Analyze your own tastes! What makes your favorites... your favorites?

I have always found personal taste very interesting. I have spent a lot of time analyzing what makes some records, songs, or sounds my absolute favorites.
Everyone has unique tastes based on the path they carved through the music world as music lovers, but some commonalities tend to link together what make some your favorites.

Here is what I came up with for myself:

"Its usually based in nostalgia. Something about bittersweet guitar chords, subtle builds, open airy chords, loosely defined climactic moments, repetitious 2-4 note melodies on top of those bittersweet chord progressions, east coast suburban imagery, a "simple pleasures" laid back atmosphere associated with driving on a nice day or sitting out in the backyard- but still applied to the rest of the compositional elements listed above."

Give me some insight into what makes your favorites do it for you, and if you'd like, why you think so?

(Or just focus on specific records here: Subjectivity Perfected)

banging donks

Thanks?

er, sorry :P

I'll have to think about this for awhile before I come up with a serious answer. this kind of self-analysis is tough for me.

Ha no problem, its tough but I always need to understand why I immediately love a recording, and I am interested if anyone else has or would like to for themselves.

Yeah, I'm always curious about that, too.

The big commonality, as I've often stated here, is major-7th chords. I like songs in genres that I'm not usually moved by if they contain jazz-like harmonic structures. (Was actually just thinking this a few minutes ago while listening to Destroyer's Rubies.)

Other things I like: bossanova rhythm, the 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2 rhythm (e.g., "Clocks"), a bass line changing under the same arpeggio (especially where a chord changes from I to iv).

I always like to hear something that pushes the boundaries. Something that takes music where it's never been before. 99% of the stuff that gets promoted by labels is recycled sound full of diminishing returns.

Having said that, I also need to just chill out to old Tangerine Dream sometimes. But then again, they were creating entire genres of music.

"...a bass line changing under the same arpeggio (especially where a chord changes from I to iv)."

Same!

Oops, I meant I to vi. Like C to A-minor. But yeah, the main thing is just the changing.

Devil's triad!!!

Right. Any instrumentation preferred? I'm a sucker for 90s-style guitar work.

That "Right." wasn't meant to look so dismissive, if you read it that way! -Sorry!

Don't die on me so soon thread...

i like dramatic tempo shifts

i think I'm also partial to 1-2-3 1-2 and 1-2-3 1-2 1-2

I'm convinced that a lot of it is non-musical, or if it is musical it's on such an abstract level that I can't begin to figure out what it is. That's why I'm suspicious of things like Pandora that seem to work off of a "sounds like" template. I do believe that there's some sort of spiritual link between Lisa Suckdog and Scarlet's Well and Men Without Hats and Fleetwood Mac and Game Theory, but someone smarter than me is going to have to find it.

oh Pandora ... will it ever learn that I don't like Scout Niblett?

I like small group music. Where jazz is concerned, I don't tend to like anything larger than a sextet, and can't stand big band stuff (except for Count Basie's group from the '30s). On the other hand, I don't like solo albums not by pianists, or duo albums most of the time unless it's *something*/drums. Same thing for classical; I like solo piano and string quartets, but don't like orchestras.

not even Jazz Composers Orchestra?

Well don't forget to add the vibes (or whatever you want to call it) you associate with your favorite music if you have any- as I did: "a "simple pleasures" laid back atmosphere associated with driving on a nice day or sitting out in the backyard." I like that care free bliss you get when you listen to "Make-Out Music" by 12 Rods or "Jenny, Andrew, and Me" by the Lilys. I am still talking about how it melodically/structurally gives you a vibe regardless of lyrics (unless they're unavoidable).

I've got a thing for riffs. I like rolling guitar riffs. I like Steve Reich type repeated pattern riffs. I like acid 303 riffs. I like modal jazz, as it is usually built on coming back to a groovy head riff.

I put together some notes to try and write an article to submit to Perfect Sound Forever, but I couldn't quite pull it together on how I found something similar between the aesthetics of Steve Albini and Richie Hawtin. There is something very pure and stripped down about say Shellac and Plastikman, where they are complete total stylistic opposites, there is a similar use of minimalism and purity of sound aesthetic. It makes sense to me when I listen to the music, but maybe it is a personal interpretation. I kind of like music where there is a bit of obsessiveness on the raw sound, whether it is using a mic setup in a way to capture that very wide dynamic range of a live drums and hard guitar or delving so deep into what a 909 and a 303 can do and reveling in that sound.

