what were your MOST IMPORTANT YEARS musically

1992, 1993, 1995, 1997

1986 - purchase liscense to ill; first piece of recorded music owned.

1990 - cousin (i think) gives me a copy of both appetite for destruction and the then extant public enemy albums which i become obsessed with.

1992 - nirvana (my secret shame.) a few months later someone lets me listen to their copy of the dead kennedy's give me convience or give me death on a french field trip, one of those epiphanal, evangelical moments which ruined my life. see my bloody valentine on last tour thanks to same cousin from above.

1994 - i am taken to my first rave. also, form first band.

1996 - college, form second band. begin to actively track down electronic/dance records now living in philadelphia. hardcore/punk finally begins to lose it's edge for me.

1999 - my summer of pop.

2001 - discover ilm (you think i'm kidding?)

I've got a great "I Love Prince" story deep down in me...

And there's nothing shameful about Nirvana, Jess, I was a bad man for owning Nevermind in 3th grade.

Morale of the story: Alanis Morissette is the artist of the decade.

Yeah, I'm a hoot eh...Fiction Factory anyone?

1992 rem automatic for the people/out of time: the first time i liked something that my parents didn't. they continued to be my fave band for another 4 years or so (but i basically never listen to them now - although the odd song still brings a lump to my throat (cuyahoga at glastonbury 1998 probably being the last time; for a moment it seemed like we really could put our heads together + start a new country up etc)).

1993: suede/pj harvey (dry + rid of me) these 3 tapes (+ rem albums) were all that mattered to 13-yr old me, and i guess they carried on being v important for the next 5 years. "animal nitrate" was the most exciting thing i'd ever heard; in many ways i never got over it (to this day i still have a fascination with what i think of as the "suede lifestyle", and it doesn't take much to get me back into wanting to dress in black + wear too much makeup + snog skinny boys at indie clubs, which was certainly what listening to suede made me want to do (although i didn't get round to it for another four years)). i still have a bad weakness for skinny suede-like bands (only 4 years ago i briefly thought that marion were the best band on earth) + for pj harvey-like stuff too.

1998: the year i discovered dance music/classical music/all kinds of experimental shit. went to my first raves, took lots of drugs, realised that indie music was by no means the be-all and end-all (though it was another year or two before it stopped being my musical centre). still hated pop (and popular films - basically i was yr classic 17 yr old "intellectual") and didn't "get" hip-hop (i listened to the first wu album quite a lot but never went any further).

2001: the year i realised i loved pop and (mainstream - still don't get the undie stuff) hip-hop; ilm had a lot to do with this. loads of hilarious "britney is better than radiohead" conversations with strangers down the pub etc etc. also got into jazz late in the year when my flatmate put on some late john coltrane live album and my jaw hit the floor. also the one year that i had broadband internet and napster/audiogalaxy, so acquired approx 600 albums.

for me, 1980, the year I read Lou Stathis
you think I'm kidding -
go find old issues of Heavy Metal magazine from 1980

that was the BIG BANG, otherwise it's back to the 7.0 earthquakes every coupla months

1982: I had some pop-disco 45s and listened to music around the house, but after an older family friend came over and wanted to find "Jack and Diane" and "Abracadabra" on the radio, I became obsessed with listening to music this way (as opposed to records around the house) and, from there, obsessed with America's Top 40. I listened every week and taped much of the year-end top 100 that year off the radio (sadly the tapes are well-lost). This obsession lasted for a few years over which time I rooted for my faves [Stepping Out, Come on Eileen, (Keep Feeling) Fascination, Goody Two Shoes, Der Kommisar[, many of which I still love. Also at this time I'd visit the teenage girl across the street (also my babysitter, I was 9) and listen to her new wave LPs.

(too much classic rock.)

around 1987: Got the Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and poured over it extensively. I have no idea to what extent it had to do with the magazine as it actually seemed like a decent book. (Someone -- Matos? -- once confirmed this in a post here.) It was very Anglocentric and had chart placings and in retrospet this sort of sparked my Anglophilia as I read about all of these artists whom I hadn't to my knowldege heard (Roxy Music? the Specials? the Buzzcocks?) who were revered alongside classic rock regulars. Still, of course, I listened to too much classic rock at this time.

1991: Nevermind. Got it my second week of college, which probably seemed pathetically appropriate at the time.

(too much pavement).

