Your age, your life, your music and your turning point?

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
When I first got into music it was pop music (stuff on radio and TV).
Later I got into hard rock, metal. Heavy metal, speed metal, black metal, death metal etc.
Again later some punk rock, some prog rock even a bit of jazz… The older I get the more bands and genres I seem to appreciate. Also genres within genres. The current metal genre many, many different directions.

Still I’m waiting for a possible turning point.

What do I mean with the turning point? The turning point is when it all changes. I’ll give an example of a collegue of mine.

He went, just like me through the process of discovering lots of styles of music, lots of bands, bought lots of albums and visited many concerts.

Now, he says he doesn’t need to go to concerts anymore. All those bands, it’s nothing new, nothing better, nothing different from all the stuff he’s heard in the past. He sticks to the old bands.

I wouldn't like such a moment, because music is one of the most important joys in my life.

To be honest, at the moment I can’t imagine that I won’t care for new bands anymore. I can’t imagine that I would think:”Hey, to play this CD is so cool. I don’t have to see it live anymore”. I think it’s ignorant to say that new bands don’t contribute anything, compared to the bands I know for years.

How many of you got stuck into old bands and were not open anymore for new subgenres / bands within genres? How many of you stopped to see new bands in concerts? New for you I mean.

To the younger people on this forum:
Are you content with your discoveries in music? Do you discover new bands all the time? Or do you think that most new bands are not worth listening, e.g. after you’ve heard Iron Maiden?


In other words.:

What is your look at your own open mindness towards bands? How much can you take? How much do you want to take? How do you see your own development?

I'm curious about your opinions, thanks in advance !
Forostar
 
I'm very selective, in that the vast majority of the music I hear doesn't really interest me. However, if you go past that to the bands I do like I can be very, very interested. For me it comes in waves. This fall for instance, I kept more or less exclusively to Maiden, Bruce and Tom Waits. But then I moved onto Jimi Hendrix, and now I've been finding a few new bands (Dio-Sabbath, Mogwai, 65daysofstatic, Explosions in the Sky) I'd never heard of as well as further exploring older artists (Linton Kwesi Johnson atm).

So no, the turning point isn't here yet for me. I love finding new bands. Though I have an awful habit of listening exclusively to a band if I like it a lot, and get burned out pretty quickly. I do think that there's something to be said for not listening to new bands and focusing on the past. Not because the new bands are necessarily bad, but because the oldies have been filtered, meaning that the ones that remain are gems. The average bands tend to not be remembered three decades later. So it's easier to find really great music from the 70s, 80s and 90s than it is from the 00s, imo.
 
I'm always open to some new stuff - as long as it's good - and I will give any band I've never heard of a listen and tend not to get to swayed by public opinion (dare I say it, but I actually like Slipknot's Iowa). But I have always tried to be like that.

Much like yourself Forostar, I started out by listening to the very radio friendly stuff, but in my very younger days, Top of the Pops (the main, if not the only, source of music on the TV) was peppered by a lot of UK Glam bands - bands like The Sweet, Slade, T Rex, etc. This, I'm not so ashamed to say, is where my loving of guitar based music came from. So when I went to a boarding school (long story as to why I ended up there), all the elder kids there played little else but the 70's Classic Rock/Metal stuff - so I got hooked on that (particularly Thin Lizzy). Then along came NWOBHM, and that is where it all went wrong. :p

The problem I saw then (bearing in mind, I was 15 when I got into Maiden) was that there was a whole bunch of kids in my school that seemed to dismiss this NWOBHM genre (aside from perhaps Saxon). These guys where stuck in this rut of "Nothing newer than Judas Priest" (I didn't and still don't regard Priest as NWOBHM - they may have influenced a load of bands, but they where well established by 1979). Even at that early age, these kids would not even give this new stuff a second listen.

I like to think that I have never done that and always try to keep an ear out for new (at least new to me) bands. Perhaps it is because I have been constantly told that I will grow out of it and my choice of music will be of a slower pace - and I'm far too stubborn to give them the satisfaction. :D
 
I don't really like much of the "new" crap being put out these days. However, I am constantly discovering how good some of the old stuff really is.

