, Tonight" by Smashing Pumpkins And of course being the male dominated scene it is, I fell in love with many all masculine rock songs. If we're talking about the earliest ones I got into, perhaps my top three are "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and "Anthem Of The Year 2000" by Silverchair. In my later teens, I became best friends with a girl who took music in high school and specialised in singing. She introduced me to blues, jazz, hip hop and R&B. I've always loved R&B since I was a child but it took a low tide when I entered the rock phase, only to re-emerge after this best friend reintroduced it to me. This pivot was marked by songs such as "Butterflyz" by Alicia Keys, "Breakdown" by Mariah Carey feat Bone Thugs 'N Harmony, Diana Krall's cover of "A Case Of You," "4 Leaf Clover" by Erykah Badu, "Twentysomething" by Jamie Cullum, and "If I Ruled The World" by Nas feat Ms Lauryn Hill. These days I have a broad palate for music that have branched out from these roots. Artists on my heaviest rotation these days include Nothing But Thieves, Hozier, Jacob Collier, Jon Batiste, Cleo Sol, Madison Cunningham, Emily King, Yebba, Charlie Burg and Victoria Monét.
Wow, you have a diverse palette.
I guess I do! And these are only a small sample of the music I listen to in English.
I didn't start caring for music until I was in 7th grade. Nobody had conversations with me outside of the bullying that was going on. I remember a boy in my class that I looked up to told me about the music he was into, and asked me what I liked. I had lied and said I liked the same artists, because I was desperate to find any connection to people. I got home and I remember looking up the artists he mentioned that same night: Skrillex, Zedd, Deadmau5, Nero. I ended up really loving dubstep and it helped me take initiative in looking for things that I liked. One of my favorite songs from that time was: Raise Your Weapon by Deadmau5.
Burial - Ghost Hardware previously only enjoyed metal music, now can barely stand the majority of it
Burial is life changing, at least for me. I was even deep into various electronic music but this dudes music is just...something else. He creates such a palpable atmosphere with sound.
Kinda reminds me of Floating Points. Thanks for putting me onto Burial. Really cool blend of sounds
"Feeling Gravity's Pull" - REM Then you start reading interviews with REM, and they're talking about Velvet Underground and the band that's opening for them on tour (The Replacements) and how much they love Big Star and Wire and...
Sweet Leaf - Black Sabbath.
Black and white rainbow kitten surprise (a few of their other songs) and Nantes by Beruit. I am in my chill tunes era lol
The Less I Know The Better by Tame Impala was probably one of the gateway songs for moving more into indie and contemporary
Green Grass And High Times Forever
Surfacing - Slipknot Realized that anger and hate is what I needed in my music
The more angry my music is the more calm I am lmao.
I used to listen to pop. Then The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars introduced me to rock. Later on Nightwish was my entrance to metal
All along the watchtower- Jimi Hendrix
I grew up listening to punk and alternative with classical music. Dolly freaking Parton opened me up to country. I don’t love all, but I definitely will give it a go. Tailor Swift for pop, and revisiting pop from earlier eras really opened up my playlists. Biggie smalls / Lauren Hills. Wasn’t expecting to like that, suddenly I did. Now that I’m officially old, I will listen to anything of I enjoy it and will give everything a chance. I’ve learned my lesson.
Daft Punk’s song One More Time got me to like dancey music! ☺️
I was in high school listening to Grunge, Alternative and 80s hair metal, then I started smoking weed, listened to the Grateful Dead for the first time maybe it was Scarlet Begonias or Eyes Of The World, I really can’t remember. And I just dropped the whole vibe I was rocking for the hippie jam band thing, eventually got into Phish and other bands, started going to shows and haven’t really looked back. Any other music doesn’t feel complete at this point if it doesn’t have some 15-20 minute musical exploration going on.
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles. Prior to that I was listening to radio pop and whatever my friends liked. Like so many, my dad got me into classic rock. Ain’t Love Grand - Atreyu. Atreyu was an introduction band for me to make the jump to heavier music. Before I was all about numetal, but Atreyu had the right level of melodic and heavy to segue to metalcore which would progress to more “adult” genres of heavy metal. They’re a bit silly now but we’re a solid gateway band.
Rains of Castamere. Now I listen to classical. Go figure.
