Your earliest music memories

[Happy_Chartreuse_Fog (Matt)]

So I was standing in line at the local independent record shop yesterday. I went in there with the intention to buy White Chalk and came out with that and THREE other things. I started to think about how this insanity started. How did I become unhealthily obsessed with popular music?

It made me think of listening to records on my parents turntable when I was like 4-5 years old. I had my own records, mostly things like "Big Bird sings the ABCs" and whatnot. My dad's records were mostly classical, and my mom listened to (shiver) religious music, but they did have some pop stuff as well. It was a "good christian house" , so we didn't have vintage Zeppelin records lying around or anything. I remember one platter I would always drop on the ole Fisher turntable was "The Album" by ABBA. I still have to smile every time I hear "Take a Chance on Me," such wonderful childhood memories.

When I used to sneak into my older brothers' room, they would be listening to Van Halen or other "devil music" in clandestine secrecy. My sister had this little box of tapes featuring cheesy 80s metal acts like Poison and Bon Jovi she that hid from our parents, and made me swear that I would never talk about. My childhood made rock music this very appealingly "evil" escape from the religious intolerance that abounded in my young life. I really think that is why I am so obsessed today. Ironically, Tori was very much a part of my own rebellion from my parents value system.

This bit of nostalgia also made me feel sorry for people who have grown up in the last 15 years or so. They never knew the magic of vinyl records. Those huge black discs have a certainly quality that CDs and certainly digital music files lack. I remember as a really young kid getting up real close to the needle so I could listen to that pleasant hissing sound the record makes. Or putting it on 45 RPM speed to make all my favorite artists sound like the chipmunks .

OK, Matt, get out of the past....

Anyway, what are your earliest music memories?

[pandora]

I looved the hissing sound too. But for some reason, I was deathly afraid of that lil needle. I was thought it was gonna poke me .

I grew up in a mexican household. So I didn't get intune with english music til I came over here to the states. No, I did not grow up listening to Mariachi music( I really HATE that assumption).

Juan Gabriel, Ana Gabriel and Vicente Fernandez were HUGE in my household. That, along with the rest of the regular mexican pop of the time(mid to late 80's) My mom then came to the states and left my bro and I with our grandma, so music was not a top priority then.

I do remember, however, owning a few Barbie cassette tapes (hides in shame). I also had the video for Barbie and the Rockets(They perform at the moon!!!) Also Michael Jackson(he was universal, after all)

Other than that, I can't really remember much. We didn't have much money at the time, so we didnt have much as kids(my bro and I) I guess the first few songs in english that I do remember where the ones from the saturday morning cartoons.

That's how I learned english kids! (oh and school helped too )

Oh, and my neighbor was MADLY in love with The New Kids on the Block. My 7 year old self didnt get it then, and I still don't now.

[sunday]

Dire Straits: Brothers in arms!

that album was my first music love, apart from children's songs and a danish singer called Kim Larsen.

my favourite song was 'Walk of life', totally happy keybord riff, it made me dance around the house and to this day when i hear it i can't sit still.

[andromeda]

I remember when I was about five years old, and there was our piano. I think I was attracted to it, and I remember I put some sheet music on it (couldn't read it, and in my eyes it was so very difficult), and I played, pretending I was playing a concert. I'd love to have that recorded.

[dilutedspark]

cyndi lauper: girl's just want to have fun


i can remembering this playing in the car all throughout my younger years of childhood. ah, the late 80's...good times.

[Mina]

for me it's Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance. was the first video i ever saw (or at least, the only one i can remember) at 3 and a half. right after seeing it i pissed off my mom to get me the record, but since i didn't know the band or the song title, it was difficult; after trying out every record shop in town (singing the tune that obviously nobody knew) i came home w/th I'm Still Standing by Elton John... took me nearly 15 years to find out the song's title/band. besides that, i grew up in the 80's, so it was Kim Wilde, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, lots of french pop songs (like Desireless' Voyage Voyage), and The Cure a bit later (10). i still can't get enough of 80's music now!

[voidmoon]

Nice one Matt, I love having this conversation with other people because my story is so different!

