This is, of course, a fill in the [blank]. I am interested in what music was hot when you were a teenager, and in what capacity did you listen to it, dress like it, incorporate it into your culture at the time, meaning how did it play into your life? Do you still get all nostalgic when a certain song comes on, do you still listen to the same stuff, or did you evolve your listening habits a bit.
For me, I was in my prime teen years in the mid 80’s so I grew up with Guns n’Roses, Metallica, Rush, White Snake, Cinderella etc…etc…
Everytime I hear “Take me down to the Paradise City” I get al woozy inside!
Alternative. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Blind Melon - I feel all conflictedly bittersweet when I hear Eddie Vedder. We wore flannel shirts, everything too big for us, Doc Martens. (Well, if you were cool you did - I wore knockoffs.) Irony was king. I think it went out of fashion on 9/11 and has yet to really return.
For me alternative was in college, and new wave sort of thing in the 80’s in high school. So I went from Depeche Mode, Erasure, and the Cure to the Smiths and more Cure. And of course Oingo Boingo, my all-time favorite band, and I got very into Sarah McLachlan in about '91.
I mostly listen to more soothing music now (as a frazzled mom, I need soothing!–Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKennitt type stuff), but lately have been getting out my old tapes while working on sewing projects. It’s amazing how I still know every. single. note. of those songs, and they bring back tons of memories. --Also, when I’m in the car by myself, I crank up the Boingo.
I had bright blue Doc Martens. They were so cool and spiffy. They still live in the back of my closet.
Hard rock, with an emphasis on screaming guitars and “flashy” stage shows.
Queen, Rush, BOC, Thin Lizzy, BTO, Zepplin, ELO …
Or the Runaways, Piper, Angel …
Whoever was playing at the Brawlroom/Uptown/Riv/Stadium/Amphitheater/etc. that week.
Lots of lasers, pyrotechnics, and drugs.
Psychedelia, man! The San Francisco sound, along with the Sunset Strip. Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Quicksilver, the Doors, Santana and all that. I was a little young for and on the opposite coast of Woodstock, but that’s my cultural matrix, music-wise.
The fact that punk rock existed anywhere in the world made my extremely provincial suburban sheltered existence a little easier to bear in the late 70s/early 80s. It was a revelation to know that someone besides me had a problem with the conformity of the the world I was in.
Not at all. I got my first Zeppelin albums off kids who decided they didn’t like them anymore. I liked the Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Who and didn’t like punk at all. I spent my late teens and early twenties playing in what would now be called (guitar led) indie bands, in an era BTS* when the pop world ran on sythesizers and drum machines.
Well, if I listened to ::gag:: pop-radio and there was any chance at all that they’d play the Soft Boys then maybe. Yes I still listen to the old stuff (I like the Sex Pistols now). Occasionally a new act catches my ear but that seems to be happening less these days.
I was a little out of sync. My key years were the 80s but I was busy listening to Yes, Zeppelin, Floyd, Beatles, the Doors, CSN, CCR, ABB, Rush, Sabbath etc and discovering groups like Traffic, Cream, Zappa, Airplane and all of the Blues and a lot of Folk. A little later, I found early Metallica, Bauhaus and new age. I wandered into New Age via Tangerine Dream and Jon Anderson’s work with Vangelis. My music taste is eclectic. I had stoners listening to Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris.
The most important music for be was Yes, Zeppelin, Floyd & the Beatles.
Yes was upbeat, exploratory and instrumentally as near perfection as Rock and Roll has ever seen. I actually get an energy lift from much of their music.
Led Zeppelin was the Blues with an early heavy metal edge and really the mainstreamer of Power Ballads. Their music spoke to me in so many ways and it still does. The tie in with Middle Earth only added to its appeal. My love of Led, led me to Cream and to the Blues.
Pink Floyd was universal to my age group. Everyone had either the Wall or Dark Side of the Moon. I wore out several tapes and albums of Dark Side and Wish you were here. I had most of my best trips listening to Floyd. I used Floyd to listen to as I went to sleep most nights. It reaches the point were Floyd is primal music for me.
The Beatles are ageless, timeless and forever young. They have left most of us wanting more. They are the Beatles. I do not remember a time in my life where I did not know of the Beatles and some of their songs. Beatles songs play in my head in idle moments if that makes any sense. Does that make any sense?
Folk music: Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Steeleye Span, Judy Collins, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, Richie Havens, Dave Van Ronk, John Prine, Doc Watson, John Renbourn, Nick Drake
My formative musical years, 1971-1979:
Beatles, Elton John, Eagles, Jimmy Webb, James Taylor, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper, countless disco hits, Stylistics, O-Jays, Gladys Knight, Carly Simon, Olivia Newton-John, Queen, Roger Miller, Johnny Cash, ELO, Rush, Paul Simon, Barry White, and pretty much anything else on top 40 radio at the time.
MY first concert was Motley Crue - Dr.Feelgood - when I was 14. I was a “banger” (Metallica, Skid Rown, GNR) although young enough to also ride the Grunge wave when it hit, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In Chains.
I was just tlaking about my circle of friends with my mom. Thye were all long-haired, goateed types, but a more gentlemanly bunch you couldn’t ask for.
It makes perfect sense. Sometimes I complete other people’s sentences in my head with Beatles lyrics. If I’m going to have a random stray tune through my head at any given time, it’s as often as not a Beatles song.
I was in my early 20s during this time, and even though I was not a teenager, it was probably the time that had the most effect on my personal formation. I was talking in another thread about going to see a Nirvana show back in '93, and I was getting all choked up just thinking about it. I think it had something to do with the images of the bands as guys who were kind of nerdy, like I am, who became cool in spite of (or because of) their nerdiness. I really related to them.
), the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Manfred Mann and Led Zeppelin.