Tell me about your music journey?
- Locked due to inactivity on Jun 18, '22 3:54am
Thread Topic: Tell me about your music journey?
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What did your phases of music development look like? Talk about your favorite bands over time and how they've shaped you as a person
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I started out listening to Christian music. Later on, I listed to a bit of everything. I found that I really liked pop, EDM, and rock. They have very strong vibes.
My favorite songs are just real and emotional. I don't like too many songs based after the same old "hate/sex" themes. I like songs that express thoughts and feelings, or the really inspirational songs. "Atlas Falls" is a hard rock song by Shinedown that is dramatic, yet motivational. "Let Me be Sad" by I Prevail expresses sadness that is relatable while "Surviving the Game" by Skillet is more metal but really encourages a fighting spirit.
I write emo songs of what I feel or what I would want to hear from someone if I feel a certain way. I also write some inspirational songs that are upbeat, as well.
I developed a rap/rock style sort of like Linkin Park. I was inspired by Zedd and Alan Walker to start doing EDM. Pop just came to me naturally, and I developed my rapping skills after hearing Nikki Minaj in Ariana Grande's "Problem". -
I'm sitting at close to 2k tracked artists so I'll try to pick some of my favorite artists and genres from each year but sure I'm going to get carried away
2013-2014
2000's rock, alt metal, nu metal, goth rock, alt rock.
Flyleaf, Breaking Benjamin, Hoobastank, Sick Puppies, Three Days Grace, Skillet, We Are the Fallen, Rise Against, Volbeat, System of a Down, Hed. Pe, Relient K,
2014-2015
pop rock, indie rock, 3rd wave emo, pop punk,
Closure in Moscow, Circa Survive, You Me at Six, Belmont, Sick Puppies, Envy on the Coast, Knuckle Puck, Neck Deep, Sum 41, The Jungle Giants, End of Fashion, The Used, Relient K, Weezer, CAKE, Violent Femmes, Miniature Tigers, Hippo Campus, Fall Out Boys, the Lumineers, of Montreal
2015-2016
post hardcore, spoken word, midwestern emo, Bandcamp esque indie
flatsound, dandelion hands, La Dispute, Julien Baker, Elvis Depressedly, the world is a beautiful place and I am no longer afraid to die, Thursday, empire empire, infinity crush, Foxing, Cyberbully Mom Club, Crywank, Citizen, Starry Cat, Movements, It Looks Sad, brand new, jets to Brazil, Free Throw, Sorority Noise,
2016-17
folk, indie alternative,
Frankie Cosmos,.Cat Clyde, The Head and the Heart, M Ward,. Sufjan Stevens, Daughter, Amber Run, Tall Heights Chris Staples, Johnny Flynn, Phoebe Bridger, Big Thief, Kimya Dawson, The Fruit Bats, The Paper Kites, Local Natives, isaac gracie, the lone below, KOJI, Bright Eyes, The Postal Service, Stars, Ollie MN, City and Color, Paul Barribeau, Pinegrove, Ages and Ages, The Decemberists, teenage fanclub, halfmoon run, wild child, birdy
2017-2018
punk cabaret, acid Jazz, 90's rap, grunge, a little bit of everthing, tbh
The Dresden Dolls, Mother Mother Bon Iver, Pixies, Jarv, Deca, A Tribe Called Quest, Soundgarden, red hot chilli peppers, Deep Purple, suicidal tendencies, white Flag, pop evil, Dorian Electra, Hazel English, the misfits, Siouxies and the Banshees, xxtenacion, grover Washington, delta sleep, Marcie's playground,
2018-2019
third wave metal, Deathcore, Metalcore, Thrash, Hardcore.
Get Scared, Beartooth, Wage War, Make them Suffer, of Mice and Men, Bring me the Horizon, Parkway Drive, Oceans Ate Alaska, Blackout Dahlia Murder, Snow White's Poison Bite, I Prevail, Suicide Silence, Pierce the Veil, Bad Omens, Set to Stun, Megosh, Thy Art is Murder, Veil of Maya, Crown the Empire, Asking Alexandria, the Amity Affliction.