I've developed a very good taste for some jazz tunes (especially when driving). Moreover, the 80's style of rock has really been fun to listen to lately.

It's really an eclectic collection that I have. My play list could have Maiden, then Vivaldi, then Benny Goodman.
 
I can think of a few major turning points...

I started out listening to WIFC in Wausau, Wisconsin as a kid. They were a "mainstream rock" station - in other words, 70s guitar rock, the kind of stuff you hear on "classic rock" stations now. I enjoyed the music, but at the time my own musical studies were on classical piano, so rock was just 'background noise' to me.

The first turning point was August 1981, when MTV came on the air. I knew about it before any other kids, because my father was in the cable TV business. He had a feeling it might turn out to be a big thing, and he let me stay up late with him to watch it debut. I saw the whole bit - "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!", the moon landing with the MTV flag, the original MTV theme music, "Video Killed The Radio Star", etc.

Why was that a turning point? 2 reasons...
1. This was the first time I saw rock music being played. That made it much more interesting.
2. In those early days, MTV's playlist was fairly eclectic. There just weren't many videos around, so they played everything they could get their hands on. In fact, early MTV was how I first discovered Maiden, Priest and Def Leppard.

So now I was a rock (or at least pop) fanatic. As more artists started making videos, MTV quickly developed into a Top 40 format, and I started listening to Top 40 radio. The second turning point came around 1985, when I entered high school. The new friends I met there introduced me to real metal - Maiden, Metallica, Priest, Slayer etc. By 1986 I was a confirmed metalhead. I continued to pay attention to Top 40 music through the mid-90s, but metal was #1.

Turning point #3 was entering college, for the same reason that high school was a turning point: new friends introducing me to new music. Frank Zappa, funk, Chili Peppers, old and obscure progressive rock, jazz, much more. Metal continued to be my favorite, but my knowledge of music became much wider again.

The most recent major turning point was when I joined this forum four years ago. I had, for a time, fallen into the trap of not listening to any new music. This was mainly because new metal didn't get played on American radio, and I had no interest in the rap that was getting played. So even as recently as 2003, I had no clue about bands like Iced Earth or Bruce's solo stuff. A huge amount of the new stuff I've checked out since then has been recommendations from people here.

I agree with what the Duke said about not liking much new music these days, at least in terms of mainstream rock or Top 40. But I do listen to the local "modern rock" station for about an hour a day commuting to and from work. While most of what they play isn't very good, I continue to listen for a few reasons:
1. Every now and then, a good new song does come along. For instance, I find myself liking the new My Chemical Romance single ("Teenagers"). Having associated that band with loser emo kids, I was shocked to find I liked one of their songs.
2. I don't want to give up on new music. Right now, US modern rock is stuck in a punk-pop rut that I don't like much. But these things change over time, and I want to be around when the next wave comes by.
3. Denver's rock scene is hot at the moment. Ever since The Fray hit it big, a lot of local bands have gotten to the edge of stardom. It's too soon to say, but in a year or two Denver could be the next Seattle. So it's kinda fun hearing music that is "local" now, only to see it become worldwide hits later.
 
SMX’s post really wowed me.Nice written, nice structured. And : He is right. Sometimes there are more than one turning points.

In this post I will show, that sometimes two parallel turning points can exist…Ok, here’s my story
                                    I
release of Live After Death …. 1985  My first vinyl disc purchased, my first interest for music
The first two years I am just a Maidenfan, but eventualy I got new friends -metalheads, interest for further metal music, endless listennings in houses, in coffee shops later, endless comments on music, music magazines, later fanzins
While metalhead I never stoped seeing my old friends that were listenning other kinds of music….Like this I keept me informed for other gernes …
                                    II
My second turning point : while in high school I got –merely by chance-some hours of air-play  every week in  one of the most popular -and cult- radio stations in my then town. 1992
There were thousands of vinyl discs there of every kind of music, and there were djs for all kinds of music -all highly updated… In such an enviroment, and after two years that I stayed there, I learned, listened and appreciated a lot of what we call modern music
                                      III
Some months after I got into the radio station, I started to play guitar…. Strangely enough, instead to get inside a metal band, I started (maybe because by the influence of the Radio-station) to be interested to more rock oriented bands : Led Zep, Purple, after Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Hawkwind, Edgar Broughton Band, Hendrix … All these discoveries happened very quick, within a few months, so in my first concert instead of singing “666 the number of the beast”, I sang “how I wish you were here”