I grew up in a really pious religious household, too. I honestly was not allowed to listen to music, in fact, we had no music. We had a turntable and a cassette player, but nothing to play. If one of my relatives gave us a record or a cassette, it was taken away from us. The radio always stayed off, and apart from the children's shows, and the hymns at church, I really didn't listen to music until I was about 7. We only had one video music show then in Australia, and that was Rage, which runs late Friday night to Saturday morning with the top 50 songs, and late Saturday night to Sunday mornings with guest programmers and band specials. I've always been an insomniac, so after my parents were in bed, I'd sneak into the lounge room really early in the morning and watch video clips. I remember Weird Al Yankovic's "Fat", Belinda Carlisle's "Summer Rain", Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U", The Eurythmics, and Prince the most.

When I was nine my 16 year old half-brother and 13 year old half-sister (who I found out I had an hour before they came to stay) stayed at our house for a week, and my older brother was punk/metal as fuck. He'd listen to Metallica and the Sex Pistols and the Circle Jerks at full volume all the time, just to piss my mum off. I was not allowed to go near him and his Rambo shirts! But I'd sneak in to the hallway we gave him for his stay and listen to the music with him. When he left, he left a copy of Nirvana's Nevermind accidentally, which I swiped and will never give back. I'd always fight my parents to listen to music as I got older, I was constantly in trouble for getting found out listening to such deviants as Bowie and Nick Cave, and watching Rage! Oh my! I think too, that's why I love music so much, because I had to fight... for my right to listen.

[lunaticexpress]

Wow, an interesting thread!

I remember being a music fan quite early on, because I had this little piano (quite similar to Tori's Little Earthquakes-piano, but black and it only had the white keys... The blacks were painted there though but you couldn't play them ;D) and I started finding melodies out of it. The first ones were some children's songs but I think when I was about 5 or 6 I could play (single-fingeredly of course...) Memory from Cats and Nana Mouskouri's 80's hit "Only Love". Obviously, the grown-ups were stunned. One of my life's beggest regrets is that I stopped doing that. I don't even know why. My mom tried to put me to a piano school, but I refused to sing at the auditions, so I didn't get in... I was 6 at the time. Shame shame shame. That little piano must still be somewhere...

I too had older sisters and brothers who were at their teens when I was about 7 or 8 and it was actually my brother's girlfriend who introduced me the world of pop! She was a Kate fan, but I didn't get Kate that early.. but I fell in love with Mike Oldfield's Moonlight Shadow and that was it. I knew I had to get more. So I made these hissing tapes from her LP's and listened to them until the tape literally snapped apart! It was the same year that Laura Branigan's Self Control became a big hit and I just loved that too. I still do actually. The video for that is quite sensual... I remember it being scary back then!

So, listening to my teenage brothers' and sister's LP's I got influenced by artists and bands like Berlin, Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and, finally Madonna. That was a big one. But I was 14 then and Like a Prayer just hit me like nothing before. And something about Madonna... her being brave and shocking about sexuality, must have aroused my rebellious side, cause my mom was really conservative about anything that involved sex! Oh shame on me if I even considered anything about it...

But before Madonna I was already collecting a vast collection of 80's LP's like Heart, Bangles, Bananarama, Belinda Carlisle, T'Pau... Yes, I know, all female...

But it makes me quite proud these days that I started with something like Mike Oldfield. Because by his pop songs I got to know his instrumental material as well, and was quite influenced by it I think. Those days my "friends" teased me about listening to something nobody listened. They were all about KISS and Twisted Sisters and WASP and Duran Duran... But, ironically, when we got older, both of my "best friends" who were always laughing at my music taste, found Mike Oldfield's music and actually became fans. But not until they were about 16 so wasn't I a bit ahead my time?

Sorry for the self-bragging.

Luna

[pandora]

I just remembered one!

My uncle, my mom, and us kids moved in together around '88. He used to have this HUGE collection of music in his room. We were forbidden to go in, so normally we did . He would always be out anyway, either at work or doing the club thing. Anyway, I remember sneaking into this room to check out his music collection. Then I stumbled into this:



That image freaked me the fuck out! hahahaha! The funny thing is, that I would sneak in every chance I get just to look at that image, over and over and over again

[Saar°berry]

Great thread!

