The one that hooked you

[Jirin]

Most of us probably started listening to the mainstream hits our friends were listening to. Maybe the radio or MTV or through some radio station's countdown show. But then, we heard something that was either too weird and too old, or otherwise we knew we'd never get to hear through those channels, and it completely opened up our horizons and got us on the hunt for all the music we love today.

For me, it was Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues. Before I heard it I mostly listened to stuff 1991 and later and all radio rock, but within the first few seconds I immediately thought "All the music I like is terrible", and that got me on the classic rock binge that led me later to indie.

What was it for you?

[John]

I grew up with 60's rock and modern rock and pop music wasn't allowed too much in my house unless it was a Christian crossover act. So, I could say it was Sgt. Peppers since that was the first album I really listened to the whole thing and loved, but I grew up with The Beatles so it wasn't anything new.

The first couple of albums that really hooked me into listening to new music in high school were Radiohead- OK Computer and Guided By Voices- Do the Collapse. My friends all listened to Nirvana, Weezer, Bush and Silverchair in high school, and I liked that music since it was different than what I grew up with but it didn't make me a music junkie. Those two albums changed my perspective of what music was but I still didn't know how to seek it out. I know I picked up OK Computer from the Paranoid Android video but I have no recollection why I bought Do the Collapse. When I got to college, Elliott Smith's self titled album and then all of his other stuff got the hook in deep. And in the dawning of Napster where I could discover all of this music from the past 10 years, stuff I never heard but was exactly what I would have been listening to if I had known about it? It was all over, I was completely hooked.

[antonius]

Well there are 2 moments: the first was hearing "Prikkebeen", a song by dutch singer Boudewijn de Groot on the radio, which I still remeber listening to standing next to the radio when I was 5.
So I started listening to the radio's countdown shows, not ever feeling satisfied, because of the strangeness and beauty of that one song in the ears of a five year old. The thing that came nearest was the 70's German electronic music, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and the like
The second moment was the list in Humo's "Top 200 albums of all time" in 1978. I listened to the albums from this list in the years to come, not really understanding why the music that came after this list wasn't as great as anything that was in it.

[Gillingham]

I grew up with bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Dire Straits, although my parents didn't listen to music very often. Mostly during car trips on while traveling.

Due to my brother I got to know bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana and hip-hop acts like Wu-Tang Clan and Cypress Hill. The first band that really ringed with me on a personal level was Rage Against the Machine, also thanks to my brother. Since then I started to seek out specific new music myself.

[Henrik]

The second moment was the list in Humo's "Top 200 albums of all time" in 1978.

This list is not on AM. It would be a great addition, as there aren't so many lists from the '70s.

[JR]

I was a music fan in the early 80s when I was a kid (listening to American Top 40 on the radio and writing down the countdown). Then there was a period where I was more into TV Nielsen Ratings. But then in 1989, it was the "Like a Prayer" single and video that commanded my attention to music (and in the case of Madonna, expression in music, which doesn't really apply to most pop acts, who think that simply gyrating or wearing next to nothing "empowers" women).

Since then, there's been no turning back with the music.

[Greg Rumpff]

I don't recall a specific album necessarily but I've always been more of a SONG vs. album guy. There honestly are almost no albums where I like every track.

I grew up loving oldies (50s/60s rock) because that was what Dad listened to in the car and I was the only kid in my high school that knew ALL of the Beatles stuff (not just the "cool" acid rock stuff) and certainly the only kid I knew who liked Elvis Presley's music.

As I got older, I got into the habit of borrowing cassettes (yes this dates me a bit) from our local library at random without any really clue who the artist was. I was disappointed a lot but it was worth it for the times that I discovered a gem I never would have otherwise heard. I still to this day love Edie Brickell and New Bohemians' SHOOTING RUBBERBANDS AT THE STARS as one of these "accidental" discoveries. I found Sarah McLachlan the same way (before she had big success on pop/adult contemporary radio).

