For me it started in the late 90's in high school, but really took off in college back in the Napster days.
for me i started to really get obsessed in like the 6-7 grade. i think thats about when i started to actively search new things out for myself to listen to. Prior to that pretty much all i knew in life was Jimmy Eat World and Brand New. and FOBs "Take This To Your Grave"... so considering that 2/3 of my top 3 records of all time are JEW and Brand New albums, i guess my "all time favorites" were cemented at a pretty early age.
FOB were my first big scene band. All I had was YouTube when I was in middle school and early high school so I would just use YouTube recommended and surf through FOB lyric videos for hours haha
in elementary school i would throw in my TTTYG cd and my ripped Jimmy Eat World CDs that my uncle burned me into my sisters hello kitty CD player and roller blade around my unfinished basement rocking out for hours hahaha
And on the topic of our personal musical evolutions: I was pretty into music even as a child. Started out listening to my parents' vinyl and CDs in the early-mid 90s. Billy Joel, Elton John, assorted classic rock/soft rock, some top 40 pop/rock of the time. Interest was piqued in modern rock around the beginning of middle school, '97-'98. It was all pretty mainstream radio rock stuff initially - Matchbox 20, Third Eye Blind, Oasis, and the like. Although I also got into grunge and stuff like Smashing Pumpkins just a few years after those scenes' prime. Sometime around the beginning of high school, 2001-ish, is when my eyes were really opened to more "serious" rock, I suppose. Radiohead and Tool/APC became my idols for a couple years, and I barely listened to anything else. So interestingly, my starting point for "serious" listening was from a place of exclusive prog snobbery at a fairly young age. Since then, I think I've expanded my horizons gradually year after year, but it's still pretty much all rock to a degree. And almost everything I really like today can somehow be traced back through a web to Tool, APC, or Radiohead. My horizons always seem to expand incrementally by finding artists touring with or somehow related to what I already like - jumping straight to something 100% foreign has never worked. I will say that in hindsight, I regret being so "art rock" focused in high school. I never even gave stuff like post-hardcore, punk, or emo a chance - dismissed it all out of hand without any real basis. Today, bands like Coheed, Glassjaw, Brand New, and Saosin are some of my favorites, but I missed out on their primes by being a close-minded ass.
In no particular order, these are what came to mind first: Run The Jewels - RTJ2 Pentimento - I, No Longer Dryjacket - Lights, Locks, and Faucets Benjamin Francis Leftwich - Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm Diet Cig - Over Easy EP Turnover - Peripheral Vision Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle Fickle Friends - Velvet EP Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion Leon Bridges - Coming Home Dead Sara - Pleasure To Meet You Owen - L'Ami de Peuple Dreamcatcher - Wonderlust Somos - Temple Of Plenty Gleemer - Moving Away It was hard not to include stuff that's come out this year, such as the new Owen, Descendents, and Face To Face albums.
In no particular order Haim- Days Are Gone Frank Ocean- Channel Orange Fall Out Boy- Save Rock And Roll The 1975- The 1975 The National- High Violet Simple Plan- Get Your Heart On Barenaked Ladies- Grinning Streak Good Charlotte- Cardiology Weezer- White Album Blink 182- California Gotye- Making Mirrors Drake- Thank Me Later Patrick Stump- Soul Punk Adele- 21 The Madden Brothers- Greetings From California
Decided to limit myself to one per artist. Alphabetical, obvi Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver Colour Revolt - The Cradle Comadre - S/T Deafheaven - Sunbather Father John Misty - I Love You Honeybear Felix Culpa - Sever Your Roots Fucked Up - Glass Boys Japandroids - Celebration Rock Kanye West - Yeezus The Men - Open Your Heart Pianos Become the Teeth - The Lack Long After Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light Spoon - Transference Tame Impala - Lonerism Xerxes - Collision Blonde
Boo why wouldn't we want MORE? :( I'm already listening to some cool stuff I didn't know, like Counterparts (never heard of them before) but too many two Hotelier album lists (so to speak) cool seeing someone mention Mew, although +/- is their weakest and the Carly Rae love
2010: 3 2011: 2 2012: 4 2013: 3 2014: 2 2015: 1 didn't include any from this year cuz idk what my order will even be like yet for the end of the year
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972 The National - Trouble Will Find Me Grizzly Bear - Shields The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt Titus Andronicus - The Monitor Kevin Devine - Between The Concrete & Clouds Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly The Knife - Shaking The Habitual Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz Radiohead - The King of Limbs Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me D'Angelo - Black Messiah Majical Cloudz - Are You Alone? Weatherbox - Flies in All Directions Pinegrove - Cardinal I guess. That's a mix of my most listened-to and others that I think are objectively best but don't always listen to obsessively like the others.