I hope I don't dumb down the thread with my 2cents. But I love the topic.

I think a lot of my taste begins with lyrics. With all of my deep, treasured favorites, it comes back time and time again to writing. Not always 'story songs'...it doesn't have to have a narrative, but...hmm...the choice of words? The way the words get put together is invariably something that drags me in. Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, The Drive-By Truckers, PJ Harvey, Elvis Costello, Crowded House, Nirvana, The Pixies, Nine Inch Nails, and yeah well The Beatles too because I'm geeking out on them atm. Something about the lyrics for all of them drags me into the music which I end up loving almost as much. And I'm really interested in the songcraft aspect of it too, thinking about songs where the lyrics are written to fit a melody, where a melody's written to fit the words, how that changes the song, if it changes it at all...

I don't really feel like I have the tools to explain what it is about certain types of music that drag me in, though. I know what I hear, and in an arty sort of writery hippy way I could explain what it sounds like, but I always find I end up sounding very childlike. I know that I love love love songs that have what I call a 'horseriding' drum/bass line like Metallica's 'Four Horsemen' or Iron Maiden's 'Run to The Hills'...Heart's 'Barracuda'...and I am mad about any song that does that well, but I don't know what it's called. Galloping? Maybe? Shrug?

i like when my taste feels unmoored & easily surprised

If my music is not quirky and fun I want it to be maudlin and slow. I'm not too much into emotional midways. I hate when a sad fuck tries to be cheerful or when an otherwise fun artist tries to sound ambitious and deep. Most of the time it just sounds uncomfortable and when it's not it's only worth hearing for comic relief. Of course there are some artists which are excellent in portraying a whole set of different emotions and musical traditions in their usual repertoire but I'm talking about the less talented.
Sonically speaking I tend to love music that works as 'walls of sounds'. I have a great deal of respect for atmosphere and space.

also, predictable & obvious

Roundness of tone does it for me a lot of the time. I like gloss, though not as an end in itself. A sense of commitment is a strong sign. I like funny words and words that don't sound like anyone else could have made them up, and if the words are good I will learn to hear the voice. I like a panoply of singing and rapping styles, but I respond especially to ache and sass. Smut is good. I like very defined rhythms, by which I mean Built to Spill as much as I do funk and other cross-rhythms. I'm taken by breakbeats, pianos (I really like solo boogie-woogie stuff as well as more ruminative solo jazz playing, e.g. Monk), clean synthesizers, choppy guitar chording, and vocal harmony. I like a lot of records that fall outside this definition, too, but those are all big hallmarks for my ear.

My biggest deaf spot as a listener is Latin music. I love Latin rhythms and touches in other kinds of music, but salsa has always daunted me a little--it's a whole world I'd need to spend serious time with in order to feel comfortable discussing it in even the barest terms.

I generally like to be surprised and overwhelmed by sound. I tend to be drawn to complex, unfamiliar music, with structures, melodies, progressions and/or - most importantly - rhythms that are unfathomable and unpredictable on first listen. polyrhythms, irregular patterns, jerky off-time beats and seemingly impossible timings will all keep me coming back.

being fast and hard and massive and grimy within that framework also helps.

What the percussion is doing and the personality of the singer dictate a lot of what I like in a song. I've realized I need some kind of beat, and that's why ambient stuff doesn't do much for me, be it ambient metal or techno or noise rock.

I'm a sucker for Diddly/clave beat (tho' I haven't cracked Latin music either) , 1-2-1-2-1-2 hardcore punk marches, glam rock handclaps, and bobbling dub and two-step.

I like the vocalist to be a bit unapproachable- lack of emotion is better than too much emotion, and projecting eccentricity is more pleasing to me than friendliness. Seeming like a regular person is nearly always a turn off. So I prefer Earth Kitt over Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Schneider over David Byrne (to take four artists I like). Nina Nastasia and Jay Reatard are the two singers who have emerged in this decade who really cut into me. I liked R.E.M. a lot better when you couldn't make out Stipe. The singer's personality defines the social context the music is coming from, and I seem to want an outsider element to my music, though I *read* that at a subconscious level initially. I don't seem to actually pay attention to the vocals until the whole song has hit me a few times. While I like songs to be epic, I don't like them to be anthems.