These days, I listen to a local Top 40 pop station for morning radio to keep up with current hits as well as the local alternative radio station a couple times a week. And I continue my practice of grabbing CDs at random from the local library (a much larger one now ). On my desk as I type to sample:

DUFFY Endlessly
BAT FOR LASHES Two Suns (I loved the retro vibe on "What's a Girl to Do?" and I remember lots of positive chatter about this one so I'm checking it out...)
BLUES MASTERS, VOLUME 6:BLUES ORIGINALS (Rhino compilation...I'm pretty weak on my blues knowledge and want to "bone up")
ISRAEL HOUGHTON The Power of One
BLUES MASTERS, VOLUME 3 : TEXAS BLUES (same Rhino series)
MONTROSE The Very Best of.... (I know NOTHING about them..complete flyer on this one...)
BLUES MASTERS: THE VERY BEST OF LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS (another Rhino comp.)
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM Gift of Screws (I'm up and down on Lindsey and tend to like his Mac stuff more than solo since IMHO he tends to overindulge experimentation at the cost of melody and songcraft but I did like OUT OF THE CRADLE so....)

[Zorg]

Last Nite by the Strokes anyone? I remember it being on Top of the Pops or something and there was something about that attitude that just took me. And then when I heard the song years later, I immediately recognised it, and that led to me discovering bands like The Shins, Modest Mouse and eventually Radiohead, and from there I went backwards in time and discovered "classic rock".

The other record that I heard when I was INCREDIBLY young was Slint's Spiderland - I must have been 11 or 12 when I first heard it, and it was hypnotic. It was ART.

[antonius]

The second moment was the list in Humo's "Top 200 albums of all time" in 1978.

This list is not on AM. It would be a great addition, as there aren't so many lists from the '70s.

As far as I remember, it was a Humo readers' list....

[irreduciblekoan]

The first two albums I've ever owned (not my dad's collection, but the first ones he actually bought for me) were Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The rest is history. Now I own about a thousand albums, mixed between vinyl, CDs, DVD-Audios and digital files. My collecting started with those two.

But also, before my dad bought them I wasn't familiar with The Beatles' psychedelic period. All I knew was their early stuff like A Hard Day's Night (the song and movie), and All My Loving. Sgt Pepper's and Magical Mystery opened up a whole new world of The Beatles, and rock music in general. (At that time I barely listened to rock. My favorite radio station as a kid was classical music.)

Another album which changed my life forever was Beck's Odelay. That one, my dad did not buy for me, but I loved it so much when he played it that I would sneak into my parent's room when they weren't home, just to listen to it.

All of this happened when I was in 5th grade and 6th grade.

[Jirin]

It's interesting that most of the people here listened to classic rock before mainstream rock. Maybe music taste is partly genetic and all our fathers played classic rock for us? My father played a lot of 50s-60s rock and r&b when I was in elementary school but it never really clicked with me until later.

[Greg Rumpff]

I should also mention: When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was given a "grab box" of 45s as a gift. Sears and some other department stores used to have a deal where you payed a nominal amount and got a box full of vinyl 45s with a guaranteed number of "hits" in there and some others. Most were probably buy-backs from jukeboxes since many of them had that tell-tale punch hole. As a result, I have an almost unnatural enjoyment for strange one-hit wonders of the 70s like ROBIN McNAMARA's "Lay a Little Lovin' on Me" (Anyone remember that one?) although I wouldn't really make a case for them as "good" music.

Nowadays my taste is wide enough to include jazz, country (mostly vintage but a few "new country" acts slip in sometimes), alternative/indie rock and pop, gospel, contemporary Christian, some blues here and there (mostly Chicago/electric but I do like the odd acoustic blues number too), rap (mostly NON-radio fare) and a smattering of some other "specialty" musics (new age, zydeco, ska/reggae). But it definitely all started with Top 40 type material.

[HRS]

Mine was a little different than that

When I was a kid I didn't care so much about music at all. I was an usual kid loving japanese cartoons and Pokemon. I didn't have a lot of friends nd was always falling in love with some of them. I always crucified myself for that, so I used to create people to interact in my mind and I used to read a lot. Most of the kids of my age used to speak about Dragon Ball Z and card games and there was I speaking about the Clash of 29, September 11 and pretending Sailor Moon was my friend. I was downright weird.

