As another year is getting close to an end, how have you're music tastes and preference changed and grown? Since I've really only been into music for a couple years now, I cant really say too much, but it went like this.

Last year a freind told me about Nine Inch Nails. I picked up a remix of The Fragile called Things Falling Apart. It contained remixes from people such as Trink Reznor himself, Alan Moulder, Keith Hillebrandt, Adrian Sherwood, Benelli, Dave Ogilvie, Danny Lohner, Telefon Tel Aviv, and Charlie Clouser. This amazed me and I went on an obsessive NIN binge for along time. However, this remix kept me wanting something more electronic. This is how I found radiomute.

I think it was Equinox that recommended Aphex Twin to name a few. I picked up his 26 Mixes For Cash and went buckwild. I have now gone almost exclusively to electronica, especially after I started realizing that I might actually be talented at making my own music (thanks again RM) and studying the works of Autechre. I havent really found any new artists to obsess over, but the list of ones that I still want to find more of are Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Neubauten, any Dark Ambient music, Boards of Canada, Merzbow, and many others.

This is basically how Ive gone more into music, but really the thread is about your past of discoverying new music and the phases you went through. Discuss.

I have been catching up on a wealth of classic rock music that I was never exposed to growing up. But one thing I have learned by listening to older music and talking to classic rock fans is that there is to not be afraid of the music I grew up with, and to celebrate the music that is coming out as we speak. I will never be one of those guys who tells anyone that 'their music' is crap. So I have had more of an open mind the older I get.

I didn't get "into" music before i was rather old, like 15 or so.

It all started when a friend of mine told me to download some system of a down ( yes I know =P ) I had never heard any music like it before but I liked it. It was so different from anything I had listened to before ( which was just pop )
Anyways, I bought their CD "toxicity". It was the first CD of a band that I had bought in my life. I had now learned the concept of looking for music.
After that, I downloaded lots of metal songs ( mostly just the popular stuff, like In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility etc. ( although I still like Soilwork )) and listened to that a lot.

In a chatroom a friend of mine got me into Prodigy, and me being a rock fan at the time, I couldn't resist Prodigys style.

He also told me to hear Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" which I also loved. Another friend of mine told me to listen to Dillinger Escape Plan's cover of Come to Daddy but I found out quickly that I liked Aphex' version a lot more. After that I downloaded a lot of fake aphex twin songs such as kickass violin solo, pacman, tetris remix etc.

For a long while, I just listened to "metal" and aphex twin, and I also tried a lot of other bands. For example I found out about the melvins and DJ Shadow which are great but I also found out about NIN and bauhaus which I thought were crap. I also liked tool for a long time.

In some way or another I decided to get Autechre's Tri Repetae album ( my first ae album ). For a long while I didn't really like it but one day I just got into the mood of it ( I had still not learned how to listen to music carefully though, so just the mood of it had to do so far )
I had been using the all music guide website a lot but I didn't really feel it was adequate and that its reccomendations were lacking. That's when I decided to look for some forums or something and found RM ( and later on, WATMM )

After I came here, I found out about a lot of other IDM artists that I liked, but aphex and ae had to take a break. I did have Confield and had listened to it a handful of times but I only liked the sound of it and didn't really see any music in it. That is until someone on WATMM made a Confield Listening Guide! I decided to print it out ( still have it in my drawer, 11 pages with song-by-song walkthrough! ) and read along while listening to it. It opened my ears to a whole new way of listening, I started to hear melodies and individual beats in confield! I had learnt to listen to music the way music needs to be listened to, with full attention and respect. I went crazy over autechre, and got draft 7.30. I spent hours with my earphones on and eyes closed listening to both confield and draft 7.30. I had decided that this was the best music that I had ever heard. After that I got autechre's earliest releases and was suprised by the beautifully thin melodies, which just made AE seem more like geniuses in my mind.

Anyways, that was when I came here about a year ago. Since then I haven't gotten into any new genres cause IDM just sounds like the best to me. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of curiostiy, but I just have not found anything that fits my taste more. I did however get into a lot of jazz, and coupled with my new found way of listening to music I really started enjoying it as well. Right now I'm just exploring the classics ( there's so much out there! ) You might ask yourself why I haven't left what can sometimes look like a bunch of derivative IDM artists behind completely for the greats of jazz, but it's just a matter of taste I think. Jazz simply doesn't remind me of robots! =P

curently i am delighted with some of the hip hop that was made in the south of the USA and california in the 90's Dre, Cube, Snoop, Twinz, Dogg Pound, Outkast, Luniz, Goodie Mob, Eightball and MJG, Scarface...mosf of it features live musicians on drums, keys, guitars and mostly bass, which adds a great funky feeling to it.