I've also realized that harmony plays almost no factor in what I like. All sort of stuff that blows people away because of harmonic textures (Beach Boys, Animal Collective, Flaming Lips, Queen) does not appeal to me for that reason, if it appeals to me at all. Pop Staple's guitar is what pushes the Staple Singers into the heavenly for me.

Great! Thanks for all of the thoughtful responses!

Also, does anyone associate their favorite music with specific environments (for example: a location + certain weather, or reminder of time spent with others + specific time in your life... all of those and more in whatever combination)?
Do similar artists that you had never heard before suddenly give you these (likely) nostalgic feelings, just because they contain all of the right ingredients?

Keeping it alive!

probably half of the music i listen to doesn't have vocals, but in terms of singing - for some reason, it's easier for me to describe this than other qualities and attributes - I like voices that are either theatrical or melodramatic or are jagged and simple and confessional sounding. I'm really not into the smooth tenor vocals of a lot of pop music or indie rock, but I'm okay with croony, loungey old-timey stuff.

EVERYTHING i listen to and love is the result of:

what my father listened to when i was a kid and what he took me to see as a kid. jazz, jazz, and more jazz. also, r&b, soul, funk, and female singers and jazz vocal groups of the 50's.

what my brother listened to when i was a kid. rock, rock, and more rock. also new wave, power pop, 70's pop punk, and late 70's metal.

what my sister listened to when i was a kid. pop, pop, and more pop. also broadway, rock operas, and 70's folk rock.

my own faves as a kid also set up my future listening. my first favorite album as a little kid was sly & the family stone's greatest hits. my first fave band was the beatles. my second fave band was black sabbath. the first song i ever obsessed over as a little kid was "i feel love". sly + beatles + sabbath + moroder = probably 75% of everything i've listened to since then in one form or another. ("then" being circa 1973-1979)

so, basically, my past set me up to be an omnivore. i probably should include mom too! she used to play classical music in the kitchen while she cleaned or did her mom stuff. and this might account for my later in life classical jones.

Overall, what appeals to me about music isn't so much melody, harmony, and libretto, but timbre and rhythm. Stravinsky & Varese are way more important to me than any Romantic, Impressionist or Serialist.

My musical tastes are a negative space of sorts defined by things that irritate me in other musics.

Instrumental solos that feature more scales than emotions. Needlessly complex arrangements. Needlessly simple ones. Most male vocals. Nearly all non-melodic vocals. Choirs. Lyrical content espousing violence, racism, self-aggrandizement, blind-patriotism, getting into pants, or denying the entry. Squarewave guitars when I was tired of them. Sawtooth synths now that they're ubitquitous.

The list goes on, but there many well-populated genres that occupy, nearly in their entirety, the same negative space. Discarding enough pop conventions that they're almost condemned to a parallel existence that only occasionally surfaces. Every decade seems to bring another handful of these negative-space genres into view, but their antecedents usually go back decades, even to the dawn of recorded music. And that doesn't include the panoply of pre-pop traditional musics that are endless wells.

I'd point to less classic artists that define my aesthetics, but upon reflection, I find that many are flashlights that illuminate another corner of the potential negative space. Its often not so much what they do, but what they leave out, that makes me fond. I could take or leave many of Prince's songs, but I loved his subtractive mixes: he'd start with full arrangements and keep removing tracks from the multitrack until a song became an irreducible essence.

So many of my favorites are like little time machines into my memories. And sometimes when I hear certain songs I get this crazy kind of synesthesia or something. If I hear Rocky Burnette's 'Tired of Toein' The Line' I can taste porridge, because it shoots me right back to being really, really small in our kitchen while my Dad is cooking porridge.

My parents didn't have a huge music collection, and their tastes were pretty limited, but they played the stuff they really loved, so that kind of grew on me.

Dad gave me Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins. He didn't listen to music alot, unless it was just the radio, but at Christmas time or when he'd had a few too many beers he'd bust out A Boy Named Sue, or Sink The Bismark and he'd be this gleeful, wacky guy that he usually wasn't on a normal day...I loved seeing how much he loved the music.

Mum loved Neil Diamond, Gene Pitney, Billy Joel...so I guess that's where the lyrics thing started with me maybe...she also loved Elvis, especially his gospel albums, and would NOT abide us making fat elvis jokes, so I grew up respecting the King, rather than thinking of him as a fat dead hasbeen. She loved loved loved the early Beatles (George was her favorite), but once they started growing mustaches and doing drugs, she was out. She didn't like the experimental stuff very much at all. That early stuff is SO ingrained in my memories and in my feelings about my Mum, and my sister and brother. I can't think of one without the other. And it made discovering Abbey Road, The White Album such a huge revelation for me. It was kind of cool that I got to discover a part of the Beatles on my own.