Then, a cousin of mine started to go to some english classes. I really wanted to go, but my parents didn't have the money so I had to make up a way to learn english by myself. So, I dropped the reading and japanese thing and started watching more TV and repeating the words. Nobody asked me to write them down, so I just knew what they meant via subtitles and knew how to speak it. I was 8 years old, and I started to watch Friends by that age. I fell in love with all that: comic timing, New York, Coffee shops, Smelly Cats and most of all English. Most of my friends didn't like this, though, so I was excluded again. By the age 10 I could have fine conversations, basically all I did was speak to myself and do anything to think in english. I deduced grammar and other things from that and had the highest grades in English at school.

When I was eleven I started to write this short story called "How to Kill Your Grandmother in 10 Ways" that was a spoof of the god-awful film I watched at the time called "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". So, a colleague of mine told me that the title reminded her of something that Avril Lavigne would write. "I had heard of this chick somewhere" I told her. So, I started to read about how she was the anti-Britney Spears and all that shit and I was like, "wow this girl might have something to say". A few days later I borrowed the "Let Go" record from a colleague and started to listen on the stereo. It was weak stuff. I remember liking a few songs, the soft ones like "Mobile" or "I'm With You" too, but I remember thinking how forced the rock out ones were. During these days, 2004-2005, Evanescence was a big band in Brazil - I believe that this rings true to other places of the world, too - so some friends of mine tried to convert me. I didn't like Amy Lee at all. Found everything way too forced, from artwork designs to the execution of the songs. These were reactions that I also had with other bands at the time like Linkin Park and Simple Plan.

When I was 12, a few singers went big and I jumped the bandwagon. First was Kelly Clarkson. I really liked the Since U Been Gone song, other Breakaway numbers - by then my favorite album ever - and had an incredible dislike for her hit song Because of You. There was Gwen Stefani too. I really liked Hollaback Girl and Cool, but I couldn't listen to those on repeat - once was enough. Two friends of mine used to sing and dance to Rich Girl, even though they were actually Poor Boys. My favorite was What You Waiting For? and I just loved the direction she was going with that, the wordplay, the music video. I was also infatuated by Kylie Minogue. Never thought she was that old, though. I liked the repetition of Come Into My World, I was so innocent that I used to spend hours trying to figure in my head how they did that effect. Didn't like Can't Get You Out of My Head, I much preferred Love at First Sight. Other people were also part of this gang: Michelle Branch, Vanessa Carlton, Jessica Simpson, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. My favorite one was - hold for it - Ashlee Simpson. I didn't care if she was lip syncing or if E! Channel named that moment the third biggest celebrity oops of all time, she just had it - personality, the nose, the lyrics, the fucked up voice. Then, I started to enjoy Christina Aguilera and that was a time that I cared too much about vocals, so, everything I previously liked I was starting to dislike.

I was 13 years old. I got tired of Xtina screaming at my ears 24/7 with her albums, got tired of Amy Winehouse, of Joss Stone. I got tired of everything. So one day I was surfing the channels looking for something, I went to one of those audio channels of DirecTV and something was playing there. I stopped and listened and wanted to get the name of the song and the artist. By now, it's no surprise that I only used to listen to female artists. I got it. It was "Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair. I wikipedied Liz and I was surprised to find out that she had more than thirty years old. "I thought she was 18!" So I decided to investigate her past. I stopped by Exile I Guyville and suddenly I see a 5 star review of allmusic, at the time All Music Guide, and I was surprised because I never thought they'd give this for something I had enjoyed - critics hated what I used to like and I knew it. I open Limewire and I download the tracks one by one. At the same time, a singer that I used to enjoy, Sara Bareilles is getting comparisons to Fiona Apple and I want to know who this reference is.