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I started with whatever my dad brought home (Vivaldi, music for Voodoo sessions, Wendy Carlos, Dick Hyman playing the moog...)

Later I became a huge fan of the Beatles.

Later it was Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson.

Later radio mostly 80's dance synth music (Company B kinda)

Later u2, REM, the church, hothouse flowers and anything descent on the RADIO. I didn't bought albums then just recorded plenty of tapes from radio.

Later Heavy Metal and Punk (Sabbath, Slayer, Danzig, Misfits, Social Distortion, Sepultura, Napalm Death, Metallica, Motorhead)

Later the Blues (John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemmon Jefferson...)

The soundrack for the Movie Paris Texas by Ry Cooder was my first real approach to ambient music. (that and some of the stuff Pink Floyd made on the late 60's)

Later 70's rock (Crosby Stills Nash Young, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, John Mayall, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Jimi Hendrix...)

I first heard of TALK TALK here. TALK TALK is not elecronic music but I belive listening to TALK TALK prepared me in a way for ambient atmospheric music.

Later jazz (Miles Davis, Keit Jarrett, Dave Brubeck, Bll Frisell, Pat Metheny, Ornete Coelman...) loved very free spacey Jazz like that by GARY PEACOCK (another ambient teaser)

I learned about SONIC YOUTH and became my fav band immediately. The SST records albums are just superb. Confusion is sex might amuse some glitch fans today.

Later it was hip hop (Public Enemy, Ice T, Geto Boys, NWA, House of Pain, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill...)

I learned about Hank Williams and Johny Cash here and became a huge fan.

I realized of JOY DIVISION here. joy division basically played IDM with rock and roll guitars. Closer is a must have for anyone. Martin Hannett their producer is perhaps one of the most influential and overlooked figures on the development of electronic experimental ambient music.

I listened to plent of dark british music like Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus/Love and Rockets, The Sister of Mecy...

Later it was industrial and elecronic (Front 242, Leather Strip, Godflesh, Ministry, NIN, Shamen, Candiru, Utah Saints...)

I had a big Doors and Lou Reed/Velvet Undeground moment sometime.

Later it was NY hip hop...Pete Rock, Wu tang, Mobb Deep, Digable Planets, Gangstarr, Jeru the Damaja, The Alkaholiks, A Tribe Called Quest...

As reading where those NY DJ's got their samplers from I became a huge 70's R & B / funk fan...Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, War, The Crusaders, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Rufus, Ohio Players...

Sometime here i bought A Love Supreme and learned about the single person I admire most musically the big JOHN COLTRANE. I think I have more CD's from him than from any other artist. the boxset HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION is a must have for anyone into music.

And finally it was IDM and ambient (Artificial Intelligence I, Incunabula, Speedy J, B 12, Chill out or die...)

I love music from India and I acquired plenty of music from India like 4 years ago.

I liked Bob Dylan's finally after 20 years of listening to his stuff with no amusment.

Sometimes I listen to a lot of drum and bass from chillest to the loudest, but not currently.

...story of my life.

A girl in my class told me her favorite band was the Smashing Pumpkins. I told her they were mine too. We traded recommendations. I found allmusic.com, spent half of the rest of my life on it, now I love music.

i upgraded from allmusic to discogs.com (wink)

i've come from being an industrial maniac to loving it when the dark, controlled chaos of industrial (not to mention emotional energy) is combined with the precision and futuristic feel of experimental electronica. (in short)

It definitely seems like the genre that your music starts at dictates where you end up, like all these people that start out at metal end up at IDM (not too bad from metal :P), i dunno where i fucked up though, i'm into all electronic music, shit, you should see my playlist :P. Can't really remember when i got into music.. just went; borrow families music --> buy cds --> internet/friends collections of mp3 cds (read: lots) --> loop based creation --> synth-based creation.. and that's where i'm at now, hoping that hardware based stuff is in the future...

KBJ is that you?

I dunno about metal fans ending up liking IDM, it seems that if they branch into electronica they get into noise and other forms of experimental forms of electronica. There is a lot of IDM that metal fans would find too soft, but some do find stuff like industrial and branch off from there. Thats how I got there basically. Before NIN I was a KoRn, System of A Down and Manson fan (still kinda am).

Yeah it is.

Hmm, yeah, i see your point.. it still does seem to have an effect though...

Yeah, I showed a hardcore Fantomas (Metal) fan some Autechre and he loved it immeadiately because of the dark cold nature of it. Im not sure how genuine he was being, but none the less, I got a positive comment from him instead of "This is just techno, bleh" that I normally get.