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Post by GRWelsh on Feb 27, 2023 12:07:53 GMT -5
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about musical tastes, why we have them, how we get them, how they change, etc. I've been revisiting the music I first "got into" at the age when I could start buying my own albums, records and cassettes -- so "Fly Like An Eagle" (1976) by Steve Miller doesn't count (that was the first music record I ever got from loving the single on the radio and asking my parents to buy it)! It wasn't until around early 1982 that I started buying my own music with money I earned from mowing lawns for my neighbors. My best friend that I'd known since nursery school (1972) had an older brother -- about ten years older than us -- who was a huge fan of hard rock and his favorite band was Deep Purple. Being at their house with the huge stereo system set up is when I was first exposed to a wide variety of music: Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath... Those were the main ones, and then there was also Triumph, Kansas, Gino Vanelli, and many others. The older brother had been to concerts and was very knowledgeable and opinionated -- and of course anything he thought was cool, we did, too. So, that set the stage for what I started buying in 1982: cassettes rather than albums or records since I already had portable radios that could play cassettes. I started off buying "best of" Deep Purple compilations, but then soon started collecting their catalog, as well as Rainbow and Whitesnake. It seems like there is a certain age, around 8th/9th grade, when you often get identified by what musical tastes you have and what music you own and listen to. That was how I came to be identified with that music, and I have a lot of fond memories of being in my basement listening to my tapes and drawing dungeons and fantasy artwork. That music takes me back to that time when I was first playing D&D and AD&D and there were so many TSR games and products I was learning about... The possibilities seemed limitless...
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Post by geneweigel on Feb 27, 2023 13:13:30 GMT -5
I liked pop when I was a little kid then shifted to country. My dad had classic rock early country and opera but he always played muzak as a constant default. My mom was classic rock, pop and country. My AM radio was default on 1040 WHN country NYC (I was in love with Tanya Tucker.). My godmother's husband who I heavily interacted with mid-1970's to the mid-1980's was into the full range of rock verging on to disco to heavy metal to punk to theme albums. MTV and New Wave I got into because my female cousin had bought me tickets for everything. Two of the guys that I used to DM with were into everything related to Madonna, Prince and Run DMC and I would be BARF!!! So I would be them to "punk" locations by the time that I got to the end of the 1980's. They later got into grunge and whatever 1990's yelling rock was but I got off that and went to classical for games. Stopped going to concerts. Then NY started these country nostalgia bars "Coyote Ugly" so it was easier playing Willie type music.
So the basement in Connecticut, I had painted like the Yellow Submarine because the CD releases of THE BEATLES in the mid-1980's had me obsessing over the clarity of the cds after listening to scratchy shit for so long.
Today, I listen to country and pop 1960s and 1970s. I do karaoke like a chameleon so I'm always looking for "new" territory to sing.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2023 13:37:23 GMT -5
I listen to almost everything, but 70s/early 80s hard rock is the stuff I most associate with D&D. As I'm setting up the table, etc. waiting for my players to show up I always have something in that genre on. It helps get me in the right frame of mind. Rainbow, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Maiden are a few recent examples I can think of. When not gaming I listen to some heavy stuff, but mostly it's the kind of stuff you'd hear or see a poster on the wall in a John Hughes movie: the Police, Devo, Depeche Mode, the Cars, the Smiths, Elvis Costello, etc.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2023 16:11:02 GMT -5
When I was a kid, the 70s, I spent a ton of time at my maternal grandparents. My mom would take us there most week days during the day to hang out while my dad was at work. My uncle Doug was probably the biggest influence on my musical tastes. He was a teenager at the time and his room was covered in Kiss posters and he’d always be listening to some 70s hard rock, unless he was with a girlfriend and it would be disco. Then there were the years I worked at Eide’s and 80s alternative would be on most of the time, and it’s what most of my non-band friends listened to.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2023 18:21:48 GMT -5
I have shut offs which is probably most late 80's pop to the present.
Specific:
Whitney Houston Barbara Streisand Neil Young Bryan Adams Steely Dan Wham/George Michael Eddie Money Bob Seger Aretha Franklin (Flashbacks from my acid trip) Billy Joel John Cougar Bonjovi Yes Janet Jackson
Dorothy overplays Meatloaf, Tom Petty and Kiss as well as a lot of adult contemporary that is annoying.
I do like to listen to annoying 50's and early 60's pop and that drives her crazy.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2023 18:29:11 GMT -5
In regards to "Yes", I enjoyed the "Yes" spin off "Asia" concert but the "Yes" song "I've Seen All Good People" took so long to finish with that same lyric over and over: "'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time And its news is captured For the queen to use!" Everytime that I hear it. Its like PTSD.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2023 18:58:07 GMT -5
Yes is one of those bands that I could never get passed the fans to the point where I could just listen to, and enjoy, the music. Rush was like that for a long time too. Most prog rock bands, actually. King Crimson, the worst.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2023 19:09:46 GMT -5
Not music, but another thing that really takes me back to my early playing days is Intellivision, especially the first D&D game and Sea Battle. Playing Intellivision, listening to Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast, with a hot dog and chips on a paper plate with root beer to wash it down was the ultimate pre-D&D ritual.
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Post by GRWelsh on Mar 9, 2023 19:48:20 GMT -5
Over the past week or so, I've been revisiting music I listened to obsessively in 1982. STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES (with Joe Lynn Turner as the vocalist) was the first Rainbow album I owned and I played a lot that summer... I remember playing it at the pool on a portable radio with cassette player. Then I went back in time trying to collect the other albums: RITCHIE BLACKMORE'S RAINBOW, RISING, LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL (the first three studio albums with Dio as the vocalist) and DOWN TO EARTH (when they switched to Graham Bonnet and had a hit with "Since You've Been Gone"). This was when I had my first job mowing lawns and bought my first AD&D books and modules cheap from a kid who was "getting out of the game." I remember mowing lawns and day dreaming about fighting giants and being in the Vault of the Drow. I would listen to my Rainbow cassettes while drawing characters, monsters and dungeon maps in the basement. The Dio era albums really stand out, especially the songs "Stargazer" and "Light in the Black" on RISING as having that D&D nostalgia. I did a watercolor imitation of the RAINBOW RISING album cover as an art project at school that people were impressed with.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2023 22:32:09 GMT -5
The Dio and Ritchie Blackmore combo was a great one. Ian Gillan's Black Sabbath album was pretty good too. The first Fastway album was another one I listened to a lot.
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Post by Scott on Mar 19, 2023 11:47:45 GMT -5
I would definitely have to include the first two Ozzy albums in this category.
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