1996: "Make a new cult every day to suit your affairs..." Joined Sinister in 98, although I didn't participate much until the next year, but the experience helped me discover loads of new music and thanks to Hopkins and Fitchett and others, a new way of thinking about and creating a dialogue with/about pop music. (Embarassingly, they'd be shocked to learn this -- I've always been more of a confidence crisis-afflicted lurker in these sorts of places.) (Quit Sinister in 2000 after too many tales of tweehugger woes at U.S. liberal arts schools.)

1999: Pop epihnany. "Are You That Somebody?" and "Supa Dupa Fly" had started opening the cracks but this is the year that it all sort of happened. Also, working with an indie-type group of people for the first time left me uneasy with the ethos surounding it and became a big turnoff even when I assumed it was somehow "correct."

2000: ILM.

2001: Learning to love Jamaican music, through the backdoor of UK garage and its sometimes ragga vocals, and Soul Jazz.

oh gosh, that's wordy. sorry.

Derek, are you sure you aren't me? 1979-1983 was the period when I discovered a broader range of music than at any other point in my life (and under similar circumstances as Derek). Still, there's no doubt that the 70's (I was born in the middle of the 60's) were important to me in a quieter way. In 1979 I started listening to a lot of stuff that I hadn't heard or even heard of in the previous decade, but the previous decade was the norm from which I deviated. (I now find much of the 70's pop I listened to in the 70's more attractive than much of the music I discovered between 1979-83.)

My college years were less important for musical discoveries, since I was spending somewhat less time alone listening to the radio, and tending to go back and more thoroughly explore what I had been hearing. (Also, it seems to me that my taste became more rock-oriented in college than it had been in high school.) I suppose that 88-91 were important for first exposures to house/techno, if only so I could discover I didn't like them, and for a growing interest in hip-hop to listen to.

1992 was kind of blah, but it was in around 1993/94 that I discovered Arabic music and that was pretty exciting; then in late 1997/1998 I started dancing salsa, which led to more musical discoveries. There hasn't been any major shift or discovery since then, but I am not close to exhausting my interest in the music I already know something about. The explorations (sorry if that's too pretentious) set in motion in 1993/94, and then 97/98, are continuing. For that matter, I am still tracking down stuff that I heard back between 1979-1983.

It looks like I have rewritten my introduction.

I think it would be easier to say which were the most fallow years: 1984-1987, 1992, 1995-96, 1999-2002. But calling them "fallow" is not entirely fair. 11:11.

1995 - went to Boston for college, discovered going to shows, good friend got a radio show and made me some excellent mix tapes.

1999- got a job, finally could afford to buy more than 12 CDs a year. Also, 45 minute walk to work each day gave me time to really listen to music.

1987ish: Listening to Top 40 stations in my bedroom while reading comics, while listening to classical music whenever I drive around w/ my mom. Rock music? What the hell's that?

1992: Pick up on "alt rock" craze via the Spin Doctors and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ooooh, grunge - sounds fancy. Led Zeppelin & Metallica can bite my ass. Also attempt to conflate this w/ my fondness for Top 40 R&B. I still have a Ralph Tresvant tape somewhere, if you want it. And Babyface's "Whip Appeal" is a GREAT song. And I tell my mom to stick her Smetana up her Sibelius.

Somewhere in between, my neighborhood friends are listening to lots of rap - Too $hort, Slick Rick, Biz Markie. I think it sounds funny.

1993: COLLEGE! Roommate is a serious Britpop guy. With a fondness for Shudder to Think. He plays the Charlatans' "Can't Get Out of Bed" every time I oversleep; I learn to hate that fucking song. Fugazi plays at UConn; I have no idea who the hell they are. Lots of Pearl Jam & Alice in Chains. A G & R fan on my floor steals my copies of _Ten_ and _Mariah Carey_. I could KILL.

1994: Full-on indie rocker. Dogma and everything. First concert = Velocity Girl w/ Magic Hour & Damn Near Red (yeah, them) - this might've been '93, though. (That Phish show I went to DOES NOT COUNT.) Also see Archers of Loaf & Mary Timony w/ Joan Wasser. Hit my head on the punk rock hard. Ah, but I am in love with _Superunknown_ & _The Downward Spiral_. And _Exile in Guyville_. And _Ruby Vroom_. Don't ask me about anything that isn't "hip".

1995: Buy my own CD player. Is that EVER important!