this third turning point foctioned in parallel with the second one.... They both finished,
                                      IV
...When I took my acoustic guitar in my shoulders to make the tour of my country… The road, learned me a lot of things, and mostly gave me the desire to make MY MUSIC instead of playing covers (after some very successful live improvisations) …This was in 1995
I lost my interest of buying records and I started to create my own music, and performing for friendly groups by singing or in guitar….
I passed some years of enormous productivity, with one book finished, some 20 hours of music drama recorded (where the lyrics follow the story line of an on-going poem), and some 100 songs wrtten
                                          V
The fifth turning point has to be the release of Brave New World… My life changed since then (and not just because of the album of course) : I started to work, and thus practicing less and less my music and writtings…. In the other hand, my new interest for Maiden revitalized my interest for discovering new groups and gernes  Jazz, world music, dub, electro, and even : Nevermore, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Bruce Dickinson’s golden era (’97 –‘99) and Barlow’s Iced Earth  are all post Brave New World discoverings
So my most recent turning point it has a name : Brave New World, and an anniversary-day : 29.05.2000



---------
PS : I like to think that Brave New World is my first purchased CD ever (until that time I was a  resisting vinyl  disc lover)….I don’t know, maybe it was the title …Brave New World, I said to myself, ok then,  let’s do something new, and I bought the CD… I never bought a vinyl disc again 

PS#2 : Man of the match : SMX, congratulations also to you, Forostar for this wonderful topic
 
I can think of two bigger turning points.

The first was discovering Iron Maiden about seven years ago, at the age of ten. Before that, I listened to the pop/rock stuff that was popular and wasn't very interested in music anyway. Maiden changed everything. I quickly abandoned all the other bands I had listened to, and for a couple of years it was exclusively Maiden for me.

The second was joining this board four years ago, which started me out looking for new music by new bands. This would probably have happened anyway; having acquired all Maiden's albums by now it was a natural progression. However, recommendations from other members and just reading about other exciting bands helped me out greatly in my selection. I found out about a lot of my favourite bands directly through this forum.

I try to be open to new music and often try out new bands, but most of them turn out to be blind alleys or passing fancies (for example, a couple of months ago I was getting into a lot of death metal bands - now, they don't appeal much to me anymore). If I don't find anything new that thrills me for a while, I'm happy to just listen to what I already have until something comes along; I'm not the sort of person who has to get new stuff all the time. On the other hand, I'm convinced there's a lot of music out there I would love, only I haven't found it yet, so I keep looking.

Part of my relative slowness in finding new bands is related to the fact that a lot of the bands I like have been around for a long time and thus have very extensive catalogues that take time to explore. You're not through getting into Pink Floyd in an afternoon.

Regarding "new" music, I normally don't pay attention to the release date when I check out stuff. I don't like a lot of what's on the radio today, but I still try to keep up with the basics of it - firstly because there's really no avoiding it, secondly because not being clueless makes social life considerably easier, thirdly because it can be interesting to see what kind of stuff gets popular. And occasionally I even hear something I like.
 
I really enjoyed your contribution people!  :)

Now something more critical.:

Do you guys realize that there are new and innovative bands which combine elements of older bands you like (e.g. guitar harmonies, like Maiden) with other cool elements (e.g. more aggression, complexity, different, bombastic elements, classical elements,  vocals etc. etc.)? The world of metal is so much bigger than most people realize on this forum.

OK, I am also less interested in black metal than let's say in 1996 but at the same time there's a lot of new European metal bands (esp. from the Scandinavian area) which totally rule in my opinion.

Maybe it's because I live in Europe. Maybe it’s because of my easy access to concerts. In my country bands come often and it’s easy to travel. It’s not that far away to check a band or festival.