I listened to Exile in Guyville the day after and I it felt like being hit by a car in the best way possible. I was born again. There was this girl, raw, funny, delivery her lines in a cold, monotonous voice, like she didn't give a fuck. But I knew girls like her, I was a boy like her, in the deep there was fear, in the deep i give a fuck, in the deep I wanted letters and sodas instead of a one night stand. The lines were so striking. I downloaded her later material, but only kept her 90s records and Girlysound. Phair stroke a strong chord with me. On the other hand I was listening to Fiona Apple. Man, did she sound pissed about the world. I liked Fiona, she grown on me in a way I hadn't imagined. I needed more music like this.

Itunes gives the worst recomendations, so I went to Amazon. There was an unfavorable review comparing Liz Phair to PJ Harvey in the Exile In Guyville - by then, my favorite album ever. "Who this shitty Harvey is?" - I thought. So I found Rid of Me, first of all I laughed because the album as 4.5 stars in Allmusic, while Phair was a full beautiful 5 (ugh, I was such a kid...). I downloaded the record. The cover was strinking, It felt like she had hit me on my face. That look. and hair. I downloaded the title track. Started to listen to. "What the fuck? Where the fuck is the song?" I put it at the loudest volume possible on my stereo. Suddenly everything exploded! "Don't wish you, never, never met her?" No, I didn't. I started to love these records. I downloaded evety little thing by Polly. Because of these three i tracked Björk, then Tori Amos, then Kate Bush, then Joni Mitchell. In less than a year I was a convert fan of every acclaimed female singer/songwriter.

Then, I found AM. I was puzzled by the low positions of Fiona Apple and awestruck because this Joanna "Newsomenunddnjbdh" chick was ranking at number #2 (?) for 2006. I listened to Ys, disliked largely. I listened to The Milk Eyed Mender, disliked even more and what a weird gnome voice. One evening I was in the back of my parents car and out of nowhere the last seconds of Emily came into mind, I grabbed my iPod and listened on repeat for two days. I was hooked.

I was 15 years old. Had no idea why i never listened to male singers before. You know? I felt things about boys, but I just couldn't listen to their singing. Blame those trashy bands that people played when I was young. I thought all of them were emo or sexist. Girls were funnier because they were repressed, they were pissing on everyone's face and I felt like that. I felt trapped in a Christian home where I couldn't do what other kids did and I was repressed every single sunday morning by a Minister for liking boys being a boy. To listen to Tori Amos question about God was like finding a friend. My friends were still on the mainstream zone, but I wasn't. They used to listen to music through my iPod, so they noticed that my taste was changing. That I was becoming less Umbrella and more Court & Spark/Down by the Water. I had found out about AM at the very end of 2007-2008, don't remember the year. I decided to give a chance to a man whose record called Rain Dogs I had found in my cousin's room - who lives in Rio now. Tom Waits was his name. He changed my world, the way he sang the opening track was unlike anything else I had ever heard. So, I started digging more. Suddenly, I was listening to Dylan, to bands (from the 90s like Pavement and Radiohead, from the 80s like Pixies and Sonic Youth, from the 70s like Pink Floyd and Can and from the 60s like The Beach Boys and the Zombies). I was still on the cream of cop of critics and I went into far more obscure places and artists (AM, AM Forum Users, especially nj via Facebook, helped me a lot with that!). I also decided in 2009 to start following contemporary music and posting on the forum. Last year, I decided to invest more in arts in general reading about cinema, music, plastic arts. Now I have this challenge of crossing borders and listen to music from outside the big poles (US-UK-FR) -while not ignoring it. More than just listen to music, but understand the movements, the context, the story behind the creators I admire and stuff like this. On the way, I learnt to speak english, a little bit of spanish and french. My frustration with not being able to learn a language opened a door to my love for arts and for reading again - something I had abandoned by the age 11 to watch tons of TV and Celebrity gossips. While reading, I started to listen to jazz and fell in love with many early 20th century authors and mid century Jazz musicians.