1996/7: You though I was indie rock then?!? Oh no no no no no. Two words: Simple Machines. Why songs written by 2 women in the thick of DC punk rockdom struck such a chord in me that I A) can now sing a good number of their songs from memory and B) follow every single musical recommendation they offer, I can't say. Maybe I just had a severe crush on 'em. (Maybe, he sez.) But, yeah, The Three Artists That Changed My Life - Tsunami, Franklin Bruno, Ida - all came into my life around this time. I also get around to figuring out that, hey, there was some good music made in the 60s! I own one Tribe Called Quest CD. And I am such a dogmatic little indie snob that my friends almost disown me.

Oh. And I also learn about this internet thing, and I create my li'l website, where I talk about Tsunami & Franklin Bruno & Ida until even I get sick of it. Reading the works of Mark Prindle and glenn mcdonald keep me up many a night.

1998: Ah, indie pop, how I love your amateurish beauty. And you are CLEARLY so much better than that Pearl Jam shit, for damn sure. (_Yield_ is pretty damn good, though.) I spend a good portion of this year on the road, shuttling between Manchester, CT and Cambridge, MA often twice / 3 times a week - that's 6+ hours on the road, kids. The Middle East upstairs becomes my 2nd home. Newbury Comics is the friend's house I never leave. I also pick up a guitar, and start annoying my roommates even more. I have no idea what sleep is anymore. I also acknowledge the teeny pop movement at my website. I'm such a dirty little rockist - someone slap me, please. My music collection grows at an exponential rate (and this is w/ me being ultra-selective).

2001: Freaky Trigger. NYLPM. I LOVE MUSIC. Completely blows my stupid little prejudices (re: mainstream rap, dance music, pop music, the stuff w/ the guitars, etc etc etc) out of the water, one at a time. God help me and my credit card. Everything all at once forever. And it keeps on coming.

winter 1996/1997 - Get Coltrane's Live at Birdland and realized that Lou Barlow was whining too much and that he was getting laid becuase of it, anyways.

Introduced to the Smiths and R.E.M. in 1989 via a friend's brother, I'm 14, really should have been familiar with Descendents Dickies Minor Threat by this time but I was in a private school in Kansas and NO ONE was punk...

1990, at the same school, but 120 Minutes and glossy mags turn me onto my new fave bands the Pixies, JAMC, MBV, Dino Jr., Echo and the Bunnymen, Sonic Youth

1991 R.E.M. flexi of "Dark Globe" cover in Sassy inspires me to buy Syd Barret's Madacap Laughs which leads me to suspect there is grebt music that doesn't get a lot of press every week in the glossy mags

1993 after 2 years of coasting I discover Matador and Drag City and begin workign my way thru their catalogs

1994-present have pretty much heard most popular indie/pop/rock musics and got bored around '99 with almost all of it, but since then too broke to afford to buy anything off the 400+ item wish list I've built up of more adventurous stuff, and couldn't afford DSL during the napster heyday, so...

2002 i ahev a big wish list

i too am drunk after seeing Wilco tonight. It was okay... but I thought they would put on a shambling Replacementsesque drunken RAWKSHOW; this was not that at all.

It's been a matter of following one's nose ever since. Perhaps I'm too old for Great Musical Years; or perhaps music is delivering fewer Year Zero possibilities.

1981-82 - Teenage prejudices are destroyed by the new pop

1984 start buying NME

Early 90's and beyond car boot culture with people disposing of their vinyl leading to buying loads of obscure (and not so obscure) stuff, total genre whoredom.

2001 ILM say no more

1986: I'm a 10-year-old in Brooklyn, NY, and I don't own many records yet but I've got the radio at my disposal -- Z-100 (teenybopper pop, VERY little rock), KISS-FM and WBLS (hip-hop/soul/"quiet storm"), Hot 97 (in the golden age of bubblesalsa and prefab girl groups), CBS-FM (Motown, AM Gold, Elvis).

1988: Junior high school begins. A couple of kids are into metal and I get into it too (radio: a New Jersey metal station called WSOU) -- I also start getting very into punk rock (Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth) and folk music (mostly Dylan). Also, I'd sung a bit as a child, but 1988 was the first year I started to take the study and performance of music seriously -- took piano lessons, learned how to read music, sang with choral groups, put together a "band" (I guess) with some schoolmates who could play instruments.

1991: I begin high school as a sophomore. Nevermind comes out and I like it well enough. I enjoy a few grunge things, even the dreaded Pearl Jam (although I'd abandon them by the second album), but my tastes begin to eclectify -- hardcore punk, no wave, jazz, trad English folk, '70s power pop, classic rock. I inherit some Rolling Stone Record Guides and biographies and stuff from my dad, and I read EVERYTHING.

