proflood

Important songs, eh? Well, the two most important songs in my life were "You" by Bad Religion and "Name of the Game" by The Crystal Method. I heard these two at around the same time (1999?) and they were pretty much the springboard into everything I like today. Before I heard those two songs, I only really listened to the radio and couldn't name a favorite band. Now I have about 2000 songs on my computer!

Good god prochem. You are stealing my "long post!!!" thunder, hahaha!

Haha! I win! Wheres my award!?

I'm not sure where to start. There's albums and songs, artists in general and random bits that sort of make up my so called Life Soundtrack. I don't have a soundtrack, it's more an endless series of tunes, bands, what have you.

I was raised in a household with parents who were teenagers in the 50's, so they naturally gravitated toward the golden oldies. There's a radio station here that plays nothing but the golden oldies - K EARTH 101, and the rotation was the same day in and day out. My folks also used to listen to a lot of Neil Diamond. I hated it when they played music in the car and I often told them to turn it down or turn it off. My mom can be fun but my dad is stoic, crotchety and tempermental with a bad case of road rage - we kids were to be seen and not heard, no complaining allowed especially in the car. Driving in the car was most always an unhappy occasion as we weren't allowed to speak or be kids. It sucked, yeah. The only time my dad allowed me to sing along to the songs on the radio was whenever that god awful Witch Doctor song starring the Chipmunks came on (because I can do a wicked impression of the Chipmunks and that was the only thing I did that my dad thought was "cute"). In the late 70's my parents made an attempt to be hip and listened to ABBA. The song Mama Mia and Dancing Queen sort of became synonymous with being a little girl. I mean, afterall, I was told ABBA wrote the song Mama Mia for me. ;) I also took piano lessons so I listened to classical music on my radio in my room. I know it's typical but I always loved Beethoven Symphony No.9.

Anyway - it was my brother who was my biggest influence musically growing up. He's over 6 years older than me so he was always willing and happy to let me listen to his records. He brought me along on what was my first record shopping experience. He bought Devo's We Are Not Men and Oingo Boingo's Only A Lad.

I got my first cassette walkman in 1982, My parents bought it for me so it would shut me up, really. My brother bought me my first cassette which was Dexy's Midnight Runners To Rye Aye. Terrible fucking album but I liked the song Come On Eileen. Everyone did at the time. The first tape I officially coveted from my brother was Oingo Boingo's Nothing To Fear. That really pissed him off, haha.

My brother had a huge crush on Blondie. Every teenaged boy in the 80's in S. California had a crush on Blondie. And every boy in the neighborhood had the same Blondie poster hanging on their wall as my brother did. That song she did One Way Or Another, The Tide Is High and Rapture reminds me so much of when my dad was out of town and my mom would drive me and my brother places.

Grade school saw me off to quite a few slumber parties, and I was kind of a tomboy but we'd giggle and raid our mothers' make up drawers and get all girlie and lip sync in front of the mirror. I was horrible at it. My best friend in grade school was this girl named Kelly who had flaming red hair and was nuts about Hall & Oates. Her goal in life was to have Daryl Hall's babies. She had the biggest celebrity crush I'd ever seen and it was kind of cute, but a little scarey. Anyway - I know most 80's Hall & Oates by default. Kelly and I used to listen to Prince's Purple Rain constantly as well as anything by Madonna. She is and will remain a guilty pleasure, at least her early stuff and it's shocking I don't own any of her albums now. We also watched MTV ad nauseum and loved every minute of it. Even the crappy videos (which they mostly were in the 80's whether anyone wants to admit it or not).

Hmm. What other confessions from my childhood... Oh! My brother listened to a lot of New Wave, New-Ro (as in Romantic). The radio station of choice was KROQ but they really haven't been the same since the mid 90's. Anyhow - one song in particular that he got ahold of that we both loved was Looks Like We're Shy One Horse (Shoot Out)) by this band called Colourbox. To this day I think that song has one of the most bitchin' segues from one portion of the tune to the next. It's just epic, and cool. But not flashy. It was also one of my first exposures to samples used in songs.

Moving on up to junior high I found myself listening to lots of U2. A ridiculous amount, actually. An obsessive amount, shamefully. I also listend to plenty of other bands - whatever was on KROQ - New Order, The Smiths, Sioxie & The Banschees, The Cure. I did NOT however, listen to Duran Duran. They just never did it for me. I'd say other than U2, one song that really stuck out was The Smith's How Soon Is Now. Aw man, that's a good song.

High school was interesting. My best friend in high school was a big U2 fan but she was raised on the Beatles since her dad was a mega fan. We liked to listen to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band and on Sundays we'd hand out and listen to this radio show called Breakfast With The Beatles that was on one of the classic stations. That was a great program! I also listened to a lot of Hunky Dory by David Bowie - Oh You Pretty Things was good. Also continued my exploration of classic rock by listening to Neil Young. That Hey Hey My My song was so earnest at the time but I sort of cringe a little when I think of how many times I heard it and how so very full of wisdom I thought it was. Same with The Doors. There's something about The Doors that sound so much better when you're getting stoned in high school (that song Texas Radio and the Big Beat come to mind) But it's funny - those Doors tunes dont make much sense to me as an older woman these days. They felt so much more... deep... when I was in high school, haha. I don't know. Maybe I'm just weird.

And I think that's enough name-dropping for now. There's just too much and I worked so long at Tower Records, and music has seen me pretty much through every moment - it all would be very redundant and more boring than this post to type every little detail down.

I'll likely come back to this thread and post some more. Hmmm. Maybe I'll try to think of some more recent landmark songs/albums/artists during phase 2 of my life - the few years up to the point I got married.

Phase 3 - well, I'm in it and those who've read my babblings over the years here know it. Or at least know a fair portion of it. So no use getting into that. For the finer details, I'd sort of like to keep those for myself.

Wow Whirly and prchem, I started this thread but I wish I wrote more detail now, looking back at the songs I put down, it doesn't really do my life justice.....I'm still off work today so will attempt a proper supa dope list! Lovely read though Whirly, really nice story. :-)