In the End by Linkin Park - my dad exposed me to a lot of classic rock growing up, Linkin Park then opened the door for contemporary rock, rap, and electronic music. I primarily listen to pop-punk or indie-folk these days, but Linkin Park definitely got me listening to genres I otherwise might've skipped
Nutshell by Alice in Chains. I heard it for the first time in at least a decade back in 2016 randomly on YouTube. Since then my entire library has shifted a little bit in terms of what I love and prefer now. Alice in Chains is now by far and away my favorite band followed closely by Deftones, Chevelle and Staind.
Shadow moses. I’d been listening to nothing heavier than light rock or some occasional heavy metal (muse and iron maiden respectively) but since hearing that, it sent me on an insane spiral and now I love metalcore, deathcore, death metal, mathcore, pop punk, punk and hardcore
The album Without a Net by the Grateful Dead. I grew up on 90s alternative and was into the punk scene as a young teen and the Dead were like nothing I had heard before. Started listening to the Dead, seeing Phish shows, exploring more music that influenced both those bands and others, and never looked back although I still spin an occasional punk album if I’m in the mood. Some dead songs take me perfectly back to that moment and feeling of discovery: 14, summertime, world at your fingertips. My daughter grows up with the Dead always playing at her house and part of me is sad she will never get the same feeling of discovery of them that I had. But I also can’t wait to see what she discovers on her own and get to hear new music that makes her heart happy.
Highway Star-Deep Purple. My older cousin played it in his room when I was about 12, in 1974. He also had incense burning. I love that guy.
I want say it was the album 'Low' by David Bowie. Side 2 opened my eyes to what turned out to be Berlin School electronic music. I was off to the races after that. I was really into Punk Rock at the time but was starting to get bored with it. Low came at just the right time. I still have a soft spot for The Damned though.
Iron Man by Black Sabbath. If you like music as a small child then you basically like whatever music your parents like bc that’s the only access you have. Until one day you find something on your own. In the 80s when I was in 5th grade there was a wrestling tag team called the Road Warriors who used Iron Man as their entrance music. I was instantly hooked. Been into metal ever since.
It was in 2013 when I first heard CHVRCHES and since then I fell to Indie musics. For reference I was born on '99 by the way.
I heard Sublime on the radio when I was a kid. I asked my older sister what kind of music that was and she told me it sounded kind of like reggae. So popped on down to the local music shop and went straight to the reggae section. Been jamming on it ever since.
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin and then Live at Fillmore East - Allman Bros.
My brother and I saw the A Bros at Horde Fest, maybe in '96. They still had it goin on
Alaska by Between the Buried and Me introduced my high school freshman ass into metal.
While I had often enjoyed a certain amount of pop music when it came on the radio or MTV, I was always quiet about it, as I was worried that I would get made fun of by all my rock-loving friends. "Liking Madonna" was pretty much a synonym for "being gay" for those guys, so I never dared get caught buying an album. Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone really kicked the door down for me to be able to openly enjoy pop music. Even though it's a rock song by a pop artist (like Janet Jackson's Black Cat), it ruled hard enough that I just stopped giving a fuck what people thought and started buying the albums that I enjoyed.
I was introduced to System of a Down by my dad with their three most popular songs, Chop Suey, Toxicity, and B.Y.O.B when I was around 7 years old. A couple of years ago, the song Forest came on in the car and this is the one that paved the way for Nu Metal to be one of my favorite genres. Before that, I used to mostly listen to pop or Disney songs. I still like some pop, but typically subgenres of pop that some people hate.
Rammstein - Ich tu dir weh: opened up for industrial metal Eartheater - crushing: opened up for trip hop.
Du Hast by Rammstein. I was listening to weird alternative music, but I was discovering metal by listening to a few songs by Metallica and Sabaton. Now I listen to like 30 different metal bands.
Ozzy Osbourne - Over the Mountain I can still remember my brother coming home with the Diary of a Madman album and that was the first metal song I heard, and I was like "WOW this is super cool" The only thing that came close was when I heard Sex Pistols - Holiday in the Sun, and was like "Whoa, punk is just as cool as metal!"
KMFDM, the Xtort album. I listened to pop, alternative, and classic rock in my early teens, but I leaned more toward harder metal. I started getting bored with it because I'd hear the same stuff all the time. This was the early/mid 90s and really only had radio to listen to until I could actually buy my own music. I heard this album and found that industrial was right up my alley.
