Looking at some of my MP3s: They Might Be Giants, Queen, Nick Cave, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, ACDC, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, Chuck Berry, Cream, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa, George Clinton, The Moldy Peaches, Squeeze, Tears for Fears, The Beta Band, The Who, Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes and Wesley Willis.
I don’t listen to the radio and hate MTV. VH1, on the other hand, is strangely addictive…
The bands I listen to most often are Barenaked Ladies, They Might Be Giants, Foo Fighters, Counting Crows, ABBA (what? what?!), Steppenwolf, Blue Oyster Cult, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, Pink Floyd, Kansas… a wide variety of things that just happened to tickle my fancy.
23 here. I listen to the radio from time to time, though I usually wind up on a “classic rock” station or rap station. But I’m a radio surfer. I recently took a survey for one of the “new rock” stations in town and recognized none of the songs. Not even a “Huh, I think I’ve heard that before.”
I get most of my music from suggestions from others or following threads like these.
Rock is dead, as far as I can tell. There’s some alternative left and The Strokes/The White Stripes/Other 3 Chords And A Cloud Of Noise bands are doing some interesting things, but there’s not much rock worth listening to anymore.
Here’s what’s in my Winamp Playlist/On My Desk: Great Big Sea, Shiva in Exile, Beth Quist, Tori Amos, The Cure, Nelly, The Doors, David Bowie’s 2 newest albums, Nine Inch Nails, Barenaked Ladies, Lords of Acid, Nelly, the Big Tymers, The Arrogant Worms, A Perfect Circle, Goldfinger.
I’m 19. I haven’t listened to the radio in a while and I don’t recall ever having watching MTV for any real length of time…I just don’t like most of that stuff. (though I agree with sleeping…VH1 is oddly addictive) I prefer to dig through my dad’s music collection and go from there because he and I share similar tastes.
Anyway, recently I’ve been listening to The Velvet Underground (and solo work by Lou Reed and John Cale), David Bowie, R.E.M., Barenaked Ladies, Alanis Morissette, Moby, and an assortment of songs from various Broadway musicals. I’ve also been listening to random 80s pop lately for some reason – because I find it amusing? I don’t know. Reminds me of being a little kid again.
I’m 23. I have a radio show on my community radio station; we play mostly indie-spirited artists, and that’s what I’m into. Lately I’ve been listening to Sloan, Wilco, The Dandy Warhols, Death Cab for Cutie, The Weakerthans, and The New Pornographers. Today I picked up the new Ryan Adams album. One of the good things about living in Canada is that, IMHO, the independent music scene is excellent.
On the rare occasions when I want to go out and dance, club music and hip-hop doesn’t do it for me. I try to find some funk band that’s in town (this desolate prairie outpost I’m from has a fairly strong funk scene, for some reason) and go enjoy myself.
Oh, and my peer group doesn’t really influence what I listen to - at least, not in a bad way. Actually, you could say that what people listen to influences whether they’re part of my peer group. 
21, also dissatisfied with MTV and the radio. I did just discover the community station a couple months ago, though, so I can finally hear some new and interesting stuff. Other than that, it’s the Top 40 Hitz station, the “Alternative” station, which is basically just for teens who want to be angry and who would listen to pop if they wouldn’t get made fun of for it (I adore the kids who listen to Linkin Park and make fun of Britney et al for being “pop whores” etc), and a bunch of country and 70s-80s rock stations.
Personally, I’m an indie guy at heart. I don’t mind if a formerly-indie band gets signed to a major label (like Trail of Dead), it’s the spirit and soul of the scene that counts. To me, that spirit and soul means making the music the band/artist wants to make, not the music that a demographic wants to hear. That said, a random selection of stuff I’ve listened to in the last week:
Non-Prophets
Explosions in the Sky
Mogwai
Refused
Ms. John Soda
Murder by Death
DJ Shadow
Sigur Ros
Basement Jaxx
Dizzee Rascal
and those artists reside next to the Beatles, Liszt, Chopin, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and tons of other stuff. Country is probably the only genre I really don’t have more than a few songs from.
I am 20.
Looking at most of these posts, many of you people listen to Pop music just in a different form. Come on now…college radio? Even that is a genre the big labels exploit. Most of you are nothing more than pawns in the pop cycle.
Me…I like deep-disco-filtered-garage-with a hint of soul-house music and melodic hardcore punk. The next artist in my search will not be (or else have maybe 1 listing) on Kazaa. Soulseek, yeah sure, but not Kazaa. Basement Jaxx was MTV europe fodder. Sigur Ros is just the current diamond being displayed by the entity.