Also it’s about sources. Reading magazines and sites. Check bands on myspace after reading an interesting article. Check friends of those bands (click on their myspace). Like this it’s easy to have a teaser.

To inform yourself or to not inform yourself. That's the question.

I can't believe someone when he only says: "I don't like most new bands".
It has to do with the selection process and the open mindness.

How much can one take? How much effort does one make?

For me it was very interesting what Albie said about those conservative Judas Priest fans in my eyes. It’s good that Albie didn’t listen to such people. If he did he would have become a more cynical man and he might have stopped discovering cool metal bands in the eighties.

If people become cynical about a form of art, such as our beloved metal music, with the only argument “the old stuff is better than the new” I guarantee you that such people simply do not know much of music anymore these days.

And what’s cool about not discovering new things in life? It makes life more boring.
 
Forostar said:
For me it was very interesting what Albie said about those conservative Judas Priest fans in my eyes. It’s good that Albie didn’t listen to such people. If he did he would have become a more cynical man and he might have stopped discovering cool metal bands in the eighties.
Although, as a footnote to my thoughts, I did dismiss a lot of American bands in the 80's and just simply stuck with the European lot. It wasn't until I heard some Megadeth in the late 80's (I got into them before any other thrash band) that I started to get into the rest in a big way. So, although I was critical of some of my school friends for what they did, I was guilty of it myself.
 
Forostar said:
Do you guys realize that there are new and innovative bands which combine elements of older bands you like (e.g. guitar harmonies, like Maiden) with other cool elements (e.g. more aggression, complexity, different, bombastic elements, classical elements,  vocals etc. etc.)? The world of metal is so much bigger than most people realize on this forum.

One can accept the merits of new music without appreciating the music itself. It's possible to be open-minded towards modern bands and still dislike them. It does annoy me when people dismiss new music as inferior by default, but simply not being excited by new bands isn't necessarily wrong. I can see why someone who got into metal with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple wouldn't like a lot of what's produced today, it's very different stuff. One can argue that they are missing out, which might very well be true, but you can't force stuff on people if they're not willing to make the effort. It must also be said that some people simply aren't interested in constantly finding new music. Hopefully they get their thrills elsewhere.
 
How is it possible to dislike "modern metal bands" or "new metal bands" in general, while there's more diversity in metal than ever before.

Like Albie, also a footnote on my own thoughts:
I never understood what's cool about Dream Theater, simply because I adore Rush (huge inspirator for DT). DT didn't do anything interesting for me, since I thought Rush did it all before. That's not 100% the case, though. DT is more metal and there's a few more differences of course. Anyway, I am still not into DT, mainly because of the vocals and their songs bore me too much to adore them. But in this case I can not deny that the old band was in the "way" of the new band.

Further, like many of you, I also go back in time to discover old bands. At the moment I am getting deeper into the discography of Saga. But for me it's not impossible to combine old and new music (not at the same time of course ;) ). I guess it depends on the broadness of someone's taste and the ability of finding, selecting & "consuming" music.
 
I never said "in general". What I meant to say was that someone is not necessarily close-minded for preferring older music, as long as the person only criticizes the new stuff he/she has actually heard. I agree that generalizing new metal as bad is stupid, as metal has grown in so many different directions, but disliking the "modern" metal you've heard is not equivalent to generalizing.

What is being open-minded anyway? How many bands do you have to listen to before forming an opinion about a style? If someone is open to the possibility of new music being good, but simply isn't interested in actively exploring it, is he/she close-minded?
 
I edited my previous post.

If someone dislikes metal band A and metal band B he can only say he dislikes A and B and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that they are new bands. To only hear A & B says absolutely nothing, I guarantee you this.
 
Age: 18.

My life: Good question.

My music: Classical music and Iron Maiden (plus some other heavy metal and older stuff).