My friends grew too. The ones that cared about arts, started to listen to music outside radio, though still mainstream - something I call neo-mainstream, blog hyped artists and youtube champions. They admire my efforts, they believe I trascended everything that was a barrier and instead of being a close minded person, I became the one who understand the most about a good of stuff. During 2009-2010 was trending around here to be bissexual/gay - among girls especially -, I never jumped in the bandwagon. I was never trendy and I felt that it was ridiculous to whom actually were. People just wanted to have some fun and do whatever they wanted to, but they actually were trying too hard do fit in, the cool crowd did it, so they wanted to do it - like smoke, and do coke or drink on the streets. There was a group of people trying to transform my hometown in Skins Brazil Version or a Warhol Factory. Never happened. They might have the clothes, they might have the image, they might have the drugs, but they lack everything else that made great art or local teenage scenes happen. I never wore a shirt of a band, i remember I went to speak to the leader of the group looking a mess and he had this great stamp, but the guy didn't understand shit: literature, music, cinema, nothing. He was as mainstream Hipster-Certified as you can get and nothing else. He tried to keep the conversation, but it was clear he didn't get a shit of what I was saying and I felt bad because usually the geeky one is the bad one on this kind of story - "he was trying to show off how much he knew! ugh!". That became a problem in my hometown, people overlied on image and I was getting disappointed throughout. They wore clothes of Warhol without knowing what he meant or anything about him except the word Pop Art and the photo of Marilyn Monroe. They would name drop Dali or Clockwork Orange or cult stuff without knowing anything about it. And honestly, people can get hostil when it comes to that. So, I'm really great friends with people that don't care about this stuff, but I tend to have problems with those others that fit the description I did. I always feel that there's more to learn, there's always something obscure going on somewhere and an interesting artist in the making, but many here felt they know everything - just by reading Pitchfork or worse: Rolling Stone. When we confront, it doesn't get nasty because I avoid speaking about arts these days. Some people have hold a grudge against me because of discussions or things that end up catalysing their competitive instincts, so I'm out of Facebook, out of Twitter, out of Lastfm, out of their reach and doing my thing on the corner.

[Zorg]

Great story. And as a Brit, it always strikes me how well people on AM speak English. You find it easier and are more informative talking about music than I am, and I speak the language on a daily basis! Mind boggling.

I guess I'm starting to go on a female singer/songwriter train too. About a year ago, my all time favourites all had Y chromosomes. My favourite album by a female artist was probably Ys by Joanna Newsom, and my liking for that was only slightly higher than lukewarm. Then I heard I Will Be by Dum Dum Girls, and god that was raw. At the time I didn't realise how much it stuck out when compared to established favourites from the time like Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear. Since then I have fallen in love with many more albums by female artists - Only In Dreams, Ys properly, Fever Ray, PJ, Janelle Monae, Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos 2 months ago and Liz Phair last month have all come under my radar in the last 2 years and they've all landed with a direct hit. There's only so much male macho attitude a person can take.

[Jirin]

Count me in on the female singer-songwriter bandwagon. I had Laura Marling (Who I saw live Friday) and Jenny Hval in my top five last year.

I also tend to like a lot of the male singers who express emotion through variance in tone. John Lennon, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits. All very emotional in a way that's not feminine, but rawly masculine.

[irreduciblekoan]

Great story, HRS. And I for one am glad that you ditched art for awhile to learn English if only to have your awesome insight (and excellent writing skills) in this forum. I agree with you completely with the last paragraph. Yes, there IS always someone new to discover, someone creating in the corner, and the way I think of it, all good art deserves to be noticed because that's the reason it was created. Why focus on the few and not the many? This is why I make it a point to seek out the obscure, but for that I am sometimes called a "hipster" or "elitist" as if I'm looking for lesser known art because the mainstream sucks. Not at all, I love the (good) artists everyone loves, I just believe it's important, and entirely possible, to experience as much of the world as possible and give people with no recognition some more of it. And also, on the "fake hipster" thing, I also entirely agree. As I reside in San Francisco, AND make my way out to New York regularly for my film and stage projects (I write screenplays and plays and co-direct), I meet those kinds on a daily basis, the kinds who try to dress like they know, but really don't.