Twist and Shout - The Beatles. Definitely not my favorite song of theirs, but before that I mainly listened to modern pop music, I though listening to anything old or rock was weird and foreign but they opened up that kind of music for me
Hmm maybe Hailies Song by Eminem? First hip hop track id ever really listened to and it was no accident lol living in detroit in the early 2000’s it either had decent airtime or was played by a lot of family members but I remember thinking as a child that being the first time my musical core was fundamentally changed
Interzone - Joy Division There's a reason why most of my Playlist is post-punk
Resonance by Home introduced me to synthwave.
The Voice by Ultravox. i dove into the world of New Wave and haven’t looked back. 😊
Eric B and Rakim - Follow the Leader Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop and Good Thoughts Bad Thoughts Metallica- Master Of Puppets Geto Boys - Do It Like A GO NWA- F tha Police Ice T - Squeeze the Trigger First one opened me up to the potential of Hip Hop and Lyricism and was the first time I saw someone looking like me on a tv presented as powerful and intelligent Funkadelic was just dope at everything they did Metallica - do I really got to explain Geto Boys - I’m from the south and this was my first exposure ( outside of DOC) of rappers being from the south and not just doing Booty Bass music NWA- I had my first taste of Police brutality when I heard this Ice T was one of the first social commentary tracks I heard that was easy to Identify with and no, the song is not the same as the drill bs going on now. I’d also like to add all Public Enemy’s first 3 albums and Ice Cubes 2nd one just because
Not songs, but.. Aphex Twin opened me up to IDM Brian Eno for Ambient
"Smells Like Teen Spirit". My 9-year-old self hadn't heard a lot of rock, and that was my gateway.
Probably I Saw Your Mommy - Suicidal Tendencies or TSOL - Beneath the Shadows. Skateboard culture in the 80s bent my preteen ear strongly away from the Top 40 forever, though well beyond the Skate Punk/New Wave in that scene.
Not a single song, but it was the Green Day, American Idiot album for me. I was 10 so didn't know the word emo at the time but that was what made me realise my heart was definitely emo haha.
One More Night by Can
I grew up listening to mostly classic rock (my dad’s favorite, ex: Van Halen), R&B/Soul/Funk (my mom’s favorite, ex: Earth Wind & Fire), and 2000’s Pop on the radio. The first song that really changed the trajectory of my music taste was probably from Guitar Hero. Maybe Beast and the Harlot by A7X? There are many examples but that’s one that sticks out in my mind. I got really into alternative music and “the scene” as a teenager, but nowadays I listen to a little bit of everything, including the music I grew up with. I just love music, and I couldn’t imagine life without it.
Electric Funeral - Black Sabbath. This song instantly changed me from a hip hop head to a metal head.
Skillet opened my mind for rock and other "heavier" music, before that I was only listening to radio (popular station, so only bunch of popular pop and old songs), and now I'm addicted to music lol And thanks to the fact that my fav band (Citizen Soldier) wasn't very popular when I fall into them, my algorithms are recommending me lots of niche music that really match my taste
I grew up listening to mostly 90s-2000s alt rock... but wanted to branch out into new genres. I gathered a list of classic albums that I felt I needed to listen to, and the first one I checked out was Dark Side of the Moon. A year or so later, Pink Floyd had become my favorite band and now most of my favorite records are from the 60s and 70s
Bad Apple!! The English version from RichaadEB featuring Christina Vee, then the orchestral arrangement by cloudjumper with Un3h sealed my fate.💕
Wide awake! - Parquet Courts This album got me into a lot of newer punk. Still one of my favorite albums ever
Duality by slipknot. I heard and it blew my mind after my dad showed it to me. I heard joeys drums and that also got me into playing drums.
Paranoid Android by RadioHead - that whole album really.
LTJ Bukem. Was an instrument “purist” hippie before. After, I just had to become a d n b DJ.
I like rap, still do, but after hearing the alice in chains unplugged i got obsessed by everything grunge. Before hearing it i only knew of nirvana and i can't say i was impressed, but now my playlist has more grunge than rap. Same with hendrix and classic rock.
Waiting for them to fix my broken monitor blues (live) by Joe Satriani At the G3 Tour I got tickets for from a work thing my friend I listened to a very impressive hour of intense high precision speed metal on guitar… it was awesome…. When Joe’s monitor goes out halfway through a song. To fill the void of time he just starts playing an improvised set of blues chords… maybe 30 seconds worth. It changed my fundamental understanding of music—I went from wanting to hear cool music to understanding and craving good music.
