do you ever look back at what you used to listen to

do you ever look back at what you used to listen to and fear that you have followed the thread of association too far down the rabbit hole? and that you may have strayed to far?

and have a desire to listen to the core music that sits in the centre of your spiderweb?

just wondering.

interesting question.

i don't think so. i guess it depends on how far back you're talking. i can't really stand listening to grunge anymore, or bad trance music. so probably not in that sense. but i still do listen to a lot of stuff that's pretty CLOSE to the center of the spiderweb. if that makes sense. like, i can't stand grunge but i will listen to built to spill or neutral milk hotel or crass and all three of those bands are like one degree away from grunge for me.

i don't know if i'm making any sense i have a headache i'll shut up.

I am currently listening to DJ sets by Sven Väth from 1999. He played lots of Warp stuff like Plaid,Aphex and Laurent Garnier.

I still love a lot of what I first got into (Gorillaz, Incubus, A Perfect Circle being the three main early early ones I still love to death).

I didn't start listening to other people's music until I was 16 (currently 19) so it really hasn't been that long for me. I don't listen to most of the groups I listened to then as much now, but that's mostly because now I have a much wider pool of musicians that I listen to.

I once bought a Lighthouse Family album.

So, no.

although i don't listen to them as much as i used to, i'd say the center of the web for me would have to be kraftwerk. i got into them when i was a breakdancer at 9, so they were my direct link into hip hop. a couple of years later i got into new wave / synth pop / industrial (depeche mode, new order, human league, blancmaunge, nitzer ebb, erasure, pet shop boys, skinny puppy, etc.), all of which i felt had some sort of similarities to kraftwerk as well although i didn't think that directly at the time. since listening to new wave musics, i was introduced to the not so synthy styles like the smiths, the cure, and joy division (i got into new order way before i knew who joy division was. i didn't make the connection until the late 80s). a few years later i returned to hip hop roots when i discovered public enemy who in turn opened me up to the more militant side of hip hop (eric b. & rakim, boogie down productions, nwa, etc.). in high school, i was the rare breed that got along with the hip hop crowd, the goths, the high energy mexicans, and the rocker type dudes who later on became the grunge crowd. around 1989 i discovered house music and that was when i took an interest to djing. but no money made that dream an uncertainty. Joined the navy in 1990 and while stationed in Norfolk, VA i met some dudes that were into the rave and techno scenes in DC and NYC. so i spent many weekend driving up to those places to rave it up. 1993 i discovered aphex twin. and basically, this totally changed the way i listen to music. almost instantly, all techno music i was listening to before fell past the wayside since aphex's music was like nothing i've ever heard.

so basically: kraftwerk -> Hip Hop, Synth Pop/New Wave/Industrial -> The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division, etc. -> Public Enemy -> Militant Hip Hop -> House, Techno, Trance -> Aphex Twin -> IDM, Ambient, Hip Hop -> Autechre...

looking back at it all the only thing i can't listen to that i was into in the past is The Cure and Trance.

Not really, I still (for the most part) like listening to the bands that I used to be obsessed with. Like radiohead and the strokes and QOTSA.

I agree it's an interesting question. Although my tastes nowadays are fairly diverse, I put that down to being old and having spent many years trying out new things and my tastes just developing. I wouldn't say I've strayed from my older tastes in the sense that I still listen to those artists with whom it all properly began for me (such as New Order, The Fall, The Smiths). At the same time I can quite easily skip from one of those to a bit of Plaid or Madlib, or relatively newer artists like Deerhunter or VHS Head (I'm just plucking examples out of the air here). I'd never thought of the associations that led me from one artist to the other, but I suppose there might be some kind of six degrees of separation at work. Probably waffling now, but given my superannuation I suppose there's an element of nostalgia that brings me back to my primary musical loves.

Forgive me for the self-indulgence of this post.

I pretty much like everything I've heard in the past, minus a small few.