Up to a few years ago I was mostly a purveyor of the arts, trying to listen to as much music, read as many books, and watch as many movies as I could. But since then I've come to the realization that the greatest thing in the world is providing some of that for other people to enjoy. So now I'm busy writing, mostly things like films and theatre, but also songs with my barebones (but improving) guitar skills. I've never received formal schooling for any of those things besides the English classes required in school. I'm just using what I've learned from experiencing the quality arts myself from a young age, and I humbly think that's all it takes.

Sorry for this long-winded post that really provides nothing new to the topic at hand. HRS's post just really touched me and got my mind worked up.

[HRS]

Great story. And as a Brit, it always strikes me how well people on AM speak English. You find it easier and are more informative talking about music than I am, and I speak the language on a daily basis! Mind boggling

Thank you very much. And: as long as this computer has an automatic corrector, things are going to be okay! You are as informative, Zorg. And I mean it on daily basis! Keep up the good work with the females!

I also tend to like a lot of the male singers who express emotion through variance in tone. John Lennon, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits. All very emotional in a way that's not feminine, but rawly masculine.

Exactly. Hard Rock and Metal are still big genres here where I live, so basically these are the artists that my friends listen to. Some do like Dylan and others like to namedrop Tom Waits around, but they haven't been through a full Waits album, they can't even name two records. I guess I've said this before, but people here still hail the Strokes like the ol' early 00s days. Foo Fighters and Arctic Monkeys are still big sensations - especially the former, whose concert was even shown in the local Movies to a sold out "crowd". One of the acclaimed bands of the 90s that I happen to dislike is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder is some kind of Rock God around here and he was one of the first males suggested to me - I find him and his band downright boring. It's funny that, although Cobain is a rock God everywhere, people here still live on this Grunge/Hard Rock/Metal kind of thing to a point when the majority of the amateur bands I've came to known were vastly playing this style. I've nothing against the sound, though it does sound dated and copied pasted from bands of those eras - downright to the teen-angst lyrics. It's twice as funny because they never follow the old advice of always searching your influences main influences, so, they know by name but never gave attention to bands like Pixies, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Husker Du, Replacements, etc etc and lump the Smashing Pumpkins with them. Those bands would only benefit themselves if they stayed in touch with the past and that's going on now. You don't have to follow or like the trend, but it's good to be aware of what's going on right now.

They also fail to acknowledge indie rock from that decade and from the 90s too, so there's no room for well-known acts like Pavement, PJ Harvey, Built to Spill, Wilco, Sleater-Kinney and many others. Britpop was Oasis and that's all, Blur is name dropped and best known for the Coffee and TV video. Pulp is not known even by name. Afterwards things do get better in terms of bigger artists, especially if the person is into electronic and post-Britpop rock: Portishead, Björk, Radiohead, The Verve. The majority basically knows only the bigger commercial names of the early 00s decade: Franz Ferdinand, Strokes, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, White Stripes, etc etc. Music since 2006 has been largely dismissed.

The 80s was the decade of Metallica and Guns 'N Roses, so genres like No Wave, Post-Punk and New Wave are largely ignored - with the possible exception of Joy Division, at least when it comes to "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
Punk is also underrated. Only the big three (Ramones, Clash, Pistols) receive some kind of attention with all the others being lumped together and largely dismissed with protopunk bands like Stooges, NY Dolls and Television. Progressive Rock does get a fair attention - is the only genre I can think of that isn't Grunge that receive a good amount of support over here. Joplin is still seen as the biggest female of that decade and the 60s, though - so, no attention to Patti, Joni, Laura, Kate, Rickie or any other.
They really like The Beatles and handpicked Dylan tracks. So, Other 60s bands fail to gain as much attention - The Zombies became more or less known when they used Time of the Season on a film about a famous brazilian prostitute named Bruna Surfistinha, but some still thought it was a song by The Beach Boys or a Beatles copycat of the time. They'd be pissed if they had any idea that The Velvet Underground, who's also ignored, went #1 on AM 60s Poll. Jazz and Blues are also dismissed unless the person has an interest of playing one of the genres.
It does get better when it comes to Brazilian Music, though, since it's national music and most of the big brazilian artists were mainstream in a way or another, so only recently the underground started to be perceived as the place of the better national bands.