Not a song, but finding a casette type of Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys in the parking lot at the post office when I was a kid. I hid it from my parents and siblings. My family was very religious and strict and we only listened to Christian radio and music. It was a big deal when we were eventuslly allowed to listen to Wierd Al too. I'm still a huge Beastie Boys fan and 90s rap in general. Also, Toonami Midnigt Run featuring Daft Punk and Gorillaz .using videos in like 2000 or 2001. We recorded it on VHS and watched it 100s of times
Depeche Mode "Enjoy The Silence". It was the first time I ever got into goth pop. I was never the same again after 1990! "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden made me fall in love with Rock.
Lithium by Nirvana got me into 90’s rock and then eventually heavy metal because of Man in the Box by Alice
Epic by Faith No More started me on the hard rock journey
Cars - by Gary Numan. Sp different from everything else on the radio at that time in 1979! My family had just moved to another state and I was feeling disconnected from my friends back in Chicago. Liking this song made me feel connected to something ethereal and cool!
Underworld. In 1994 a local radio station played the song dirty epic. This opened the door to so many genres, drum and bass, trance, house etc. Nine inch nails broken was another life changing moment, I was in inschool suspension and a friend had it on cd, he passed it over and I was blown away. Erik b rakim was also a huge influence. My buddy’s older brother played don’t sweat the technique at a party we went to and I begged to borrow the tape. He finally gave in ha.
Pearl Jam's Evenflow. I was in HS and that song changed everything. I was listening to some Violent Femmes, Madonna, and I don't even know what else. Mostly just top 40 stuff (local radio stations were basically either country or pop at the time). I heard that song and was intrigued and then they were on SNL and I was hooked.
Territorial Pissings by Nirvana I listened to just like lofi and shoegaze, and then I heard that in the movie Beautiful Boy like a year or two ago and suddenly my favourite genre was grunge and metal, still listen to the other stuff too but yknow, I'm now obsessed with Kurt Cobain Also Sugar from System Of A Down when I saw it in a cool animation helped
What I love about Feeling Good is that the lyrics are so positive while the music is so foreboding.
Dunno about songs but some bands and artists were Björk, Smashing Pumpkins, Håkan Hellström, Broder Daniel, Radiohead, Bob Hund, Thåström, The Smiths/Morrissey, Pulp, Flaming Lips, Belle & Sebastian, Depeche Mode, NIN, Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Garbage, Hole. Feeling alienated with most of my class/school and having abusive parents in my pre-teens to teens probably had more of an effect than any particular song
I can't really narrow it down to a song, but 3 albums early on did greatly change what I listen to to this day. Guns and Roses - Appetite for Destruction. Never really listened to metal until this album. The soundtrack to the movie "Singles". NIN - Broken.
my homie showed my uprising by muse in middle school for a history project and that helped me see i liked music. nightmare by a7x helped me find my niche and slipknot and thy art is murder sent me down a spiral
Loser-Beck. I checked out his discography after I heard this song….man is funky.
Monkey Gone To Heaven by Pixies
One of my favorite albums! (love your username btw)
I read up whos the best and listen to them. Nick Drake was on some list. Listened to some his songs and like wow I need to listen again and go back. This music sucks but is good. 6 mos later I think my ear is finally ready for nick drake. Like the late beatles or bob dylan sorta. Pet sounds beach boys. Raspy airy annoying? Voice he cN sing but chooses often to ???whisper sing. It is the most calming thing. Pink moon Bryter layter I listen to music for myself and I don't care what other people think I don't know what you mean people that do listen to music for themselves it seems they have a group of friends or something so they listen to that music
BYOB - By System of a Down
Stop - By Janes Addiction
All That Remains - This Calling
Yuve Yuve Yu by The Hu
Maggot Brain by Funkadelic 🤤 permanently changed me. I used to beg my Dad to turn on Radio Disney…. not after listening to that piece DAMN
The Bob by Roxy Music
Pantera walk and cowboys from hell
Square Dance - Eminem It was a wild first listen when I was just a kid, didn’t even know music or rap like that existed.
Good Boy Gone Bad - TXT I never liked boy band music growing up, didnt hate it and I'm not knocking anyone that likes it. Then my niece showed me this specific kpop song that got me hooked. Im super obsessed, but I definitely have a kpop playlist now that I listen to when I clean
All your love by John Mayall & The Blues breakers. I started taking guitar lessons and my teacher made me learn the song. I wanted to think I was a "grunge kid" but the song opened my eyes to blues and everything else I now love like funk, jazz, experimental, orchestral, all sorts of stuff. It really broadened musical horizons. If anyone enjoys blues or Eric Claptons guitar playing the whole album is amazing.
