Carbon Date Yourself, with music.

[upsidedownwalrus]

I wasn't allowed to listen to music as a kid. My parents seemed hellbent on forcing me to like classical only (probably the main reason I never listen to it now, the fools! ). They had no radio capable of listening to FM (when I later asked my dad, when I was about 12, why he didn't want to get an FM radio he started ranting on the lines of "FM, LM, little twiddly M" ) and no telly so I couldn't even watch stuff like TOTP. As a result, pretty much most of the 80s was a non-music blur for me

The first tune I got really into was Mel and Kim's "Respectable" which I heard round a mate's house I guess when I was about 9-10, I loved it and then he bought me the 7" for my birthday, which my parents grudgingly allowed me to play on their record player every now and then.

After that it was Michael Jackson at about 11, at which point I forced my parents to buy me my own tape player/radio. I then started listening to new music via radio a bit more and followed a progression that went something like Michael Jackson - - - Madonna - - - Transvision vamp/Neneh Cherry - - - The Soup Dragons/REM - - - and then at about 15-16 I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the first time and that was what got me properly into music - Mudhoney/Screaming Trees/etc. At 17-18 then started opening up to a bit of electronic stuff like FSOL/Aphex/Sabres, although never got the Orb.

 

[Guineveretoo]

In my early years, it was all classical music which just kind of blended into one, plus some strange Flanders and Swann stuff including one about a gnu and one about wallowing in mud, and one about hi fidelity, and then some Peter, Paul and Mary song about hammers and one about a lemon tree, both of which I still know off by heart.

How does that carbon date me?

 

[poului]

r67fvyedrtfhgc

"Blue Marbles"

 

[Annierak]

Music memories before i could choose? Well mum only had a few lp's when i was little but i always remember having to listen to Elvis, Tom Jones, Jim Reeves, The four tops and a live Trini Lopez lp. We had a radiogram in the living room and a Dansette record player in the bedroom where i would toddle off and try and fit as many 7 inch singles on it as possible
The only 7 inch singles i remember from my childhood days during the early 70's were The Shadows "Apache", Al Martino "Blue spanish eyes" and an Elvis "King Creole" ep.

 

[William of Walworth]

My older brother played the Beatles Red and Blue albums a fair bit, plus Jimi Hendrix. Plus a few other things of the time -- Floyd? maybe. He didn't really develop his more folkie/unusual tastes til later, but he did switch onto Fairport Convention quite early, and I liked that too.
This was when I was around 10 in the early seventies, prior to that it was classical all the way in our house and we didn't get a TV til I was 6 (and we didn't get the chance to watch much music on that)

It was only from about 1975 (?) that I started to develop my own musical interests, some of them I'd class as shite now, a good deal more than half of them stand the tests of time OK. With the help of Led Zeppelin becoming cool again many many years later (although I always had a soft spot for Zep, and Floyd too, even through the Year Zero period of punk when Dinosaur Bands were Memory Hole candidates for many).

My tastes developed broader with the help of the sainted Peel! Who got me into punk and all sorts of other cool shit.

But in my early involuntary listenig to music phase, I don't think the Beatles, Hendrix, Floyd and Fairport** are too bad a start!

**doesn't mention Simon and Garfunkel

 

[seeformiles]

My parents had an old biscuit tin of singles and a knackered old record player that they'd let my brother and I play. Our favourite was probably The Goons EP (Ying Tong Song, etc.) but there were some odd items like Jacques Brel, Mahalia Jackson, "The Mickey Mouse March" by the Mouseketeers and "Tears of a Clown" - Smokey Robinson (although because of the paper sleeve we thought it was sung by a girl called Tamla Motown!). Other notables were "Dominique" - The Singing Nun, "Dance with the Devil" - Cozy Powell and lots of Georges Brassens (as my old man worked in France in the 50s and 60s). We used to play them all at 78rpm since it was funnier!

 

[SpookyFrank]

The first music I was exposed to that I payed any attention to was Elvis, the Beatles and a lot of early REM stuff. My greatest musical influence as a lad was probably my dad's ancient bootleg tapes of the old grey whistle test though

 

[Mapped]

I remember my Dad having Abba on a lot and my mum had better taste with the Beatles, Beach Boys and Buddy Holly.

Me and my mate used to sit in his Dad's "sports car" (god knows what it was), which apparently had a great stereo and repeatedly listen and sing along to all of the "Brothers In Arms" album by Dire Straits whilst wearing shit 80's sunglasses

 

[dweller]

I remember seeing the bloody Osmonds on t.v.,
I remember very clearly when Bohemian Rhapsody was number one
for weeks and weeks and I was a bit scared of the video with the four faces.
I was about 5 years old for the Queen song.
I remember the eurovision "Save all your kisses for me" Brotherhood of man.
So yeah probably 1976 was the year of clarity as far as music memories are concerned.

as far as home music is concerned,
my parents played all sorts of stuff,
Bread, Fotheringay (my mum liked her folk rock),
Art Garfunkel, Pink Floyd, Beatles,
Janis Ian, The Eagles, ELO, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan,

 

[souljacker]

I remember my Mum playing:

Dr Hook: Sylvias Mother
Dave Edmunds: Some Girls
Stars on 45

I was very young then. When I was about 6 or 7 my mum gave me her old record player and a stack of her singles. Cliff, Peter Sellers doing Goodness Gracious Me, Louie Louie by the Kingsmen and, bizarrely, Road Runner by Jonathan Richman

 

[dada]

oh my gosh!
this!!!
i heard my mom sang along with that.

 

[girasol]

Earliest musical memories: Beatles, Village People and Bee Gees on radio/tv and lots of Brazilian music (Chico Buarque, Caetano, Rita Lee and Elis Regina I remember very clearly, because my mum liked them a lot and had their records which I used to put on myself quite regularly).

 

[idioteque]

I don't think I can tell you, because nobody will ever take me seriously on any music thread ever again, even though I think I've got a fairly respectable taste now.