Why focus on the few and not the many? This is why I make it a point to seek out the obscure, but for that I am sometimes called a "hipster" or "elitist" as if I'm looking for lesser known art because the mainstream sucks. Not at all, I love the (good) artists everyone loves, I just believe it's important, and entirely possible, to experience as much of the world as possible and give people with no recognition some more of it. And also, on the "fake hipster" thing, I also entirely agree. As I reside in San Francisco, AND make my way out to New York regularly for my film and stage projects (I write screenplays and plays and co-direct), I meet those kinds on a daily basis, the kinds who try to dress like they know, but really don't.

Someday people are going to need to get together and create a single meaning for the word hipster, because the word has changed a lot with time. From a subculture to people that actually hype the hip. I have no idea what it means now. If it means to search beyond the mainstream, then call me a hipster and elitist. If it's search stuff for sounding cool and not being from the mass, then we not part of this. If it is dressing in colorful tight clothes and shoes, then count me out again. My AM picture shows me wearing a ray ban classic that has since became a hipster trademark. What about the people that actually like it? I use the word hipster as someone who tries way too hard to pass this image of cool and outsider without being one, someone that relies on imagine. I guess hipster is entranced with fake when it comes to my opinion on the word. It's trendy for the sake of trend, pretty much like fashion. I happen to enjoy the work of photographers and even Lynch has filmed fashion commercials, but I tend to disagree with the ideia that designers are artists expressing themselves through the fashion world.

Up to a few years ago I was mostly a purveyor of the arts, trying to listen to as much music, read as many books, and watch as many movies as I could. But since then I've come to the realization that the greatest thing in the world is providing some of that for other people to enjoy. So now I'm busy writing, mostly things like films and theatre, but also songs with my barebones (but improving) guitar skills. I've never received formal schooling for any of those things besides the English classes required in school. I'm just using what I've learned from experiencing the quality arts myself from a young age, and I humbly think that's all it takes.

That's awesome and it wasn't long at all! haha Are you doing this as a hobby or do you want to dive into the arts and live of it? It's okay if you don't have any formal schooling - at least many artists are producing out there without it. It's always welcoming (i.e. guitar classes, script workshops, writing courses), but I'm pretty sure none of us know what makes an artist, so they're not vital. Based of what I've read on artists and stuff like that it's basically a consensus that they learn much more from their influences and from practice than from any kind of formal learning. I course International Relations, I wish I could write something one day. I originaly wanted to be a diplomat, but after discovering that I had to pay 40.000 dollars in one year to actually have a shot in making it, I decided to do something else. Last week I found out that one of the best MBA courses happen to be in Brazil, so I'm studying for it
I was partially surprised to find out that most CEOs have fiction books on their libraries. They don't have those "how to make it into business", they even try to make the fiction outweigh the non-fiction, business school books they have. One said that those stories help him to find solutions for his work and life problems and key questions. So now I have no idea of what makes an artist AND a CEO. I guess it's like your favorite record ever: some agree with you, others have theirs. So, I guess there's no recipe to anything, especially an artist. Just go for it. Make your stuff, put it out, create a network and try to make it happen.

[Nick]

I feel like I've told this before. Oh well, here it goes. The one that got me into music that wasn't Weird Al (no disrespect to Al intended) was Black Sabbath's album "Paranoid" when I was in the 7th grade (about 12 years old). That's the first album I actually sat down and listened to, beginning to end. Before that I literally could not care about music whatsoever. The next album was Green Day's "American Idiot", which I got into a little after "Paranoid". Somewhere in between those two albums there was a mix CD my friend gave me that had "Purple Haze", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Immigrant Song", and other notable rock staples on it, although I had never heard of any of them before. So in the beginning it was all about Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Green Day, and Black Sabbath. I discovered a Doors album in my parent's CD collection not too long after I got into "American Idiot", and it was that greatest hits compilation that made The Doors my new favorite band. After I found "Abbey Road" in that same CD collection, The Beatles were next, and soon afterwards I got into The Who. My friend ended up giving me a few more mix CD's which got me into Pink Floyd. By this time I was in 8th grade (13 years old). And that's the story of how yrstruly became a total "classic rock kid".