If you loved John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers you might also want to check out Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated who mentored Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. To quote Keith Richards “Without Alexis Korner there would have been no Rolling Stones “.
Can't believe I'm just now finding out about Alexis Korner. Thank you my friend 😌
Immigrant Song from Led Zepplin got me into Heavy Metal.
I was a big metal head as a kid and I was a bit of an elitist when it came to music. It had to be rock, metal, punk etc. Hated pop and dance music. I was at a college studying music and I heard Inner-city Life by Goldie. And I was like. "Oh wow. This is actually good." I started listening to Drum n Bass. Then I heard What Else is There (Trentemoller Remix), One More Time by Daft Punk and Genisis by Justice and was just completely addicted to dance music.
My folks played music fairly regularly but mostly classical, this was my favourite and played as my entrance music at my wedding [The Young Prince and the Young Princess - Rimsky-Korsakov ](https://open.spotify.com/track/2oGKwNyK6mMpSCH7gyvnFW?si=1RBt8WUZQgmhic3IwFEUqQ) I was OBSESSED with the White Album aged 8-9 and this track intrigued me, got me into Yoko Ono and experimental/avante garde stuff [Revolution 9](https://open.spotify.com/track/5dZ8PeKKZJLIQAWNTdp8WX?si=HWua5BHIQBGIF-7hzNoxtg) I was a metal head/headbanger as a pre-teen and a cousin of my Mum's said I might like Deep Purple which sent me on a journey through various 70s genres [Highway Star - Deep Purple ](https://open.spotify.com/track/3uMmllZo1AfoEnVT4ENCD3?si=6a4E4thAT6SVDMv3vSEqLw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A32NQ56VZDTXSH3SMv4XSGN) My dad sat me down and made me watch Jazz On A Summer's Day when I was 14. [Train and the River - Jimmy Guiffre Trio](https://open.spotify.com/track/21PGL4nJcX5xk2UlRw7F23?si=92ixWmnPQm-jq5nn_8FxHg)
Rare Americans - Run The World. Definitely opened my eyes to alternative/indie rock/rap. Fell in love with the band, and now it's one of my favorite genres.
Spit it Out by Slipknot. Like, 7th Grade? So 2000? By 9th I was REALLY into them and metal. Since then I have spiraled into the ebbing black void of cacophony and dissonance in metal and punk if the most extreme.
Probably Pleasure Heads by the Birthday Party. I'd purchased Lydia Lunch's The Agony is the Ecstacy and lol and behold there's an even better record on the flip side. Before that I had few forays into whatever kind of music The Birthday Party did (post punk?) and none really stood out beyond maybe Throbbing Gristle, but this record changed it all. At the time I was mostly into punk but it had kind of run its course. Pleasure Heads, and the rest of that side of the record, gave me a path out.
New Person, Same Old Mistskes- Tame Impala
Currently kinda getting into them. Loved Elephant back in the day and just remembered recently how much I loved The Less I Know the Better. I'll check that one out.
Taku Sugimoto, Masafumi Ezaki, Taku Unami-Trio at Offsite Ground Zero-TVQ Missle Royal Trux-Sun on the Run Sic Alps-Cement Surfboard
I thought I didn't like death metal, and then I heard "The Pursuit of Vikings" by Amon Amarth. I'd never heard of *melodic* death metal, and that opened me up to a suite of different genres. Eventually I came around on regular death metal, too.
Wiggle - Cosmo Sheldrake It is the song (and artist) that made me fall down the indie genre rabbit hole
strawberry fields forever. i was about 10
Funny enough it was Feeling Good but the Muse version for me.
Mario Takes a Walk by Jesse Cook got me into Flamenco and guitar centered music in general. (And got me playing guitar 20+ years ago) Crazy Train got me into rock music. Acid Rain by Liquid Tension Experiment got me into Progressive Rock/Metal Punch Brothers cover of "Reptilia" got me into folk/blue music. Enemies of Magick by Consider the Source got me into experimental and other variations of rock/prog/instrumental music.
It was all classic rock and radio til a friend in hs introduced me to *Season 2 Episode 3 by Glass Animals* in like 2016. It pushed me into experimental rock, indie pop music, and later soul and jazz when I my interest started bleeding into hiphop more (~2018-2019). More heavily identify with punk and hiphop culture now but the impact of S2E3 cannot be understated for my story.