Go find your own likes, not what “d00d Indie College Radio Rules” tells you too.
I’m 20.
I’m all about the classic rock, really can’t stand much pop music. I also like Mannheim Steamroller, listed under ‘New Age’ in stores, but I’m not a New Age person otherwise.
17 year old male here. I like classic rock like Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, etc, and nrewe music like Cake, The White Stripes, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Strokes, and a some classical music.
I do wonder if 19 to 25 is really the target demographic nowadays. It seems to me that most of the people I know my own age don’t listen to top 40. But that’s just my extremely limited sample.
Punk… think the Ataris (preferably still in Astoria)
Trip-Hop… think Massive Attack
Techno… think Oakenfold, Trance Control, Keoki, Prodigy
Older (70s/80s rock)… along the lines of Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Faith No More, Queensryche, and GnR.
Remember, kids, MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken.
Mmmm…pop cycles.
My biggest guilty pleasure is pop-punk. I readily admit that I listen to Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, The Ataris, etc. Er, actually my biggest guilty pleasure might be Britney Spears.
Favorite band is the Pixies. Current faves are Fountains of Wayne, Outkast’s new album, S.T.U.N., and the new Blink 182 single.
I also listen to MxPx, Pearl Jam, A New Found Glory, Janis Joplin, All-American Rejects, Missy Elliot, Offspring, Our Lady Peace, The Streets, System of a Down, Tom Petty, and, you know, other stuff.
I feel bad for doing this, but I have to. Those aren’t punk bands, they’re just pop in Hot Topic clothing.
Wow.
Generalize much?
I’m a 19-year-old male. Instead of listing everything I listen to, I’ll just list the CD cases currently on my desk (an indication that I’ve listened to them recently but am too lazy/absent-minded to put them away):
“Weird Al” Yankovic: Poodle Hat
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced?
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis: Bold As Love
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland
The Jimi Hendrix Experience boxed set vol. 1
The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico
Devo: Freedom of Choice
The Beatles: Past Masters Volume Two
The Beatles: Beatles For Sale
Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass: Passages
Ravi Shankar: Ragas and Talas
Ravi Shankar: Sound of the Sitar
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: Freak Out!
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: Uncle Meat
Frank Zappa: Waka/Jawaka
Frank Zappa: You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. II: The Helsinki Concert
Frank Zappa: Joe’s Garage Acts I, II, and II
Frank Zappa: The Man From Utopia
Frank Zappa: Meets the Mothers of Prevention
The Mexican Mariachi Band (great name, huh?) conducted by Lopez Varanga: Mariachi From Mexico (great title too!)
The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World
Edgard Varese as played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez: Ameriques/Arcana/Deserts/Ionisation
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
Buffalo Springfield: Retrospective
Queen: Greatest Hits I, II, and III
Primus: The Brown Album
The Les Claypool Frog Brigade: Purple Onion
Primus: Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People
Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow
Kronos Quartet: Nuevo
Load: Encoded and Dirty
In conclusion, I really need to clean my desk.
I’m 21 years old and listen to listen to Type O Negative, Tori Amos, Lacuna Coil, Guns N’ Roses, Rolling Stones, and The Who.
I also listen to some rap and pop, but it’s rare. I never listen to the radio or watch tv.
Oh, and take it from me ROCK MATTERS!!!
Israfel - it warms my heart to see someone your age still embracing prog. I’m 44, and like you I still maintain a diverse “taste” in music but I’ve found the prog material to have the most staying power.
I highly recommend a band called IQ. They’re a British outfit that never rose high on the radar screen but consistently put out great stuff (and still do). Their website is here .
Enjoy!
I’ll do the desk drawer survey, as I’m in the MLitt office at the moment.
I’ve got Tom Waits Alice , which is what I have on at the moment.
But also lurking in the drawer are: the Verdi/Velvet Underground mix cd, Warren Zevon Wind and Learning to Flinch, the Pogues If I Should Fall From Grace with God and Yiddish Dream: A Heritage of Jewish Song.
Yeah. I’m somewhere under 25.
AL
I’m sixteen. I rarely-if-ever listen to chart stuff. Put simply, I like rock. At the moment, I’m listening to a lot of Placebo and the Goo Goo Dolls, but at any given moment I’ll listen to songs by lots of different (rock) bands - Jimmy Eat World, Something Corporate, Sterophonics and Muse come to mind. I do love Nirvana, too, but I haven’t listened to them in a while.