My trajectory with electronic music is unique to the trajectories with rock, jazz, etc.

Kraftwerk as a little kid mixed with some weird New Age music like Ray Lynch my parents played for me age 1-10 alongside Nirvana, Weezer, the Batman soundtrack, Miles Davis, Dizzy, the Beatles, and all kinds of classical music.

Somewhere in there I figured out I could listen to the music from some computer games that I owned (Fury 3, Stargunner) by putting the CD into a Discman. So that was the first sign I think that I would become really interested in the genre of electronic.

Then at around 10 years old my dad bought Dig Your Own Hole by the Chemical Brothers which marked the first moment of my life where my mind is actually completely engaged with the music. I used sit in bed listening to all these albums for hours: The Orb, Meat Beat Manifesto, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Alec Empire, Drum and Bass music, DJ Shadow, Coldcut, Howie B, Power Pill Pac-Man Remix over a year or so.

Then high school drug use and more curiosity lead to:

Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Plaid, and a bit of Shpongle. Mouse on Mars too, can't believe I forgot to mention them. Back then they were a big favorite, as they still are today.

At first I didn't really understand Autechre, but at some point listening to Confield I began to feel that they were the greatest creators of music to ever have existed on this planet. Thus commenced my several year obsession with their music over all other's.

I've really come down hard with that over the past two years or so and developed an interest in hip hop (the militant side that Asym mentioned is my favorite alongside the blunted stuff - add Dead Prez to that list), classical, jazz, and "high art" electronic music and electroacoustic improvisation such as Xenakis, Stockhausen, and a bunch of other random bullshit. I've also struggled trying to understand the recent trends of electronic music and mostly failed to fit myself in at any given place, though I do find the beat scene to be more intriguing than the others (Flying Lotus, Mux Mool, Teebs, Daedelus, Gaslamp Killer, and so on).

Recently I've become obsessed with Beck (and Max Tundra) as the most perfect example of musical genius of the modern age.

Also I should mention that Squarepusher is easily my favorite artist listed in the subforums.

artists that I've developed a distaste for from my past:

I used to be obsessed with Weezer, particularly their first two albums. I no longer enjoy hearing those albums or any others.

The first few albums I had on cassette tape were:

Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell 2

Michael Jackson - Dangerous

Blur - Modern life is rubbish

I guess this would have been 92/93 so I was 11 at the time!

At the age of 15 I discovered a DJ Hype Remix on the flip of a Shaggy cassette single

Soon afterwards I discovered John Peel

  On 12/4/2010 at 12:50 AM, usagi said:

  On 12/3/2010 at 6:42 PM, asymmetrical head said:

looking back at it all the only thing i can't listen to that i was into in the past is The Cure and ...

 

but but ...

don't get me wrong... i enjoy stuff like the walk, lets go to bed, the caterpillar, the b-sides of "standing on a beach". i guess i should be clear and say that post kiss me... i can't listen too.

  On 12/3/2010 at 10:17 PM, vamos scorcho said:

 

Then at around 10 years old my dad bought Dig Your Own Hole by the Chemical Brothers which marked the first moment of my life where my mind is actually completely engaged with the music. I used sit in bed listening to all these albums for hours: The Orb, Meat Beat Manifesto, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Alec Empire, Drum and Bass music, DJ Shadow, Coldcut, Howie B, Power Pill Pac-Man Remix over a year or so.

 

I used to be obsessed with Weezer, particularly their first two albums. I no longer enjoy hearing those albums or any others.

I...used to have everything by the Chemical Brothers up until 2005, I've listened to their newer stuff but stopped following tthem as much as did back then, mostly in music taste changes (and a few hard drive crashes)

Blue album has very strong nostaligic value for me, I like Pinkerton but yeah, never got into too much of their other stuff...

The more music I listen to the more I know what I love and can pass on, but there is very little I look back and scoff at in tterms of what I used to like...if a great memory is associated with it, it doesn't matter.