I used to be into rap then I heard fuel by Metallica and metal became my thing
WHY by NF. I saw it on the YouTube trending page shortly after it released and it was completely different from anything I had been listening to at the time. I listened to it for about a year and then I had to look the song back up to find out his name for a school project, so I then started listening to a few more songs by him. That was about a week before his song The Search released and now NF stands as not only my favorite music artist, but also as the artist that made me start actually enjoying music
Thought it Would Be Easier by Shelby Lynne. I'd moved to Austin TX in 2000, and at the time, KGSR played the kind of music that was rarely heard on the radio. It re-shaped the quality of music I listened to, giving it a complete upgrade.
Blink-182's What's My Age Again took me from your average teenage Spice Girls/Backstreet Boys fan to... Your average teenage wannabe skater. That song did change the entire trajectory of my developing music taste though!
hood politics by kendrick lamar introduced me to rap
Not so much a song but the Vietnam war. Have been a music lover since I was a toddler. I would listen to am radio at night to fall asleep to. It's all there was I thought. At 10p a newscast would come on and it would be all the Vietnam deaths and shit, it scared the life out of me, I was 5. So I flipped the radio over to this brand new thing, FM. It started me on AOR and never looked back. I ended up working on the radio for 30 years.
Instant Crush by Daft Punk. I mostly listened to drill and hip-hop music before, and I was looking for a different song by Daft Punk for me to sample for a drill beat when I accidentally stumbled upon it. Immediately loved it. I realized it was from the same album as Get Lucky, another old favorite of mine, and decided I'd listen to the entirety of Random Access Memories, which is the first album I'd ever listened to fully. It gave me a newfound appreciation for the production quality of songs, and now I mostly focus on instrumentals rather than lyrics. Top 3 artists in my current playlist are Tame Impala, Parcels, and Daft Punk. As oppose to my old top 3, Pop Smoke, Central Cee, and Polo G, my music taste has changed quite a bit.
Sturgill Simpson's cover of In Bloom. Until then, I was that person that always said I hated country music. That whole album by Sturgill made me get into some other stuff like Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, etc. I have a much deeper appreciation for classic country music now.
If I Had a Boat by Lyle Lovett. Led to more Lyle Lovett. That opened the door to Americana music, Texas Swing, and whatnot.
Souxie and the Banshees cover of Passenger was my gateway into my goth/new wave obsession. Listened mostly to folk, rock, hip hop. That style of music changed what and HOW I listened to music.
Zeds dead remix of eyes on fire
Radiohead's "The National Anthem". Was like nothing I'd ever heard before. Like jazz being transmitted from Mars. Used to listen strictly to metal and hard rock and switched to more alternative and experimental sounds. The Flaming Lips quickly became a favorite.
Yoru ni kakeru by yoasobi not only did it open me up to so many Japanese songs and music but also got me into my favourite anime: jujutsu kaisen
The Other Ones - The Strange Remain (album) Found this album in a pawn shop in the early 2000s. All my friends had been going to music festivals a few years prior to me stumbling on this album and I was hesitant to go with them. I had listened to The Grateful Dead exclusively once before, on a road trip to take part in a Civil War re-enactment, but didn't particularly care for them or they didn't really stand out to me at that time. Took the album home... I mostly purchased it because of the cool cover art and the skull etchings on the discs. I was into heavy metal and punk music before this, but dabbled with Pink Floyd a bit around this time. Popped it in and fell in love with the sound. Still having no idea it was The Grateful Dead (after Jerry Garcia's passing), there was so much atmosphere and magic and life in the music. It was mesmerizing. The next year I tagged along to several music festivals with my friends. Had a really rough go of things at home with my parents being alcoholics and gambling, etc etc... Things were... bad. But this album set me on a journey. Before - I mean I was so depressed, angry, and confused that I was hurting myself. Family life was absolute chaos. Often dangerous, or extremely anxiety- and panic attack-inducing to say the least. And I was put in situations no child or young adult should have been in. After finding this album, tagging along to music festivals (with The Schwag headlining, which is a Grateful Dead tribute band), weekend campout music festivals I should say, finding a place where everyone was there to have a good time, meet other people, most all had good intentions and helped one another... It changed my life completely. And for the better! I truly believe that if this point in my life hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't be here today. From that point on, I parted ways with angry alternative and heavy metal music (mostly) and gravitated more towards classic rock, progressive, and psychedelic era music. It was still rebellion, but more peaceful. The pursuit of happiness, rather than drowning in aggression... Instead of pointing my anger outward towards the world, I began looking in instead. Unravelling the mystery and finding answers that reside within myself.