1995-1998: I started college in 1994 in NYC, but my REAL college experience begins in 1995, when in sophomore year I transfer to an upstate New York college with a real honest to god campus. I make music-nerd friends, I do the newspaper bit and the radio station bit, I frequently skip classes to hang out in the station's massive CD/vinyl libraries, listening, taping, working on setlists for my show, taking chances and getting an AMAZING crash course, esp. in the worlds of jazz (bebop/hard bop/'70s fusion/Latin jazz) and 20th century classical. In 1996 I fall in love with someone who's really into Dylan -- and he helps me "get" The Basement Tapes and turns me on to the Anthology of American Folk Music, which is released on CD right around this time. He also makes me about two dozen mixtapes (over the course of 3 1/2 years), most of them very good, and me being Jody Beth Rosen, I reciprocate with about two dozen of my own, most of them sort of good.

1999: I buy Wowee Zowee and discover that I like Pavement.

2000: I make a (platonic) friend whose tastes and philosophies so uncannily resemble mine (minus the Dylan infatuation and some of the chick music) that we start an ongoing "hey, we must be the same person" joke that will rear its head whenever we "jinx" each other, which is a little too often. He likes Devo and Yoko Ono and Donna Summer and Penderecki and the Circle Jerks and Jean Michel Jarre and Throbbing Gristle and Adam Ant and Neu! -- and we spend the next couple years influencing and inspiring each other in all kinda ways. One of those truly great friendships.

2001: I spend most of this year (esp. post-9/11) being a cynical, bitter asshole, and I listen to a fuckload of reissues, biding my time until new music gets good again.

2002: I'm poor, but between SoulSeek, promos, and used-bin finds, I listen to more music than ever, even more than in my radio-station days. I decide to take a new approach towards music -- I will look for reasons why something's good rather than just constantly being twatty about how boring/overrated/awful everything is (I mean, I've been plenty disillusioned with Rolling Stone and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and VH1 and all the "if you don't like the Beatles, you don't like music" bullshit, but I refuse to let any of that tarnish my enjoyment of the music itself -- I don't want to be partypooped out of liking something I've always liked, no matter how silly that something is, and when something's new to my ears, I don't want to declaratively HATE it if I don't automatically love it right away). The thing about music is that you're never done listening to it -- there's no point at which your comprehension of a piece of music is complete, and so onward I trudge into repeatbuttonland...

although that entry doesn't really make clear that 1979-1983 were the years I was both making my own music and making the most discoveries record-wise. I suppose the Uni years (1983-6) were also important.

1997-99: buys a copy of trout mask replica. starts asking questions and listening more 'critically'.

1999-present: starts listening to free jazz, and more importantly free improv. soon enough starts digging all sorts of musique concrete and 20th century classical. also ILM emerges, stops listening as much and starts talking about music more.

mid 90s - gradually shift from quirky pop of Beatles/XTC/Queen and occasional out-music to Zorn/Can/Boredoms w/sometimes normal stuff. Oh, and major in music perf (always forget that).

2001 - ILM says, "pop is worth your time"

'92-Nirvana, indie and punk rock

'98-I went to raves before that year but it wasnt until '98 that I embraced it totally

'00-Discovered ilm

cut to 02, discovery of ILM (also huge, colorful & bizarre).

Soundtrack: Mid-late 70's electronics, proto and 1st wave industrial, electronic disco, Krautrock, BBC Radiophonic Workshop (given a tour round by Brian Hodgson in '79), early 'ambient', some Dub, early synth-pop (eg Human League demo tape) and pre-new-romantic synthy-rock (eg Uvox albums 2 & 3, S.Minds albums 2-4), some avant-garde stuff, and some early so-called 'post-punk'....