My brother and sister were younger than me, so I kind of forged out on my own and would go dig up albums that I had read about, or songs I heard on the radio, and just kind of follow my ears and my curiosity. One thing I love is finding the interconnectivity in bands, and seeking out albums by people who moved from one band to the other. I did this a lot when I came across Pearl Jam...finding a cassette of Green River at a used record store, or the MotherLoveBone cassette...following Mark Arm into Mudhoney...just following the trails where they led me and finding a lot of cool music along the way. And I read a TON. Imported magazines, books, whatever./

Good grooves, good singers. Rhythm and blues and dance music.

Hey this was fun... Reviving for kicks.

Being a teenager (once).
Ears

Great thread! I ask this to myself all the time. Let's see... I tend to be drawn to synths. Guitars are fine as long as they meet some criteria. I hate the sound of the "clean" electric guitar. I need effects: one or all of chorus, delay, reverb are a must. Distortion is OK to but not by itself. I very rarely like acoustic guitars. I tend to dislike things described as "organic". I generally like stuff to be polished and produced. Little sounds and tweaks all over the place are a bonus. Isolated things I usually love: synth pads, octave basslines, big gated reverb drums, strings. Isolated things I usually dislike: vocals that are too expressive, minimal instrumentation, long, monotonous passages (guitar solos, a beat that goes on for two long).

I hate the sound of the "clean" electric guitar.

Ha, I love it. I even have a Clean Guitar playlist.

am a sucker for earnest ineptness, or people who have honed their talent in perverse arenas, and even if I don't care for it, I feel like there's a social obligation to champion these kinds of dudes. I'm a little bewildered by people describing sonic preferences divorced from context. There's got to be a hidden narrative there somewhere.

Tritones, minor keys, faux (or real) Arabianisms, 1970s technology, 1960s production values, Bo Diddley beats, sitars, wah-wah pedals and tambourines are all right by me.

no backstory?

texture, organic sounds manipulated in non-organic ways, hand claps, dotted 8th notes, analog distortion, trombones playing high notes w/vibrato

I get a specific kind of euphoria from Music for 18 Musicians, Tangerine Dream, the soundtrack to Risky Business (which features TD), etc. I love when there is a certain repetitive rippling quality to music wherein the melodic elements and the rhythm become indistinguishable and everything just seems to float/flow/flutter/shimmer. I think I heard music like this in some movie when I was very young or something and it got encoded into my aural-pleasure center. I find this quality in a broader range of music than those examples would indicate, though. Cluster, Basic Channel, Studio, and parts of Remain in Light come to mind, mostly stuff with synths, but not necessarily. When I find it I tend to hear it as a perfect "locking in" of all the elements in the music (but its not the same as the locking in of a very tight rhythm section, it is something that tends to involve all the elements in the music.) I'm much more likely to find it in music that has a strong sense of rhythm without abrupt changes, without a lot of chaos, and without jazzy solo-ing.

I love a lot of music that doesn't meet this criteria at all, but I've noticed that I have a particular obsession with this quality.

"organic sounds manipulated in non-organic ways"

This suggests to me a desire to reconcile our culture's poor shepherding of our natural resources with the undeniable boon of modern technology, where the trombones represent the futility of seeing this enacted through public policy?

raw sounding yet catchy. soulful backup singers are a bonus.

I think it is personally hard to pin down what I like... I like things the grandeur, the building up to something bigger, then I like the smallness, the quiet subtlety of a song. Basically, anything that makes me feel "something".

Hey daavid why do you think you have those preferences? Did you listen to that kind of thing growing up? Are your best memories associated with your favorite artists that have that sound? I guess these questions go for anybody.

I tend to like pop music that's lyrically and musically complex yet song-oriented.

Melody descending into sublime chaos.

When I was growing up in Vermont, I liked messy hip hop made by crews with the parts better than their sums (Heiro, Boot Camp, Wu Tang), lyrical trickery, and things that sounded like they were made by "intelligent" rappers, since I flirted with poetry and rhyme.

