Music we listen to

[Hannes-Gregor]

The Rolling Stones remain a band that I have never really got into despite a couple of attempts. Queen also.
Don't like Bob Dylan either - it's that whining, nasal voice of his.

With the Stones it's the same with me. Except a very few songs, I can't find any magic in their music. And the best Dylan songs are those that were interpreted by others. But Queen is a band I really like and listen to a lot.

[SteveTheShadow]

I spent my childhood surrounded by music. It all started for me in 1962 when I was four years old. We were on a family holiday at Wallis’s Holiday Camp, Cayton Bay Nr Scarborough and I was fascinated by the jukebox in the coffee bar on the site. It is a very vivid memory of red and yellow chequered Marley tiles on the floor of the coffee bar, pink, yellow and blue table tops, and this chrome and neon tubed monster blasting out.
The mechanism was a wondrous sight for a four year old and I remember a couple of teenage Teds lifting me onto a stool up against the juke box, so I could see the mechanism easier (with mum and dad’s permission of course)
The record was, “The Young Ones” by Cliff Richard, on the green Columbia label. I also remember “Walking Back To Happiness” by Helen Shapiro, “A Day At The Seaside”- Vince Hill, “Come Outside” - Mike Sarne & Wendy Richard, “A Picture of You” Joe Brown & The Bruvvers, “Island of Dreams” - The Springfields” “Dream Lover” Bobby Darin, and “Let’s Twist Again”-Chubby Checker featuring heavily on the coffee bar playlist.

Later around 1963/64, my aunts & uncles who were all into music played stuff like “Bits & Pieces”- DC5, “Do You Love Me” Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, “Da Doo Ron Ron”- Crystals, “She Loves You” - Beatles, “ I Only Wanna Be With You” - Dusty Springfield, “Little Children” - Billy J Kramer, etc on various valve radiograms.

My Parents had a KB Junior valve radiogram and were a bit older, so Johnny Dankworth, Ted Heath, Earl Bostic, Bill Haley, The Crickets all on 78s used to slam down on top of each other on the BSR autochanger. Sometimes two at a time, or even better, whilst the record on the turntable below was still playing

Around 1965 when I was seven; Mum and Dad would go off to the pub, on a Saturday night leaving me and my sister, with babysitters, Christine and Ray. Chris & Ray were both Mods and used to bring their StaxMotownAtlantic 45s round to blast on the KB, which was my first exposure to Soul music. They also had stuff by The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Action, Spencer Davis Group, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames etc etc. They used to let us stay up till 11pm; packing us off to bed just in time before Mum and Dad rolled back in. Looking back it was a fantastic musical education and gave me a love of 60s music, that still endures 50 odd years later. I love the music of that decade above all else.

The first record I bought for myself was Keith West- “Excerpt From A Teenage Opera” (Grocer Jack) then quite a long time after, The Hollies, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” The the first album was “Slade Alive” followed by T Rex “Electric Warrior” then Alice Cooper “School’s Out” a strange album, with none of the rest of the tracks anything like the title track. “Billion Dollar Babies” was much more commercial and of course I lapped that one up, plus Pink Floyd DSOTM, Rick Wakeman, Deep Purple.

By the mid 70s I was pissed off with ‘boring’ music but never moved onto punk. Instead I went backwards in time to the 60s and got into Northern Soul, which grew from the 60s London Mod culture. I also got into the more current, Philly soul/disco stuff, chiefly in order to meet girls, then became infatuated with it. I spent whole weekends boogieing at various places such as Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca, Cleethorpes Pier, Sheffield Samantha’s and the KGB all-nighters.

I’ve stayed stuck in a 60s/70s time warp and though I have plenty of 80s stuff it rarely gets played. My first love is still 60s pop music, Soul, Jazz and blues. There is also smattering of Pat Metheny, ECM euro jazz, Smooth Jazz, Easy Listening, Euro Electro Lounge, and I still enjoy a bit of rock, when in the mood.

[Latteman]

Everyone should own a copy of "JJ Cales - Troubadour" album it don't get more laid back than this......Superb.

Just looked this up on Spotify- pretty good
‘Downtown L A’

[karatestu]

I really have little idea why i like the music i do. But i certainly know what i like and it covers most types. Mostly rock, jazz, funk, disco, pop, electronic and little bits of country, blues, prog, folk and classical. Instrumental music is as important to me as that with vocals. But sorry i can not listen to musicals or opera

[ArloFlynn]

Steve The Shadow that was an excellent post. If i was born 5 yrears earlier, i would have loved it to be mine.

[Andy-831]

I like most music 'cept Queen and Bruce Whatisface.

[Quarknosis]

I really have little idea why i like the music i do. But i certainly know what i like and it covers most types. Mostly rock, jazz, funk, disco, pop, electronic and little bits of country, blues, prog, folk and classical. Instrumental music is as important to me as that with vocals. But sorry i can not listen to musicals or opera

Instrumental music is more important to me than songs, opera is right out for me as well.

The Blues Brothers is a musical and I love that soundtrack, and it has lyrics. Although it's a shame that the OST doesn't include John Lee Hooker singing Boom Boom Boom.

[Simon Hickie]

Like Stu, I do not like musicals or opera. And like Quarknosis, instrumental music is more important than vocals to me. That said, I do like medieval music and pre-baroque era stuff. Pretty well most of the really early music is obviously religious, but some of the songs and instruments inspired by the Crusades is good too.

In terms of classical music, I was not fond of the Classical era and find Mozart pretty boring. Some Romantic era music is OK (e.g. Beethoven), but a lot is a bit dull. Things got interesting for me again with the late romantics - Mahler, Vaughan-Williams, Sibelius, for example. But Prokofiev and Shostakovich are two huge favourites.

Latterly, film scores and crossover music is hitting the system pretty regularly. Hans Zimmer is an obvious one (the score for Inception is excellent). M83 produced a fine score for Oblivion too. Ludovico Einaudi is another current favourite, and Max Richter also produces some good scores (e.g. The Blue Notebooks).

Perhaps It's time I hosted a bake-off down in the heart of the English brewing industry (Burton on Trent), although we would need to decide on what we were baking off. My choice would probably be DACs and/or interconnects. I would need to finish the OB speakers first though. With a bit of musical chairs, I could host three or four visitors and their cars for a day.