A History of Taste

Today I was reflecting on the way my taste in music has been shaped over the years and I realized that it all started with an exploration of progressive rock music. My mother has always listened to and exposed me to all of the good staple bands that should influence one to develop a well rounded taste in modern rock music. I was raised on Pink Floyd, David Bowie, the Doors, the Cars and other bands that a lot of people would now classify as classic rock. The first band I stared listening to independent of my mother's supervision was the legendary Black Sabbath (the Ozzy Osbourne years of course, none of that Ronnie James Dio shit). When I was about twelve I was on one of our many yearly trips to NYC during which my mom took me into the large Tower Records outlet and I purchased my first CD: Black Sabbath's hit album, Paranoid. I quickly fell in love with the long, intricate guitar solos of War Pigs and Fairies Wear Boots played by a guitarist I still consider one of my all-time favorites, Tony Iommi. His playing, while it certainly signified a guitarist of great skill, was not as fast as most and focused on phrases rather than just speed (much like David Gilmour) and commanded more attention from me than someone like Eddie Van Halen would have.

I fell in love with long, drawn out instrumentals and started listening to bands like King Crimson, Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream, and Yes. These bands are wonderful but I was disappointed to find that today's Progressive rock bands (and yes, I realize Black Sabbath isn't prog) positively pale in comparision to those of the seventies. Dreamtheater and Trivium made me yawn and I wasn't even drawn in very much by Porcupine Tree or Opeth. These bands were so derivative that I eventually decided to start looking in other veins. I needed to reset my fractured taste so I didn't end up as a helpless metal-kid. I was no longer wooed by the sounds of ostentatious, meandering five minutes guitar solos that hobbled along with no end in sight. While I still enjoyed the bands of rock music's classic era I needed music with more structure and less fluff.

I needed to find bands that would lead me to appreciate good contemporary music. Two major influences: Frank Zappa and Joy Division opened up genres for me that I might not have otherwise listened to. I was immediately taken in by the genius, humor, and eccentricity of Frank Zappa and his many projects. His whole discography is a giant collage of different genres, a palimpsest of ideas and musical stylings and it introduced me to nearly every kind of music that I'd been shutting out during my prog only days. I learned to appreciate jazz, blues, soul, funk, classical music, and avantgarde composition and to boot, he was an American so I learned a lot about music history in my own country.

Joy division introduced me to grittier and more emotional lyric writing dealing with the agony of the human condition but with some of the most restrained song writing I've seen, to this day. Ian Curtis taught me to thumb my nose at whiny, sentimental lyricists who wallow in self pity but have nothing to be upset about. Curtis had real problems, such as epilepsy and manic depression which resulted in multiple suicide attempts yet his lyrics were not pathetic but powerful; this probably is the reason that I feel such contempt for Green Day and bands that sound similar.

This is just a smattering of all my musical adventures but these two bands caused an avalanche of new bands I've come to enjoy and recommend them to all.

Sometimes it's just interesting to map the progression of something as arbitrary as taste. I didn't really know how I listened to what I do now until I sat down and thought about it here.