Then, I became infatuated with "indiepop" after I fell in with a certain pop addict crew of Florida hipsters when I left my rural northern abode to roam. Their brand: chunky, loudly strummed guitar (electric or acoustic) with nasally, almost dissonant male vocals. I fell head-over-heels for music that sounded like this, which generally was made in the late '90s, early 2000s.

Later, when I moved to New York, "indiepop" transmuted into the clean, shimmery guitars and more driving beats of the mid-'80s.

This turned into a penchant for chugging rhythm guitars with solos, and somehow I only liked music that was made before 1983. I can't explain it, but if you played me a song made after 1983, I would know and it. ("Powerpop" and "punk.")

Now, I listen to almost nothing that sounds like these things, and I prefer authentic sprawling, epic guitar/synth wildebeest songs with raw, damaged vocals. My preference for era changed, and I started liking things from 1968 through 1973. It's odd, but those are my favorites now. ("Prog" and "tropicalia" and "psychedelic" and "kraut.")

I live in LA now.

Well, I am always been interested in melody and harmony, and I guess harmony is even more important, in that I like a song to have the occasional surprising chord change, only not so much the sense of tonality is lost. A song that changes chords and key all the time, yet always sounds very tonal and very pleasant and melodic will for me be a fantastic song.
As for song form, I somewhat prefer verse-chorus, but I often fine interest in music that has more than just verse and chorus (i.e. the "suites" of Genesis and Yes back in the 70s), whereas if it has less (funk, hip-hop, blues), it bores me in its repetitiveness and monotony.

Other than those elements, I am a sucker for all kinds of wide stereo sounds and stereo effect, and for multi-voiced vocal harmonies produced in extreme stereo. I also like a rather polished and detailed production, have never understood the "less is more" thing, because to me, the more elements in the sound, the better.

I tend to like stuff with precision, a rich sound, unusual ideas and a good groove. My tastes go from reggae to death metal though, so don't think there are really any rules. I think I may be a bit of an aesthete, I'm at least as interested in analysing the way stuff is put together as the emotion and meaning behind it.

chap have you had records that just immediately hit you as instant favorites from both reggae and death metal?

okamax, does nostalgia ever play a part in your current favorites? It looks like you've been all over the place taste-wise.

Geir, you've always seemed like you've known the answer to this thread well before it existed! Do you generally only like records that remind you (vaguely even) of your all time favorites?

chap have you had records that just immediately hit you as instant favorites from both reggae and death metal?

Yep!

Neat! I've definitely loved records from both ends of a broad spectrum, but the ones that hit me the hardest seem to fit into my original description.

I like the repetitive chords of Philip Glass and Steve Reich and like any musical genre that contains this principle. I guess this explains why I love black metal, techno and lots of traditional music but dislike death metal, math core and jazz. I also am fond of children's music and fairy tales. I can still sense the dark but fascinatingly endless possibilities of the world portrayed in them, as well as the creepiness of the simple melodies. This explains my fondness for (old) Disney music, musicals, cabaret, etc. Combine the repetition with the fairies and you end up with Legendary Pink Dots, Current 93 and the like.

Yeah, that sums it up quite nicely.

most songs under 2:30

Do you generally only like records that remind you (vaguely even) of your all time favorites?

They don't remind me of them if the melody is different. I only like music within genres I either already like, or genres that remind me of the good-old genres (like, 00s electropop is very similar to 80s synthpop, for instance, which is why I also love 00s electropop)

geir, do you love the new teenage fanclub album? you must. i just heard it the other night. sounded lovely.

Well I didn't mean down to the melody, but yes genres basically.

geir, have you heard violens? i'm looking forward to their new album. probably the only indie-rock album i'm looking forward to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKdNhPVnK3Q

Evan, I guess it would have to be for a nostalgia of times I never experienced (except Floridian/Athenian indiepop, which was alive and well while I was there).

It's funny, because now that I DJ, I tend to like songs with a consistent thread throughout. Which may be why I, like Sebastian, dislike herky jerky, inconsistent music like math rock, Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa... but it's really hard for me to say. I think

I'm convinced that a lot of it is non-musical, or if it is musical it's on such an abstract level that I can't begin to figure out what it is. That's why I'm suspicious of things like Pandora that seem to work off of a "sounds like" template. I do believe that there's some sort of spiritual link between Lisa Suckdog and Scarlet's Well and Men Without Hats and Fleetwood Mac and Game Theory, but someone smarter than me is going to have to find it.

