I was born in 1981. I grew up listening to classic rock that my parents listened to. I became a fan of Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Rush, as well as not-really-prog The Who and Led Zeppelin (and of course the Beatles). I listened to a station featuring those artists on Pandora and was introduced to a bunch of things that I never even knew existed. They eventually led me to discover the awesome majesty of “Epic Trailer Music”, music written for movie trailers or similar things. They tend to be orchestral and often have choirs, although singing no particular lyrics, and thus instrumentally are something similar to classical music, but they have a much more modern ethos to them. That I got into it by means of symphonic metal suggests that they are being influenced by the style, if not the timbre, of metal. The artist I most associate with this genre is Two Steps From Hell, which certainly sounds more like a metal band than a couple guys who compose music for orchestras.
There are some historical classical music pieces that I have found covered by various artists that I’ve grown familiar with through Pandora, and they are are generally very striking and not at all subdued sorts of things. Dies Irae and Vivaldi’s Summer are two I’ve found most appealing. I have a MP3 CD on shuffle in my car with basically all the music I’ve come to like in the past few years, and it wasn’t until I heard this and this back to back did I realize they were actually the same piece of music just using different titles.
““I love Slayer, Megadeth, and lots of cuddles” might not be as outlandish as it sounds. According to music psychology scholar Adrian North, PhD, who conducted a three-year study correlating the musical preferences and personality traits of more than 36,000 participants, heavy metal fans “are quite delicate things” who are “basically the same kind of person” as classical music lovers, only younger.”
I was a classical music snob as a child, hated pop/rock. And what won me over was what we now call progressive rock (back then also often called “album rock” and although it doesn’ t have to be trippy and phosphorescent and silvery, “acid rock”).
I love progressive metal and rock, though I am more of a metal head. Fates Warning, Dream Theater, Steve Morse, Rush and some of the more unknown bands/artist like Crimson Glory, Savatage, Porcupine Tree, etc.
I love classical, though lately I have been on a classical guitar kick. I love orchestral stuff but don’t listen to it as much as I’d like. Basically I don’t have enough time to sit and listen these days.
I also love me some jazz. Especially modal stuff. I have 4 and half month twin boys at home and they are listening to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, Ingenue by kd lang and random classical pieces all the time. Interestingly, if the boys are fussy, kd lang mellows them out instantly.