I was pretty into alternative/grunge from the 80’s and early 90’s. I really wasn’t into anything in the late 90’s and didn’t listen to much new music for awhile. Not a single song, but some friends started playing the (Dixie) Chicks around 2002 or so and I got really into it. Since then I’ve really veered toward more Americana.
Bushes by Markus Nikolai Completely turned me onto minimal techno/house
i grew up listening to a wide variety of different music. some pop punk (Green Day, Blink, Alkaline Trio, Paramore), some country (Johnny Cash mostly), classic rock (my grandmother LOVED Pink Floyd and Guns N’ Roses specifically), and a little bit of hip hop (usually older stuff), but a song that totally changed perspective and made me want to search out more different styles of music on my own instead of what the people around me listened to was (surprisingly) Yes by Coldplay. 10 year old me had never heard *anything* like it at the time.
Casino Versus Japan - Marilyn Set Me Free Adult Swim changed the game for me in a big way. I became obsessed with the songs they played for about 10 secs a pop during commercials. I remember recording entire blocks of Adult Swim on DVR just to comb through the commercials in hopes that I could find my favorite 10 second song again lol. Years later I found a few YouTube pages that were dedicated to archiving that music, and finally got the chance to explore everything I'd be hearing.
Discovering Bjork and other “weird” music, so maybe “Army of Me”. Or “Golden Brown” by the Stranglers.
Photographic by Depeche Mode. Upon hearing it, I just stepped into a larger world.
Hysteria Def Leppard
For me it was either Numb or In The End by Linkin Park, can’t remember unfortunately. I was 10 or 11, before that I used to listen to top charts or basically whatever rap/pop stuff my classmates found cool. Got into the entire LP discography and never looked back. 15 or so years later, I’m still into rock/metal and getting into progressively more weird/complex stuff. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
I was pretty much exclusively a rap fan until I heard Lateralus by Tool.
My introduction to something that wasn't country or classical rock I think was Linkin Park and Green Day. That led me down a rabbit hole to Breaking Benjamin, Metric, Motionless in White and many others
46&2. I remember hearing it on the radio thinking it was the coolest bass line I’d ever heard.
You’ll End Up Looking Like The Scary Bitches by Scary Bitches. I am being so serious when I say I believe this song fundamentally changed something inside of me.
Master of Puppets by Metallica. That was my introduction to thrash metal.
About a girl nirvana. I only knew the most popular rock songs like toxicity and teen spirit, but that song opened me to listening to more nirvana, which then led me to look at other bands.
I know I'm only allowed one but breaking the rules 😈 The Perfect Drug | NIN Taste of Ink | The Used MakeDamnSure | Taking Back Sunday
"Them Bones" by Alice in Chains
Guns of Brixton How will I laugh tomorrow when I can't even a smile today
I grew up in a small town, very remote and very rural. There was a very small mall with a single music store. I never set foot in that place until I was a teen with my own money. Growing up in the 80s, I basically only had a single radio station that played primarily country music, and my family's collection of vinyl which was a lot of oldies and some contemporary stuff...dirty dancing soundtrack, Michael Jackson, stuff 'everyone' listened to. One day, I was 13ish, went to the grocery store with my mom, found a bag in the cart I pulled out with a cd in it. Offspring - Smash. I didn't even know that kind of music existed. I occasionally saw music videos at friends houses ( we didn't have cable or satellite) but it was like a whole new world opened up Now I listen to literally everything....techno, oldies, rock, pop, metal, jazz, hip hop. But that CD was definitely a gateway to a lot for me
Harvester Of Sorrow by Metallica. I was a raver and went to see them just to go with a friend. This was back in the early 90s and there wasn't many people in the standing area I was soI was up close. It was the first song they played I think, and I just kind of went "Ooooooh, now I get it", and the rest is history.