My turning point: The big one was in 2004 when I was 15, when a friend of mine persuaded me to listen to some Iron Maiden. Ever since then I have become very open minded to new things althou already then I was searching for stuff outside classical music which I might like and hadn't found anything satisfactory in the realm of pop. I haveto add that lately (past half year perhaps) I have become very comfy with Iron Maiden, not really intent on listening to other stuff unless its from a band I have already determined as good. But if someone recommends me something, I'll gladly listen to it, even though I'm not searching. I'll probably get adventurous sometime soon though and go roving for new things--maybe in another 15 years from now? :p
 
Age: 40

Music: yes, please ;)

As of turning points...when Maiden released Dance of Death, it was a kind of a turning point for me, since I hadn't listened to any metal post 1985 up until then. I listened to a lot of "hard rock" and "heavy metal" when I was a teenager. I started with Run to the hills and Breaking the law and in the early-to-mid 80s I was mainly a Priest-fan. My wife and I listened to some Metallica (Black album) and some songs from Number of the Beast but that was it, basically. When my then 14-year-old step daughter started going through my album collection and got Ed Hunter and Dance of Death for her 13th birthday, I found Paschendaly and Montsegur and was back :yey: Modern metal, though...I don't want to call myself narrow minded or any such thing. I've give a lot of 90s and 2000 metal several chances: Savatage, Helloween, In Flames, Slipknot, Sonata Arctica, Nightwish, Kamelot, Gotthard...the list is long, but not alot appeals to me. Gotthard have some really good tracks and Hammerfall works alright, but nothing gets me going like 80s Maiden, Judas Priest, Sabbath, 70s Uriah Heep, Lizzy, ACDC...you know the bands. I'm not sure you can label someone's taste as narrow minded or broad minded - it's taste, right? I'm still searching for something to give me that "wow" feeling and only the last few months found Bruce Dickinson's solo material and that is brilliant, at least 3 of his albums (guess which ones yourselves ::)) but nothing else really does it for me.

Other than that, I listen to a lot of bluesy rock, like Lynyrd, Jeff Healey, D.A.D, ZZ Top, but recent metal? I'm sure there are great bands out there, but "I still haven't found what I'm looking for", to quote another great band...
 
I've been into rock music ever since I first saw a Beatles video when I was eight. My taste evolved over many years, and at different times, my favourite bands were, among others, Queen, The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, all of which I still treasure highly today. When I was about 15 or 16, I first heard Iron Maiden, and I was hooked. During the following years, I really got into heavy metal, and that has not changed until this day. The more artists and styles I discovered, the more refined my musical taste became. I am desperately trying to get into recent artists and bands, but only very few can please me. To be fair, however, many established acts don't do that either. Over the years, I have come up with a catalogue of criteria that a heavy metal band should ideally meet for me personally. It goes something like this:

  • The singer should have physical contact to his balls, at all times. A falsetto that shatters plastic bottles doesn't impress me, and it doesn't sound anything like Bruce Dickinson either.
  • NO lyrics about dragons, elves or Odin. I am ABSOLUTELY TIRED of this kind of stuff. I'd rather listen to lyrics about rocking and rolling all night and partying every day than force myself through yet another concept album about Odin. I already have three of those, and I'm really not looking for them. If I see another song that has the word "Valhalla" in its title, chances are I'm gonna kick it straight there. And no more Tolkien lyrics either, please. It's enough if I have to sit through a viewing of any given Lord Of The Rings film once every three years.
    [*]Quit sacrificing musical flow and enjoyable sound for technical complexity. I don't care how many notes you can play within a second, if it doesn't sound good, I'm not impressed to the slightest, no matter what. I'm looking at you, Dragon-oops there's still a full note in the guitar solo-Force.
    [*]Don't wear armour on your record sleeves. It's pathetic.
    [*]Don't come up with original ideas for the sake of having original ideas. Make sure they make up for good music too.


Needless to say, that disqualifies a lot of power metal bands. Of course, These are always to be taken with a pinch of salt, and I actually do enjoy a lot of bands that are, for the lack of a better word, "violating" one or more of those criteria. I really enjoy Blind Guardian, some Gamma Ray, some Helloween, and a few others, and I really dig Rob Halford as a vocalist. A few fantasy lyrics are actually quite intelligent, and some fast guitar solos sound really cool.
 
Who of you people owns one or more CDs of an artist whose discography has started in 2000 or later?  ;)
 
Of an artist or a band?  Admittedly my two favourite bands of the post 2000s have established members.
 
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