2019-2020
Shoegaze, folk, psychedelic indie, Japanese disco, vaporwave, (all the wave music)
Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Film School, Silversun Pickups, Slowdive, Wye Oak, Teenage Wrist, pinkshinyultrablast, DIIV southpacific, Ringo Deathstarr, fazerdaze, alvvays, Cigarettes After Sex, Frank Iero, Driver, Yung bae, Macross 82-99, Blank Banshee, Audiotool Day, Android Apartment Saint Pepsi, Junko Ohashi, Mika Masturbia, Taeko Onuki, Mariya Takeushi, Momoko Kikushi, Hako Yamazaki
2020-2021
psychedelic pop, dream pop, indie, midwestern emo, alternative rock.
Peach Pit, SALES, Varsity, Barrie, Dance Gavin Dance, Crumb, Lunar Vacation, Goth Babe, TEMPOREX, Far Caspian, Strawberry Guy, Current Joys, Kero Kero Bonito, Mild High Club, Sugar Candy Mountain, Johny Goth, Low Hum, Aries, Hobo Johnson, Fake Laugh, Parks Squares and Alleys, Joy Again, Eyedress, Joyce Manor, Still Woozy, Blonde Tongues,
2021-2022
electronica, witchhouse, dark trap/rap, glitch and hyper pop, foreign djs, new age funk, soul,
IC3PEAK, how to destroy angels, Gurldoll, spiiirit, Crim3s, Jazmin Bean, Maggie Lindemann, Grimes, Killswxtch, Yaeji, Riton, Die Antwoord, Kilo Kish, Mia Gladstone, Gupi, Cheeckface, Paul Barribeau, 100gecs, Laura Les, Kitty, and food house. Drugdealer, the Marias, Nai Palm, Sofia meyers, remi wolf, Melanie Faye, Electric Guest, Los Retros, Dafne, -
Yeah I think I got a little out of hand lmao . I could've kept going and going too.
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Do you mind if I post something rather gigantic for this? I typed it all up and it's WAY too much to just post without asking lol
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Yes of course. I would've made mine way longer as well if I wasn't trying to not nerd out too hard. I literally audited so many genres and bands to make that so type away my friend
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I've actually been wanting to write up something like this for a very long time now, so I shall take the opportunity while it presents. I apologize in advance for how long this will inevitably end up.
And the reason I say that is that I've been involved with music on some level pretty much since I began being alive. I'll start with a story.
My dad was an avid drummer in his youth, but eventually swore it off, because he didn't like what he knew he'd get involved with if he tried to make it big time as a drummer. By the time I came around though, he was coming around to the idea of getting back into it just as a hobby. From what I remember, my parents at the time didn't have a stable enough situation to where my dad could get a drum set, and he hadn't had his old one in a long time.
But what he did have, at least, was a pair of drumsticks. Out of curiosity, when I was only a few months old, he put the drumsticks in my hands, to see what I'd do. Lo and behold, I ended up (I don't know if it was immediate or not, seems like it was, based on how he tells the story) beating the floor in a staggered pattern, exactly the way you would a snare drum, just perhaps more slowly/crudely than actually playing a drum. Small children often do hit the floor with things, even rhythmically, but they usually don't have the motor control at that age to do a staggered, right-left pattern like that, they usually just hit things with both hands at once.
So in his interpretation, and I would tend to agree, apparently I inherited some of his drumming skill such that it could manifest at an age before I could walk, talk or do much of anything else really, other than crawl.
So, I suppose it's more or less destiny then that I would end up involved with music to a large degree. My parents are both quite interested in music so it was also natural in that way, from exposure. I got pretty different exposures from them. Mostly classic rock from Dad, though Mom had that in common with different specific preferences of course. Mom also had a side of more current music too, quite a bit of the stuff from the 90s I'm familiar with comes from her. She did also like to play fairly random things for me when I was a kid, to help me explore and find what I liked.
That's how it was for a long time. I always tended to skew more towards what Mom would play, particularly the modern stuff. So it ended up being that I listened to 90s and 2000s music a lot, a mix of pop and rock, but I eventually did favor rock.
One of my clearest memories from my childhood is laying on our couch listening to the music TV station for modern rock, consisting of 90s and 2000s stuff. Thats how I was introduced to many of the artists that would send me down the journey I've had. Seems like I was always waiting for Boulevard of Broken Dreams or Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day, or Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down, or several different Linkin Park songs to play.
