We Are Family

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

A thread from yesterday that should have its own post:

How much has your family influenced your listening habits? Are you an older/younger/middle sibling, or an only child? Are your musical tastes anything like your parents'?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I am quite clichéd in this matter: lapped up everything my older sister played to me (madonna/grebo/motown/rave/britpop) and totally refused to acknowledge my parents as liking any decent music at all. Mum was given to listening to Simply Red and M People on repeat though so this is understandable. But amongst my Dad's Bill Wyman & Dire Straits albums he owned a Snap! CD! OMG!!!

[graciousviv.livejournal.com]

When I was little Dad's music taste was definitely the shadows, pink floyd, stones etc - no cliff. I found myself listening to 'Tower of strength' the other day and liking it. Later he was listening to Motown. Mother mainly classical music at this point. I was dragged to concerts to hear classical / chamber music plus her singing choral. They also wanted me to be piggin concert pianist just cause I played a harpsichord once?! Younger sister has had influence in bringing me back to pop - as I was already suffering classic boredofindie symptoms.

i like small speakers, i like tall speakers

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

My Dad = Led Zeppelin, Atomic Rooster, Deeply Purple

My Mum = ABBA, the Carpenters, CLIFF

==> my favourite music = Cliff when he had long hair and a beard for HEATHCLIFF.

Re: i like small speakers, i like tall speakers

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

Cliff Richard on wikipedia :

"Cliff is the only act in the UK to score a #1 single in each and every decade since the inception of the UK Singles chart in 1952, with the exception of the 2000's, which are not over."

Re: i like small speakers, i like tall speakers

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

The sixth coming of Cliff is nigh!

Re: i like small speakers, i like tall speakers

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

He is awake.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

My parents agreed on the Beatles, I listened to my Dad's records from the 60s (mostly) a bit, although mainly only the ones I already thought would be good (first Led Zep; lots of Rolling Stones; Buffalo Springfield; Dylan). Other than that my Mum only listens to Classical which I've never been into in a big way. My Dad got into Iron Maiden when I was at an impressionable age and both me and my brother got into metal that way (although I think I liked Bon Jovi, AC/DC independently and first). He had WASP tapes, and Helloween, which I listened to; later bought me Kiss, Dave Lee Roth, trying to find things I might like, which was really sweet. My brother's taste is quite unpredictable, he is younger than me but got into pop earlier than I did. (Much later I remember talking him into buying the Scatman John album -- and when he got me Steps Gold for Christmas, which I already had, he listened to it himself and seemed to like it. I got him the Isis album for Christmas last year, which he says he liked). He had been getting Look-In which came with free Flexi Discs e.g. The Jets, Crush on You, and bought some 7" singles -- A-Ha, Falco, and I can remember him having a huge row with my mother who disapproved of Samantha Fox... Then we would argue over trading tracks from compilations (I'll swap you Pet Shop Boys from Now whatever for Prince from Hits whatever) for a bit. But he never liked hip-hop as far as I know and my first big love was Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys, and then I went away to boarding school and from that point on all my musical tastes were defined from there rather than around my family. He went very metal as he learned to play guitar (e.g. Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen) while I went for thrash -- Metallica etc. -- and then into indie. I can remember my dad being unimpressed by the Wonderstuff, although he liked the spoken word bits on Surfer Rosa by the Pixies...

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Don't remember parents having any music at all apart from the stepmother once playing Tina Turner (in car) and Papa once playing The Shadows - also in the car. Only chlid, listened to the Manics = QED

[genie22.livejournal.com]

Neither parent is especially into music. They were Beatles/Jim Reeves/Abba fans though.

Me = eldest. Whilst I do like teh BoneyM + Beatles bits, I tend to avoid all the old-skool Sri Lankan pop. The new stuff's so much better.

My pop habit started aged four; the aunt had an Elvis tape. Myself, my cousin Tudor (snarf, he's a nice guy really) and my bro used to dance around to 'Return to Sender'. Since she'd worked in America, she used to shut us up with this tape of 'eeny, meeny, mini, mo' and other games. I preferred the Elvis but majority wailing (little sis was one at this time) won out.