[Honorio]

Great thread, especially after HRS's post. HRS, many thanks for opening your heart to us. It was really fascinating to see your very unique way of growing up. And, yes, female singers are possibly the best point to start, usually teen boys begin listening to macho styles like metal or hip-hop that help them to be accepted, to be part of the crowd. Obviously that was something you were not interested.



About "the one that hooked me" I still remember vividly the moment. It was 1979 and I was 13 or 14 years old. Previously I knew quite a lot of classic rock material (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd), some soft-rock (Supertramp, Elton John, ELO), some disco music (Bee Gees, Chic, Earth, Wind & Fire), some mainstream new wave (Police, Dire Straits) and things like that. Then I began to listen to prog-rock, I had a group of friends and everyone of us had a favourite band inside this style: José's favourite band was Yes, Santi's was Genesis and José Franco's was Led Zeppelin. I was looking for my own favourite band when that 1979 day I entered a record store and I asked the shop assistant to play "In the Wake of Poseidon" by King Crimson and I began to listen to it with the headphones. I don't know if you have listened the beginning of this album, if not please listen to it here. The album opens with a brief song, "Peace - A Beginning", that builds from silence and sound like a distant chant. Then suddenly begins "Pictures of a City" like a buffalo stampede. At this very moment I jumped in fright, situation that prompted a condescendent laugh of the shop assistant. After recovering of the shock I began to get caught on this mix of free jazz and hard rock. I learned later that this song was merely an attempt of Robert Fripp of replicate the sound of "21st Century Schizoid Man" from the previous album but for me at this moment it was a brand new sound, something I never listened before. Damn, even the last seconds were pure noise! And then another calm-after-the-storm, the pastoral "Cadence and Cascade" with an impressive flute solo by Mel Collins (link). I immediately bought the album and during the following months the complete discography of King Crimson in second-handed vinyl (I've never been able to listen to the quieter songs like "Trio" on "Starless and Bible Black" because of the scratches on the used vinyl!). So you know, the one that hooked me was not the best album of King Crimson and now it's not in my Top 100 (I replaced it by the much better "Red" and I prefer now "In the Court of the Crimson King", "Larks Tongues in Aspic" or "Discipline") but it ignited on me an obsession that it seems that it will last till the day I die.

[HRS]

Cool story! And Honorio, this was also my first King Crimson album! And yes, it also isn't my favorite anymore.

Perhaps I should put the blame on the Moderately Acclaimed games from last year, but I guess it came a little before that game started. I have this "thing" of checking possibly-underrated material before the band's seminal masterpiece. Few are the times I actually pick the most critically acclaimed record of an artist as an introduction, which is not to say that my first Bob Dylan contact, for example, was Self Portrait. I seen to always pick the more left-field ones, the ones that feel underrated, more often albums that are acclaimed - sometimes even highly-acclaimed - but never put in the same league of the all time favorite(s). A couple of times, I end up feeling that they actually deserve what they got, they're not underrated at all. Usually, I end up liking the most critically acclaimed one more. Sometimes, the left-field end up being my favorite album of the artist in spite of the more acclaimed one(s). But it is a consensus that they always have a special place for being the introduction - you never forget the first time, even if you feel like Jarvis Cocker and the need of affirming that you can't remember a worse time.

Thankfully, It was not the case of Poseidon at all! It's a great one and I must say that the good thing in starting with it was that the band got better with each one I listened to - since I avoided Crimson King for too long listening to others like Red, Starless and Discipline. I must say that when I finally listened to Crimson King, it rocked my world. I even put the full artwork as my Twitter background and searched online for a poster of it so I could place in my room. I did fail miserably - and closed my Twitter. Back in Facebook, I remember that nj and I did a top 10 - we used to do that a lot - of the greatest album covers ever. I placed that one inside my top 3 and he disagreed with it, although he understood my reasons and he felt it was an iconic one, even if ugly as hell (not the exact words). The good ol' days!