My first CD was "The Better Life" by 3 Doors Down, because I loved Kryptonite so much. And I listened to that CD a lot, to the point it became clear I needed a real stereo to play things on, rather than this little kiddie CD player I had. I was gifted one, that if I remember correctly had been gifted to Dad by his mom awhile back but he wasn't using. That stereo would stay in my room until just a couple months ago. (It stopped working several years ago, but it was only taken out recently)
With this new stereo, I had more incentive to collect CDs, and I could listen to the radio, and both of those I sure did. The timeline is fuzzy but probably around the time I was 10 I already had quite a bit of CDs. Up until around this time I hadn't cared much what the bands were called, so I had a difficult time finding CDs I wanted, and most of the ones I had were collections with songs I liked on them and a few that Mom had known I knew songs from. She even made a couple compilation disks for me.
If I remember correctly, by this time Dad had bought a drum set and had it for a good few years, and this is when he started to teach me how to play.
It was a golden age, for awhile. But golden ages don't last forever, nothing does. The radio stations that I'd used to listen to, they were changing. They were playing more and more pop music, a lot of which I didn't know, since I'd long stopped keeping up with that side of things. But I couldn't find any other stations playing what I liked. The closest I ever found were metal stations and that was much too heavy for me at the time. Every other channel was country, rap, hip hop, in Spanish, or static, none of which I wanted to listen to.
So I found myself relying more and more on the CDs I'd gathered. But you can only listen to the same things in the same orders for so long at a time, even though I was able to listen to the entire Better Life album a good 50 times in a row if I wanted to, nothing else was like that. So I ended up listening to the radio again, on the station that was becoming ever more pop. I'd listen to my CDs until I was burnt out on them, and then go to the radio, get sick of hearing nothing I knew, go back to my CDs, get burnt out, and so on. but over time, I was beginning to get used to the pop music they were playing, I was starting to recognize songs, and even enjoy them. I bought a few CDs that had this music, and eventually mostly listened to it, just because it was something newer to me.
About the only good thing about this time was the fact that I'd gotten pretty good at playing the drums, and I got my own set. But I was mainly playing the new music, because I didn't have much else choice.
There was good music in there, sure, but a lot of it I didn't like, didn't resonate with me. But, I really had no other choice. I couldn't even go back to the TV stations, they were gone. And so...I got used to it.
Until I was about 13, and started to really explore the internet. This was around the time I joined this place, too. I started to watch youtube, and eventually I noticed...people have uploaded music on there?? I saw a song I knew, if I remember correctly it was Hey There Delilah, by Plain White Ts, in that classic old lyric video style. I listened to it, and there were more things I knew in the recommended section, I listened to those, and it didn't take me long to hit Kryptonite, the proper music video for it. I had noticed YouTube had this "mix" feature, where depending on the song you listen to it will make a playlist with similar songs, and I hadn't had much luck with it yet, but Kryptonite opened the flood gates, as it always had before. That mix, had ALL of the rock that I had lost to time, that I had never given myself the chance to know the name of, and here it all was.
I think it was around this time, perhaps a little earlier, that I first tried my hand at writing lyrics, and that's something that I would continue to do and improve upon for quite a long time.
Soon after that, I joined band in middle school as a drummer, as well. It was mostly just my snare, but eventually I joined another group, I can't entirely remember what it was though. I think it was a multi-school band thing that my band teacher was part of, or maybe the larger band for the high school that most people from the middle school I was going to would usually go to, I do remember most people there being a good bit older than me. Anyway, in that I actually got to bring more of my full set, so that was cool.
This was, essentially, a second golden age. And it would only get better, since not long after this, I would be introduced by my friend Zane, to Hero, by Skillet. And I was HOOKED. I think I even remember posting somewhere on here that I had listened to Hero like 48 times in a row lmao
And this, I suppose, is where you'll certainly recognize things, Mint (Or, Anna? Idk if you'd want me to continue calling you that), since you were heavily involved with this part.
Th -
(I am silly and did not preview the post, continuing with the cut off beginning of paragraph, lucky I copy-pasted it into another thing for safety lol)
This is where the foundations of my modern listening habits truly start - I needed everything else, in order to get to this point, but what I listen to now when I want something familiar and comfortable still largely began here. Skillet's Awake, Rise and Comatose albums, Three Days Grace, a lot of Linkin park I had previously lost, Broken Iris, Hoobastank, and last here but not at all least, Thriving Ivory. I'd known them since probably soon after their first album came out in 2008, it was one of my first CDs I think, but I have never been into them more than I was in 2014/2015. All of these, and the ability to listen to all the things I always loved, but had lost.