Thankfully I discovered a taperecorder and 'This Morning' so I got the Kylie-fix everyone else was getting and the rest was history.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Mum: Chris De Burgh, Wet Wet Wet, Enya. I think the last single she bought was Madonna's The Power of Goodbye...no! I bought her Gymtonic when she asked me to find that record 'to do my exercises with'.
Dad: Really poor country music, tapes from petrol stations called things like 'Hooked on No.1s'. I nicked his Simon and Garfunkel tape when I left home thinking it deserved a kinder place.
Sister: I shared a room with her (she's 12 years older) 'til I was seven so got used to the sound of Radio 1 through the night. Transvision Vamp, Nick Kershaw, The Colourfield (my dad designed a record studio so we had their demos - Kingdom No.3 used to be used to tease me because I was terrified of it), The Bangles, Beautiful South. Not so bad I guess. I got a bit into The Housemartins when I was thirteen and I'm quite fond of Ver Vamp.
Brother, 10 years older: Used to go to 'warehouse parties' when on leave and was the first of us to have a CD player. Introduced me to the Pet Shop Boys and New Order, inadvertently. I always used to ask him to tape me A Trip To Trumpton and Roobarb and Custard, but he never would. On the way to a funeral four years ago I asked him to put Radio 1 on in the car and he thought Liam Lynch's United States of Whatever was the best record of all time.

I've been virtually an only child since I was eight and my music tastes have been pretty much my own, really.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Mum = classical, early Cliff, Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel
Dad = Shadows, rock'n'roll.

And Boney M "Nightflight to Venus", Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Variations" (rock geetar and squelchy synths, oh yes).

These were the main things I picked out of my parents' record collection when I was 9, couldn't buy records and didn't have a radio or media device of my own. (Eventually my Grandad died and I got his record player/tape/radio device. A music centre if you will).

So I ended up being into the Shadows. Which gave me a good founding in various standard tunes I guess. Plus my "I never listen to the words, what's the melody like?"-ness.

A couple of years later I went to boarding school and was exposed to the new wave of heavy metal and the old wave of hard rock by my contemporaries, and new wave/romantic pop/two tone on the radio ('twas late 1980 onwards). So I still contend that a) all AC/DC albums after Back In Black are bobbins, b) Queen's Greatest Hits (I) contains all you need to know about Queen and c) 12 Gold Bards contains all you need to know about the Quo. Oh and that Iron Maiden sold out to pop with the Number of the Beast album and were bobbins forever after.

Oh and reading exotic American guitar magazines who would give interviews with people with big hair and shiny guitars. But then they did Stevie Ray Vaughan on the back of his dalliance with David Bowie on the Let's Dance album (1983), and I got the blues. Or something.

Trying to remember when I got into Eric Clapton - had a big phase. I had a guitar book that had a section on important guitarists you should hear, which included Frank Zappa, although it was a while before I heard anything much of his beyond a flexidisc of Sharleena (reggae/doowop with heavy metal guitar solos) given away with US Guitar Magazine in 1984.

Did I mention the Police? Another guitarist from that book. My love for jazz might have stemmed from a stint playing drums in the swing band in 6th form.

And so on.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am oldest child, with younger sister who went to same boarding school as me.

She likes classical stuff lots more than me, also religious music, she's sung more in choirs. Also poppy stuff - she "recommended" Ricky Martin to me at least a year before he was big in the UK. However she does tend to go to things like Avril Lavigne concerts.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

My sister bought Variations. It is GREBT. I (re)acquired a vinyl copy for myself only last year.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Parents: met in Cambridge in the 60s, went to parties "where Pink Floyd played" (the thought of Dad getting down to Astronomy Domine boggles me) but basically didn't like music that much. They each had a couple of inescapable 60s records - Dylan G Hits, Sgt Pepper - and my Dad had a few he'd borrowed off his cooler younger brother Bill, who really did go to rock star parties and died in a car crash age 22.

Dad had a box of Bill's old tapes - Beefheart, Hendrix, later Dylan, Exile On Main Street which wd have come out the year he died I guess - and gave them to me when I was 18, he'd never really wanted to play them. I got more into Dylan, the rest passed me by.

By the time I got into music myself, Mum liked classical, Dad liked light classics and country (mostly wronged countrypolitan women - Dolly, Tammy). He also liked the TV series "Rock Bottom", enough to buy the album, and a few ABBA songs, and "Annie's Song" - those are the only pop I remember being played in the house when I was very small.