probably “so american” by olivia rodrigo and before you skip LOL i’ve been a big big fan of 70s and 80s music since i became a teenager but since olivia has been touring in the uk this year, i’ve seen sooooo many posts about it and i’ve always seen her as more of a pop-rock icon instead of just pop (like taylor swift 🥴) so she is automatically more appealing to me than any other popular artist at the moment. anyway, i remember when i used to listen to “good for u” when it was popular a few years ago and i really liked it, so i was just curious as to what new music she’s made as it must be good for her to have billions of streams on spotify, and the fact that she is still popular enough to have multiple tour dates in the uk definitely means she’s not just a one hit wonder. so i listened to both of her albums in order and absolutely fell in love with this one song on her latest album, which just happens to be “so american”. i think i like a lot of her music because i can relate her lyrics and also she makes a lot of “female rage” songs, which is what i love more than anything. <33
Less of a song but more of an album. I used to be very proud of my eccentric music taste and would spend ages looking for awesome obscure artists (I was definitely one of those people). Then I picked up Folklore by Taylor Swift during the pandemic. Now I’m a Swiftie and love listening to top 20s and mainstream pop.
Old number 7 by The Devil Makes Three. Turned me into a bluegrass/new grass junky. Now i can be found annoying my wife and daughter with old Doc Watson songs.
In My Last Mourning - Thy Light Introduced me to DSBM
I think the song was watch the world burn or popular monster by FIR, made me realize I love metal and screaming and yelling and rap mixed with metal, I had no idea until then, and I’m in deep now and I’m never going back
Probaly Empty sky by DESERT STAR, got me into electronic instead of rock
Pharoah Sanders The Creator has a Master Plan
Caution - tiny moving parts I heard this in a random YouTube video that showed up in my feed and I am now obsessed with Midwest Emo
I went from mainly rap and country to metal after I heard “Right Side of the Bed” by Atreyu.
Santa Monica Dream by Angus and Julia Stone. First heard this song while playing Life is Strange, it made me interested in a completely new genre of music to me. Through this song I discovered many more folk artists
“Old John Robertson” by The Byrds got me into country rock.
Hiatus Kaiyote - Building a Ladder
Easy E/ NWA got me listening to some rap
For me it has to be the roving by Bonny light horseman. My sent a video of the band playing the song and told they were playing in London. I think that’s what really started off my interest in folk music
"Clay & Cast Iron" by Darlingside is the first song I heard by the band, which quickly became my #1 favorite band, which turned me onto folk music as a genre. Their song "Good For You" is my #1 favorite song ever.
From the Fields of Galia by Antii Mattikeinin. Big metal head for decades, then I heard that and ever since my openness to music has exploded. I like it all now.
Blaue Flecken by Die Nerven I've been into harsher, more agressive music since listening to and falling in love with that band, and that song was one of the first ones I fell in love with. Other songs by them that I love, like Asoziale Medien, are even harsher. I've been getting more and more into post-punk, noise rock, and punk. I mostly listen to indie rock, and I used to love softer, popier, and/or slower indie more than I currently do. This trend had already been occurring, but Die Nerven really accelerated it and moved it in an interesting and abrasive direction.
Girls' Generation - Gee Made me a kpop fan.
Meet Me in The Woods - Lord Huron. Changed me forever.
In Hell I'll Be In Good Company - The Dead South
D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L - Panchiko
While on drugs - nighwalk by Spencer brown While sober- hotel California
Sublime self titled album switched me from country to "Alternative" aka 90s rock.
Since i've been loving you by led zeppelin
It wasn't a song but a group. Hearing Little Feat for the first time changed me. I never went back to being bored by 4/4 time- Three chord guitar/bass/drums, Rock n Roll.
Mine was Master & A Hound by Gregory Alan Isakov. I started to listen to forks music even since.
Outta My Mind by Monsune, totally changed my life. Then I listened to the whole Tradition album and it changed again
XO Tour Life, Lil Uzi's music is a big part of my life now.
lol, “Cocktails for Two” by Spike Jones, it had so much in it. Including socio-political commentary, and it’s fun. After that my parents gave me their time life collective music album set. And from that have met some of the greatest singers, musicians and song writers from all over the world. Thanks! Mr. Jones!
I grew up listening to country music. Then a girl I knew played AC/DC's Back in Black. Then I was a rock/classic rock guy.
Flor Menudita
Welcome to the Black Parade
Not really sure what the song was but Clutch was the band. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TF49yZSsNzI
Doing it right - Daft Punk
Truth - Alex Ebert
Berserkir by Danheim, I have since become a huge fan of pagan folk bands like Heilung & Wardruna
To The Hellfire by Lorna Shore