Then, you introduced me to a couple bands that I would end up very much enjoying, but how much of that you saw, I cannot remember well enough to know. Thousand Foot Krutch, and Starset. They both have become big parts of my main listening queue, have been since mid 2015 or so, and Starset specifically has grown to become a huge part of my life. To the point where I wear their band tees so much that my college friends would panic when I wore a non Starset shirt lmao
I caught on to Starset pretty quickly, starting in 2015 and pretty much immediately starting to listen to them a lot, while TFK took longer, and I started later. Late 2015, maybe early 2016. After that, things were kind of stable, for awhile. I was pretty comfortable listening to what I was, and trying a few new things here and there.
And then in 2017, Spotify destroyed how I was doing things. they destroyed the web player, made it completely unusable, and then when even though tons of other people hated the change too, they did nothing to make it better again, I decided to stop using it. Which posed a problem, where do I go?
There's many directions I could have picked, but I chose YouTube. I started collecting together the music I knew and loved on there, and honestly? Probably the best thing that could've happened, because the content there is different, and the algorithm also seems to be better at curating a good mix of stuff that's new to you and stuff thats similar. I went from finding a song here and a song there that I liked on spoitify, to albums, and then entire genres, and that never would've been possible on Spotify, especially given how much of it is soundtrack style music, which I don't remember Spotify having or handling well, I can't remember.
In the recommendeds I found Celldweller, Scandroid and Love Death Immortality by The Glitch Mob, which kickstarted my interest in electronic music. Broken Iris lead me into ambient, and Starset led me into soundtrack like music. From those, I've branched out and formed a truly gargantuan catalog of music that maybe I could talk about in it's own thread - would be way too much for here, this is already way too huge of a wall of text. Unfortunately in a lot of my expeditions into genre space, though, I don't often actually see the names of the artists and songs I'm listening to, I typically do that when I really really like something, so I don't have a lot of examples to point out. I'm kind of back to the state I was in as a kid, of not knowing what specifically I'm listening to, just knowing that I like it, and I really wish I knew how to fix that.
It is really cool finding all these new genres I can listen to stuff from though.
And that's more or less my current state, a mixture of listening to the things I've been into up until now, and expeditions into genre space where I can solidify my interest in something if I end up liking it a lot. -
At first my idiot self didn't even listen to music
Then I started listening to whatever my sibling listened to- So basically Kidz Bop and Taylor Swift.
After that, I listened to the Lightning Thief musical
Then I listened to more musicals such as Dear Evan Hansen and Shrek the musical
Then I listened to things from movies like Aladdin and Encanto (Fun fact: If you ask me to sing every part of every song from Encanto, I can do it without hesitation)
Then I listened to Little Miss Perfect and Ordinary, each by Joriah Kwame
Then I listened to Top of My School by Katherine Xu
So right now I listen to:
Showtunes (Songs from musicals) and a total of three other songs (Top of My School, Little Miss Perfect, Ordinary) -
When I was little, it was mostly whatever was on the radio. We also had CDs of this band called The Divers that we would listen to all the time.
I'm pretty sure they fall under the category of folk.
Although, technically, all the music you find on the radio is considered folk music.
Anyway, then we lost the CDs and so for years it was basically whatever was on the radio.
Then I found this CD of James Galaway's music. My favorite song out of it was #2, which was a Latin Jazz piece (the only one he's ever played).
And then it took a long time, but I found our Divers CDs again and I was into that again.
So at that point, I'd determined I was into jazz and the Divers.
Also, at least for clarinet and piano, I figured out that I didn't like baroque pieces. I liked the romantic era and after, because I needed the emotion in the song.
Then in 8th grade, we were playing a Celtic piece in band.
It was two parts. The first was a beautiful flowy piece, and the second one was very quick and energetic.
My heart just soared with it. And for the second part, I was literally bouncing in my seat.
I'd never felt anything as exhilarating with any other type of music before.
After that, all I ever listened to was Celtic music.
I still mainly listen to Celtic. I've opened myself to other folk music, and sometimes a little jazz, but the vast majority of what I listen to is Celtic. -
And honestly I'm glad I played that one piece for band, because otherwise I never would have looked into the Celtic culture.
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