Brother: I'm an older brother and I think I had more influence on Al's taste than he did on mine - I got him into the stuff I was enthused about, pop and Smiths-y indie and house and rave music. He had a big soul and funk phase in his early 20s, too. The stuff he likes now seems to be more wordy, cabaret almost, we still hate all the same things though.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Parents: not into music particularly, though both liked stuff like the Beatles, Francoise Hardy etc when young. Right now they're mostly about light classics and church music. Had tendency to see all of my modern pop as the work of the Devil - never to the extent of banning any of it from the house but it was the source of many mammoth arguments.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

So basically, their influence on me = 0, my influence on them = 0.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Parents: always had Radio 1 on but never actually owned any records apart from Voulez Vous & Nightflight to Venus, so were happy for us kids to take over.

I'm the middle sibling: Big sister dominated my early musical tastes, giving me a liking for the Smiths & Depeche Mode that still exists today. Overall our tastes are broadly similar (I don't think we've ever had a real disagreement over music), but over the years we have influenced each other in different ways - she has always been a bit of an influence on the indie front, whereas I've kept her up to date on the pop front, and I also took her raving for the first time, which she loved.

Bizarrely considering how influential we've been on each other, we've had next to no influence on our younger brother who's musical tastes developed much more slowly, later and in quite a different direction - being into more leftfield dance music, bits of psychedelic 60s stuff, old soul, and some world music - which has belatedly started to now influence me.

And finally now we've all left home my parents seem to now be more into music than ever, as listening to Radio 2 keeps them in touch with some contemporary stuff. They even buy CDs now, even if they are of the Rod Stewart variety

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Parents: owned about seven 45s from the late 50s (a couple of pop: Frank Ifield, Johnny Preston, the rest EPs of songs from musicals), they acquired a few LPs in the early 70s, mostly light classical or movie themes / easy listening stuff. But they were never really into pop.

Sister: acquired a small collection, mainly under influence of first serious boyfriend. Naturally I devoured everything she owned as well. In particular, she introduced me to a lot of punk and 70s New Wave songs. But by '79, I was already going my own way (buying my own records, listen to late night R1).

The real formative period for both of us came from listening to the Top 20 Chart Show in the 70s and taping stuff from there (NB: on reel-to-reel tapes initially). So I wouldn't say my family's tastes particularly influenced mine at all.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

my dad liked v little beyond classical and I think Buddy Holly and Jim Reeves. My mum was the top 40 listener, so when i was 8/9/10 and started recording the top 40 that was her doing for sure. late 70s punk, post punk, and early 80s stuff was stuff we both loved. we went our separate ways pretty much when the Pet Shop Boys turned up.

My younger sister didn't really influence me - she seemed to like a string of pretty boys, from Nik Kershaw to Bros, but she did "find" late 80s rave stuff before me as I'd got way indie by then. specifically i remember her loving voodoo ray and me thinking it was shite. how wrong i was. now she listens to enya. i feel like I failed somewhere.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

there was a strange collection of albums in the house about 2ft long. ones i can recall: OST Sound of Music, a Doors album. My mum's vinyl was a lot of Boomtown Rats, Dire Straits and Springsteen. Plus a lot of more hippy/folksy stuff, like Harry Chapin. oh and Chris De Burgh and Billy Joel. I liked some Billy Joel. Still do.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

My parents aren't that into music, but had the requisite smattering of sixties stuff about the house. I figured out how to pull the chair over to the kitchen counter to clamber up to put The Seekers tape on when I was very small indeed. (Such clambering skills came in very useful when pilfering bulbs of raw garlic to munch on, as well.)

When I was twelve or so I did theft a lot of their tapes and got very into the sixties thing - Beatles (we had Sgt Pepper, and the red and blue compilations), Stones, Kinks, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel. And then I went and hunted *more* sixties things (tending towards the folkier end of things), ending up with the Leonard Cohen obsession, and loving the Bob Dylan, and so forth. (An aside - someone's big brother, who must have been all of about twenty, told me that no thirteen year old could *possibly* like Dylan, and I was clearly just pretending to. How ponce-faced is that?)

Then I discovered music made in later decades, particularly NOISY MUSIC, and loved that too.

Then my bigger little brother decided he liked the hardcore and other noise too, and there was much thefting of cassettes and he *still* has most of my Descendents and Bad Religion cds. He likes music lotsandlots, and plays drums, and ting. (I think he still likes the Punk Rawk and he's also into a fair bit of bleep these days.)

The other little siblings like mostly mainstream-ish stuff, and never have been as excited about music as me or Conor. Unless you count Cow wanting to have sex with Mr BillyJoe and his Green Days.

[darkpigeon.livejournal.com]

elder sibling and nothing like any of my nuclear family. dad = 70s rock. mum = shit. sister = rnb