― dlp9001, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:59 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark

was pretty OTM. Why I dig certain happy hardcore tracks or drum n bass or Dutch prog or Taylor Swift is impossible to say. It's pretty inconsistent taste, but that's what makes my shelves of records so enjoyable for me to dig through all the time. It also is hard to say why I like one track off an album, but none of the rest of the album. Shouldn't the same person or group of people be able to find that thing that makes something my "favorite" more than once?

I wrote a huge post, lost it, but am glad because this thread brought me to a flyer of my first real rap show:

http://www.fresh-force.net/downloads/GetFresh.pdf

I would put the performance of one Lady C up there in my Top 10 of things that shaped me forever.

not sure this goes here, but nostagia factors into my tastes, and one thing i loved about 80s pop -- epic choruses with rising vocal harmonies (e.g., journey) -- is still kind of lacking in a lot of modern rock. oddly enough, a band i think can achieve this is grizzly bear, but they have to loosen their turtleneck sweaters, write more like while we wait for the others, and get michael mcdonald to permanently front the band.

in a parallel world contenderizer&I are arguing about this til the end of time

Man I'm sure there's some secret to the melodies and chord progessions that set me off but damned if I know what it is. Something like the chorus to Suzanne Vega's Luka, damn that gets me every time, and I ain't no musicologist but when I look at a tab and it tells me asus2 -> bsus4 I'm like BUT WHY? That same chord progression even happens in the verse without half the affect!

Damn, isn't it so true. Thats why I can't get my head around it. I just want to know what the formula is. I want a scientific explanation with charts and diagrams of my brain and lines drawn that show the history of music I've loved during great times in my life that have lead to what I love the most now. If I don't keep talking about nostalgia, I have no other context to measure my favorites with. I don't believe I was just born with a preference for a certain sound, so I've been obsessed with looking back (an obsession that goes beyond music as well).

for the longest time, my magic formula was I hated anything my parents liked and loved anything that would make them uncomfortable, although I hope I've grown past that at this point. they listened to nothing but the most innocuous, noodly, blandly ahistorical Scottish & Irish traditional music, with the occasional bluegrass, folk, and inoffensive mainstream rock thrown in. I like rhythm, hedonism, obtuseness, variety, novelty.

I'm an oddball that has been keeping track of whatever album, cd etc. since Oct 1st 1996. 24 years, I'm totally insane. Kind of started in an odd way as I was working as a temp at the freaking Farm Coop headquarters in Indianapolis doing some type of temp stuff. They were laid back as it was all getting shipped to Illinois or somewhere at the beginning of the year. Pretty much your usual late 90s, recent collge grad situation...anyway this lovely lady that was a retiree teacher doing temp work for pocket money loved talking to me about the CDs I had in my book bag I was always listening to on discman headphones. She said, "you have too many child, you cannot listen to them all" and got talking to me to keeping a list to see that I actually listened to what I was accumulating. I started the list, but the accumulation never really stopped. ;) The list evolved and is in a Excel spreadsheet and Word document that was originally created on a out of the trash Windows 3.1 box. It's been saved and converted over the years, but there is probably some weird artifacts for a file going through that many different application versions. Nurd, i know.

These are the records I have listened to the most from the 90s, not repeating any other by the same artist.

Boards of Canada- Music has the Right to Children
DJ Shadow- Endtroducing
Tortoise- Millions Now Listening will never die
Shellac- Terraform < I've listened to all their records a bunch, but this might be there as it came out new right after I started the list.
Queens of the Stone Age- S/T <<<< This one is from driving. Last listened 2017.
Underworld- Dubnobasswithmehead
Slint- Spiderland
Fugazi- Steady Diet of Nothing
Jesus Lizard- Liar
Soundgarden- Badmotorfinger

These are the records from the 80s that have the most listens.

Motorhead- Ace of Spades
Joy Division- Closer
Sonic Youth- Daydream Nation
Jane’s Addiction- Nothing’s Shocking
New Order- Power, Corruption & Lies
Deep Purple- Perfect Strangers < This one kind of surprised me. I had a CDR in the truck for a long time, has to be why.
The Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime
AC/DC- Back in Black
Big Black- Songs about Fxxxing
Soundgarden- Louder than Love

I guess I'm a beer drinker but not a hell raiser. I have listened to 'other' music, I know I have listened to over 4000 different records since I started the list.

Yeah, I bought a few issues of Spin.

solid list there, a foundation for living