Well, since my parents are both music-a-holics I got introduced to music since I was a baby. My parents went to festivals each year and they took me along. My first favorite band was 'The Ramones'. As a 3-year old I was obsessed! My parents have a music room, where my dad has huge speakers and I remember I sat down in front of one and put my ear against it. lol! We also had an old microphone and I loved to sing... I didn't sing in Dutch or any other language, I made words up! Heh. My dad recorded many of my 'songs', have them on cassettes. I love to listen to them, SO cute. Anyways, I was crazy about 'The Ramones' till my 6-ish. When I was 5 the Ramones came to the Werchter festival and since my parents went each year they went that year as well and I made a drawing, 'cos I said that I wanted to give it to them. My parents just went along with it, but were sure I wouldn't be able to give it to them. BUT a friend of my parents, took me on her shoulders and when The Ramones were playing, I stood in front of the stage and the singer ('Dee Dee') saw me and he took my drawing!

I 'copied' (as far a 5-year old could copy of course!) this album:


I was crazy about them shoes. All I wanted to wear were such sneakers.
I already had a shoe obsession aged 5!

As I grew up, I often wondered if they still had my drawing.

Then later I was crazy about Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Eurythmics, Joni Mitchell, L7 and so on. I was lucky my parents were into great music. [and I still like all those!]

Tho I did go thru a period where I listened to shite stuff, like 'Shampoo' (dunno if anyone remembers them? LOL!), 'Roxette', 'Base to Base', 'Belinda Carlisle', 'Bananarama', 'The Bangles' and other 'pop' music at that time... luckily early '95 I saw a redhead on tv and she brought me back to the side of great music.

[kingpin34]

When I was really little (like 5 or so) I remember sneaking out of church, and into the priest's house to watch TLC music videos on MTV. Waterfalls <3

I liked a lot of just stuff from the radio, (due to my older brother and sister). It wasn't until I was around 12 that I started getting into more indie-type music. The band that's really 'stuck' from that phase is Girl Nobody. From then on, I got REALLY into female vocalists. I've gone through Fiona Apple, Garbage, Alanis Morissette and Regina Spektor obsessions within the past year or two years. But now I think I'm fully settled and unpacked in my Tori obsession. =]

Edit: And Tori's a dish best served with some appetizers! Natalie Merchant, Bjork, Siouxsie and the Banshees in particular.

[Mina]

admin said:

'Shampoo' (dunno if anyone remembers them? LOL!)

Uh-Oh, We're In Trouble...

i certainly do! i listened to that kinda shit as well, um, was in my MTV days
i didn't know the Ramones story, so cute!

[programmablesoda]

My mom told me that when I was a brat in a crib that I used to go to sleep with a bunch of 45 singles in my hand or with me, and if one was missing somehow I would know and cry and scream and not go to sleep until it was back. I don't remember any of that.

The first real 'band' I recall getting into was, the Beatles back in like..oh hell, I think it would've been like 1978 because I do remember Lennon getting shot when I was 8 in 1980 and it made me realize that people can be evil for the first time in my life. I just couldn't understand why anyone would kill him, even if you disagreed with his politics or what not. Anyway, the way I got into the Beatles was there used to be this really crappy cartoon on TV called the Beatles, and inbetween the episodes, they'd do a little 'follow the words' to a cartoon to one of their songs, and so one day I went to my mom and asked her if she'd heard of the band, and of course she had and laughed and went out and bought the red, white, and blue albums for my birthday. Anyway, I really got into reading a lot about the band, and about politics during the 60's and 70's and what not, and that's basically how I got hooked into them. The other big album that I got hooked into for some reason was The Wall by Pink Floyd which I begged and pleaded with my mother to take me to go see when it came out in 1980 when I was 10. I had no idea what specifically Waters and Gilmour were takling about as far as the symbolism and what not, but it was a very powerful album both emotionally and visually.

I'm really glad I grew up where I did. Chicago during the mid 80's and 90's. Wax Trax was based in that area, and bands like KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, Depeche Mode, and Ministry, etc was HUGE at the time. Rap was also filtering east from the Bronx with Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy back in 87, combine all that with the NWOBHM with bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest..man.....good shit.

I never got into MTV much. Sure I watched it, but most of the stuff I liked was rarely played on there.

I don't really get into today's music, so I can't relate, but I really hope there are some genre's emerging that young people are getting into and molding just like I used to listen to in my time.

And I'm still finding out good stuff. There's just so much out there. I just picked up a album the other day because the freakin' cover looked cool, and I discovered the band "Of Montreal" and they just totally blow me away, I'm really surprised and glad to find new stuff at my age. When I was growing up, my mom and dad's musical taste seemed to be stuck when they were growing up, and never really progressed to new stuff.