Turning Points

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Everyone's music taste changes and evolves over time. Do you have an album or song that was a 'turning point' for you, musically? Perhaps you've had two or three turning points, or found that the combined power of a handful of songs made you think differently about a whole genre?

Are musical turning points always in the form of "OMG!" revelations? Were yours gradual or sudden?

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I choose list method, should be innaresting...15 distinct stages!

1. Age 3-6: Beach Boys on tape cassette/golden oldies station -- pop music is of the past, something that resonates with the childhood of my parents, and thus should also resonate with me.
2. Age 5: start piano training in earnest = separate musical life "outside of pop" until 18, somewhat coinciding with musicnerdiness.
3. Age 7: feel strange listening/dancing to stuff my sister listens to, Paula Abdul and New Kids. Feel that I should be listening to something different (gender differentiation?)
4. Age 8: Discovery of Metallica via new step-brother. Obsession ensues.
5. Age 8-13: Metallica, Offspring, occasional Nirvana, lots of Weird Al!
6. Age 13-15: Whatever everyone else happens to be listening to, slight G-funk phase (more like ~12?), Outkast and Eminem late in this period.
7. Age 16: Jealous of friends' U2 knowledge, decide to be "music guy," go out and buy SGT. PEPPER'S!
8. Age 17: 300 CDs and few lunches later I'm well on my way to a canon! Find Pfork, start compiling Music Lists of stuff to buy/listen to.
9. Age 18: Full-fledged wannabe music nerd, mucho indie, burgeoning interest in jazz accompanies abandonment of classical piano for jazz and some marginal pop writing (accidentally buy albums by BLOWHOLE and BELLY that I never listen to, lots of mistakes starting with B, also Balt Mink and Bwelve Rods and Bilys's Eccsame the Photon Band!)
10. Age 19: First writing gigs, faking it. (Unicorns stand out)
11. Age 20: Big writing gigs, still faking it but with a thesaurus. (Arcade Fire, Joan of Arc (boo hiss), Animal Collective, Kylie Minogue)
12. Age 21: Identity crisis, go to England (do not pass Go etc.). (Daft Punk, more Kylie...T. Rex?) Enter Skye Sweetnam, then Ashlee, then Lindsay. Obsessively collect old teenpop albums because (1) they cost a buck a piece, (2) I dig 'em, (3) my writing has improved (yay!)
13. Age 22: Deep into tha teenpop, find new internet buddies. Enter Marit, Paris.
14. Age 23: Present!
15. Future: Future!