(Kept meaning to do a longer version of this kind of thing as part of the 'Introduce Yourselves' thread - but thanks for the opportunity here jess)

2001-I went to see Jon Carter for the first time with my brother, his wife, and my best friend. I'd never been in the Kitchen nightclub in Dublin before and I loved the place, and the evening. Me and best mate decided to go back to the Kitchen the next week on a whim, after a college freshers ball thing turned out to be shit. I bumped into my brother's friend Phil, whom I vaguely knew, he said we could get in free to the Kitchen every week. So we started going and getting drunk there all the time, and went from knowing one tune like Superstylin' or Where's Your Head At, to knowing 5 or 6, early ones were Thrill Me by Junior Jack, or Soulshaker by Max Linen. Then around February it was my friend's birthday and he suggested we ask Phil to let us into the Darren Emerson gig he was promoting. Phil obliged, and so we had a fucking incredible night, heard La Mouche for the first time, decided this clubbing thing was pretty slick. So we kept going to the Kitchen, and in between saw Jon Carter again a few times, then eventually Tivoli opened and Kitchen closed, David Holmes, Dave Angel, Billy Nasty, Joey Negro, Jon Carter again and again, Harry Choo Choo Romero, Erick Morillo, more and more djs over and over again, X-Press 2 a few times, Orbital at Glastonbury (we've moved into 2002 now), Chemical Brothers, Underworld at Creamfields, and Darren Emerson again last week, fittingly. Still loving it really.

76: Mother gives birth while an advance copy of Leon Ware's Musical Massage plays in the background. A couple months later, I am taken to a Funkadelic show and am hoisted onto stage; George Clinton carries me over to Bernie Worrell and I improv on the keyboards with my feet (held up by Worrell) as the group plays "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On."

77: I purchase my first record with money from first birthday party -- the Stooges' Fun House. Father attempts to get me into punk rock, but it doesn't quite work. "Dad-eee, dose men hab boo-grrs aww ober dare shirts."

78: Purchase second album -- Magazine's Real Life. I like the funny keyboards and my mom won't let me grow my hair like Barry Adamson. Favorite song of the year is Fat Mama Kick (some of the notes remind me of the "oops you lost" notes played on the Price Is Right). Also a notable year for my first visits to the Paradise Garage and Better Days.

79: Am horribly frightened by Metal Box and am sent to my room after I brain my best friend Tony with its packaging (he wanted to watch Slim Goodbody; I wanted to watch Thunderbirds). I also use Metal Box as a substitute for a TV tray and get jelly stains all over it. Dad refuses to buy me a second copy, but it's okay 'cause it scared me anyhow. François K hooks me up with some rare Prelude remixes.

The first time that I really sought out music for myself was in the 3rd grade, where I formed a Beach Boys fan club with two cousins. We had a tree house where we would go listen to my tape of their greatest hits on my shitty little boombox thing. Mainly I just really wanted to be in a club and loved the Beach Boys. My cousins had a tree house, so they got to join too.

First "indie" band I got into: Uncle Tupelo when Still Feel Gone came out. I was probably 12 or so then. My dad really liked them. They played at his club several times right before he sold it. I saw many bands play there, but I never caught Uncle Tupelo. I heard them enough from my dad.

Didn't discover punk until a Musician article in 1994 on Green Day. Then I got really into the Dead Kennedys and the Clash. From there took the standard indie route (Pavement, Archers of Loaf, Slint) while interning at the local college radio station (WUVT) during high school. Most of the records I bought because the older DJs and the guy at the local record store (Butch, who now runs Squealor Records) were really nice and really cool. So I bought albums to please them. Most of them I didn't really like at the time. Only Archers hit me first thing. "Web in Front" was my favorite song for ages.

My dad taught me guitar at age 7, mainly bluegrass stuff. Played in bands with my dad a few times (hence my love for the Marshall Tucker Band), but got sick of the guitar and quit. I play occassionally now. The point of this: my dad wanted me to be a rock star. I knew I could not, but I knew that I could write. So he encouraged me to be a music writer instead. So I read everything that I could. Musician was my favorite magazine by far, especially JD Considine's short album reviews.

Oh, to cover another base: my first show was Little Feat when I was two.

1997: Picking up model airplane supplies at a strip mall hobby shop**, I wander into the record store next door and buy Stereolab's Mars Audio Quintet and two other CDs that look different from anything I had seen or heard before.

2000: New home iMac, CD burner and cable modem spell downloading frenzy, AMG/ezine/hyperlink addiction. Friend opens record store. Friend shares promos. More music more music more music.

*I've never heard a Whitesnake album, nor cared one way or the other about baggy. My disgust and boredom was general.

**I've never shopped for model airplane supplies. I don't recall what led me to buy my first CDs of new music in eight years, nor how I spent my free time in the years in between.

Haha definitely. I was gonna put Creed in there, but I thought that would make the joke less funny. Michael Azerrad (the author of that recent indie book) made an actually serious 8-year cycle theory argument in a CMJ article in '99 or so. It was like '76, '84, '92 and "Have heart, we're due."