Any sounds in particular that have shaped the way you listen to music and the things you like about it?
One of the most obvious influences for me was the ambient backgrounds and sounds from the game H.E.D.Z, which I have not heard for over ten years until today, and I had forgotten nearly everything about it. I am blown away by how I can pick out similarities from this music to that of the music I love and listen to today.
I'm in the process of ripping and converting tracks from my old CD that's been covered in dust for some time, I'll post them when I get them all converted
Aside from that, hearing Enya on my mom's speakers as I played outside on the swings while she sat and did crafts was really influential as well.
Tomb Raider, Spyro The Dragon, and the Legacy Of Kain series. As well as all DOS games, like The Elder Scrolls, and Blood, and Quake, and Duke Nukem...I can go on forever. I've frequently thought about this subject.
"You'll See" by Madonna was my first step into pop music & "Kiss by a Rose" by Seal. As cheesy as the Seal track is, both of those tracks definitely have some really, really good arrangements and mixing in terms of pop music.
"Changes" by 2pac and "Ready or Not" by The Fugees were my first rap tracks.
My Dad listened to Pink Floyd and U2 like there's no tomorrow. Still does. And a lot of classic rock.
Not really sure where my Electronic influences come from..I think "Children" by Robert Miles. I spent years as a kid trying to track down who did that song.
Everything listed above has some really superior mixing styles to it, which may have been what sparked my initial reasonings to find music that sounds good and led me into a career in audio.
My Dad would play loads of 60's 70's classic rock, then plenty of more new wave stuff from the 80's like U2, Men At Work, Men Without Hats, Midnight Oil, etc. He's mostly stuck in a time warp and still rocks most of this stuff.
80's pop music. I grew up on MTV... stolen MTV most of the time.
Horror movie music as my parents also played a LOT of horror movies. They would rent the weirder stuff from mom and pop movie rental stores back when they were around. I was desensitized quite early. My favorite is the Day of the Dead soundtrack, which I first saw when I was probably 9. Oh man... the movie stuck in my head for YEARS.
Earliest influential memory and the reason Boards of Canada resonated with me when I first heard them...
I was about 4, my dad was playing an old tape of Strawberry Fields Forever. Kind of a strange sounding song to young impressionable ears. Then, you get to the end part where it fades back in, and it sounds kind of scary. THEN, the tape starts warbling, stretching out, and gets eaten! FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT! I remember cowering in fear at the sound it made! The rest is history!
The grunge era was the first time I began to discover music on my own. There was the stuff getting spun on the radio and MTV which was great, but there was also a local college radio station that would play some of the more obscure stuff. I would later go on to prank call a certain radio show host who called himself The Highlander and always began his radio show with Queen.
From there my tastes got heavier and I veered toward metal through most of my early teens. Mostly industrial and Nu Metal... yeah you heard me...
I got into electronic music through Nine Inch Nails who acted as a great bridge between both metal and electronic. Depeche Mode was the key electronic influence after the metal phase started to fade out in my late teens. Later getting into Orbital and Aphex Twin. It was around this time that I got the internet and began to re-discover all of the old music I grew up with, re-kindling fond memories from childhood, then BoC came along as if on some divine cue. It was perfect.
My dad listens primarily to a cycle of Bruce Springsteen and similar artists.
And it annoyed me. A lot.
Still does to an extent. I don't care for Bruce Springsteen.
Now, when I was probably 6 or so I heard some serious old school jungle DnB, probably Prodigy, Smack My Bitch Up which had just come out around then and it quite changed me. Anyways, I was into electronic music from then on and tried to find a lot of it. When I was about 10 years old I downloaded Discovery by Daft Punk over a really slow internet connection and then the rest was pretty much history.
I think I became to appreciate my current sound tastes probably just last year or so.
Growing up in Germany, a lot of Kraftwerk, synthesizer "greatest hits" (vangelis, jean michel jarre), lots of new wave and ABBA. Personally I was always about video game soundtracks, SNES and 64.
I don't remember with having any musical tastes in childhood. It could be only NES soundtracks from Mario, Super Contra, Adventure island, Duck Tales. Or even from PS1 games lke Crash Bandicoot, Ace Combat 3, Toy Story 2, Gran Turismo 1 and 2, The Need for Speed 4 and 5, GTA 1 and 2, Worms 1 and Armageddon etc.
Later in middle of 2000 my musical tastes goes from flash loops. I even have this quite enough downloaded collection and so looped sampled stuff for today.
But after Salad Fingers movies in 2008...with BoC and Aphex....my music tastes changed for nowadays in different form
Exposure from my parents. Dad would listen to generic classic rock stations that, nearly 30 years later, still play the same hits with a few 80s things sprinkled in there. Mom listened to bluegrass and white people gospel. I think before they were married dad was really into Eric Clapton and SRV. meh.
I've always liked some bluegrass but not usually. When it starts to become soul-less wankery on the fiddle I lose interest. And the exaggerated 4/4 foot stomp looks dumb.
Don't know how that's affected my own music listening (and playing) history. My own listening habits started developing when I used to stay up late to watch Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes or whatever it was.
My father's a classical musician, so I woke up many a times hearing flute and piano. Other than that, lots of Leonard Cohen when we were driving, from 0 to 5-6 years old probably. Cool thread!
I remember listening to Willie Nelson, Barry Gibb & Barbara Streisand's Guilty and Disney's Sounds of Outer Space all the time. the Disney album was mine but all mixed up with the others. 4 years old.
And what's that song, Hooked on a Feeling was always on the radio in the car. The back seat smelled like a tire.
Living in Queensbridge Projects when I was a younger, I used to like the sounds of the cars tires on the bridge. It had this sort of humming sound. That and Hip Hop. Later on when I moved to California I listened to a lot of synth pop stuff and industrial.
As a 2 year old I was mesmerised by Enya's 'Sail Away'. My mum played a lot of Bach, Vivaldi and Opera. My dad listened to African Jazz. My favorite video game music was from the monkey island series, and at the age of 12 I discovered a love for orchestral soundtracks to movies (while my friends all listened to Limp Bizkit). Queen were the first rock group to capture my imagination.
