Basically, how old were you when you started to become more independent in your musical tastes?
Before you answer this poll, a few things need to be explained.
First, by “listening” I’m not including stuff you listened to because your parents and/or older siblings were in control of the radio, stereo, or TV. This is music you listened to when you had control.
Second, by “popular music” I mean any music that’s not classical (e.g., rock, country, R&B, pop, adult contemporary, etc.).
Third, by “really start listening” I mean at what point did start becoming knowledgeable enough about the various artists being played on the radio or MTV that you could identify most of the artists and their songs on your own?
Finally, this is not part of the poll, but if you reply, tell what year it was.
I said age 10 (which would have been 1983). By then I had a radio in my room and would tune it to the local Top 40 stations before I developed a taste for oldies a few years later and would tune it there instead.
I was into Blondie and AC/DC before that, starting around age 8. The first record I ever bought was Back in Black, when it was released in 1980 (I was 9). But it wasn’t until I was in the sixth grade that I really started listening to the radio and branching out in my tastes.
I think about 8, in 1976/7, when my folks gave me their old radio. It was one of those old Bush ones with a big dial with exotic things like “Hilversum” written on it. I just liked listening to the random broadcasts it could pick up, often in languages I didn’t know. I spent many an hour under the bedcovers tilting the radio so that I could pick up Radio Luxembourg on medium wave 208. That was an education for a young, slightly isolated, boy (we lived in the middle of nowhere back then).
A couple of years after that, someone upgraded a transmitter somewhere, and I could reliably get Radio One, and that’s where John Peel comes in. I heard pretty much first heard all the bands I’ve liked for a long time on his show.
1973, I was in Grade 7 at 11 years old. Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” came out that year, and I got a copy as a Christmas present. I then listened to it at least once a day for the next year. By the end of that year, I had a modest collection of Oldfield, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes. Heavily influenced by my older brother’s tastes, but I also made sure I got different albums from him so that we could listen to each other’s collections (whether he knew about it at the time or not).
Summer of 1974. I was 9; my cousin, who was a year older than me, turned me onto listening to one of the local top-40 stations (WLS in Chicago). I think they played “The Night Chicago Died” and “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” every 30 minutes.
I got my first album (Elvis’s Golden Records) when I was 6 (1976). At 7, I had albums by Kiss and Queen and a few others. By age 9, I belonged to the Columbia record & tape club.
The first actual album I bought by request was Air Supply’s Greatest Hits in 1983. I was 5. In '84 I added Thriller and the Ghostbusters soundtrack and by '85 I knew exactly what I wanted to listen to and had my own FM radio.
For some reason, I grew up with no interest in music. I was vaguely aware of the music my older brothers and sister listened to, I just couldn’t get into it. And believe me, I tried. I would force myself to sit down and watch MTV (you know, when it was still Music TeleVision…), because I wanted to fit in, but I just didn’t enjoy it.
After high school was when I really started to take an actual interest, I guess because I stopped forcing, and it came more naturally. Funny thing is, when I would talk to my siblings about music then, it turned out we had a lot in common after all.
So that would have been around 97-98 that I started finding my musical taste, when I was 18-19!
Grade 7, 12 years old in 1974. It was Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” While the rest of the family was in the basement watching TV, I sat alone upstairs in the dark with headphones on and memorized every note on the album.
I then went backwards in time and started listening to The Beatles. Shortly thereafter it was KISS, and then Queen.
Around 11 years old, so 1997-ish. I wanted to be like the cool kids at school, and they liked bands like Ace of Base and Korn. Then I started listening to the radio too. There was a phase with club pop too, stuff like Aqua, Venga Boys, Prozzak, Eiffel 65, etc.
Age 10 in 1956. I got my first radio for Christmas that year. Used to listen to it all night long. It was made of white plastic and the heat from the tubes eventually turned the plastic on top brown and made it warp. WGN: Rock and Roll! Also WSM and the Grand Ole Opry. My tastes have always been wide-ranging.
My dad was into the Beatles from the start - we had a “She Loves You” single on the Swan label. I was about 8. He introduced me to rock music, as well as country (when it was still good).
To the surprise of most people who know me as an adult, not until I was 14. Until then I didn’t have much interest in music, but Nirvana and The Red Hot Chili Peppers grabbed my attention, and at last music finally clicked with me.
I voted age 12, but it might have started a year earlier, when I was 11. It was around 1972 or 73, at any rate.
My older brother listened only to classical music, which never interested me much, so he wasn’t much of an influence on me. I had really, really crappy taste in those years, though - think John Denver and the Carpenters - until I hit high school and learned a little more about actual rock and roll.
It was my 8th birthday when I got my first cassette deck with built in radio, and I already had enough of an opinion on music to ask for Thriller. There was another cassette that I asked for and got for that birthday. It was a compilation called something like 84 Hits Out, and I thought it had a song I really wanted, but it was a different song with a similar name. Didn’t matter, I found plenty on there that I liked
So… I guess I must have been 7 when I started taking an interest.