In no order and it might be over 15 idgaf dammit Harmlessness Oh Common Life Run the Jewels 2 Yeezus Watch the Throne Home Like Noplace is there The Bones of What You Believe Keep You Sunbather Tetsuo & Youth The Greatest Generation Forcefield Come Now Sleep Kingfisher Runners in the Nerves World Wrongdoers The Last Word is Yours To Speak Attack of the Wolf King *mic drop* Edit: it's 18
Really don't feel like doing 15, but I know my favorite of the decade is Channel Orange. Also, I got into music pretty early. I had a lot of family that had their own unique taste and I think I really picked up something from each of them. My mom liked a lot of radio music, especially bands like Goo Goo Dolls and the like that were blowing up when I was growing up, my stepdad listened to 80s hair metal and 90s nu-metal mostly, my uncle listened to bands like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson when I was growing up (and now listens to a lot of the same things I do, his favorite modern band is Foxing), and my grandparents listened to old country radio. I started to really take interest in getting my own CDs around 2001 or so, when Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory came out. My tastes kinda followed early '00s radio rock for a while, since my exposure was basically MTV at the time. Around 2004, I discovered Much Music/Fuse, which became monumentally influential to me. Soon I was begging family to buy me CDs from My Chemical Romance, The Used, Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack, The Matches, etc. That was definitely where my music tastes really began to develop more rapidly and take shape. That led me to find a lot of stuff pretty early, given my age. I remember reading an Alternative Press review of TDAG that gave it a perfect score and anxiously awaiting an opportunity where I could buy it (and getting it and not really understanding it at first, only to revisit it a couple years later and have it completely floor me lol). I honestly kinda miss that time period sometimes, only because in recent years, I've failed to really feel the same sense of wonder and satisfaction in my musical journey. Discoveries don't feel as hard-earned to me anymore, and it's rare that an album will ever take over my entire day the way it used to- played on repeat on cheap headphones/speakers while I laid on the floor reading the lyric sheets. The closest I get to that feeling these days is when my band is in the writing process, but it's not exactly the same thing. Idk. This was quite the ramble haha.
William Basinski - Cascade Jonny Greenwood - The Master Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica Tame Impala - Currents Grizzly Bear - Shields Bjork - Vulnicura David Krakauer - Dreams and Prayers Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World Deathspell Omega - Paracletus Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma Daft Punk - Random Access Memories Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972 Lantlos - .neon
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 Thursday - No Devolucion Tame Impala - Currents Deafheaven - New Bermuda Kanye West - Yeezus Burial - Kindred Burial - Rival Dealer Tame Impala - Lonerism Pianos Become The Teeth - Keep You Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica Deafheaven - Sunbather The 1975 - I Like It When You Sleep Drake - Take Care Holy Other - Held Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell theres a lot id like to include fifteen is too low of a number
In No Order: Deftones - Koi No Yokan Deftones - Gore Anberlin - Vital Anberlin - Lowborn Rush - Clockwork Angels Foo Fighters - Wasting Light Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence Periphery - Periphery Periphery - Juggarnaut Protest The Hero - Volition The Wonder Years - The Greatest Generation The Early November - Imbue Conditions - Fluorescent Youth Thrice - To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere Honorable mentions: Chiodos - Illuminaudio Norma Jean - Meridional Yellowcard - When You're Through Thinking Say Yes Defeater - Abandoned Baroness - Yellow And Green Baroness - Purple Russian Circles - Memorial