Your favorite type of music

[Sylverwolfe]

Hello members of Teddy Ruxpin Online Forums,

I wanted to post a fun topic.
What is your favorite type of music and why?

Here's my answer:
Heavy Metal which spans from the NWOBHM through Hair Metal and into what is sometimes referred to as "Thrash-metal."

NWOBHM - New Wave of British Heavy Metal - Began in the late 1970's. Bands like Diamond Head, Accept, Tygers of Pan Tang are examples.

Hair Metal - Also called "Glam Metal" is the metal which was born of the NWOBHM, as it moved "across the pond" into the United States and Canada. It was began by Quiet Riot and gets its name because the band members did their hair like women, teasing it, spraying it etc. Sadly, as with most music, towards the end it had become more about image and less about substance.

Skid Row is one of my favorite bands from this type of metal, though they were in fact, late in the genre. My avatar, is a photo of me in my wolf mascot costume wearing a Skid Row T-shirt over it. You probably cannot see it. It is a trademark. When I wear the mascot, I wear the shirt, so that the moniker "The Heavy-Metal Werewolf" is more easy to associate with him.
Slaughter, Trixter, Bulletboys, Wildside, Dangerous Toys were some late bands, who are really kind of obscure now, lost to the annals of history pretty much.
Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Warrant and Twisted Sister are some more well known bands from earlier in the period.

Thrash is where I lump metal like Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Riot and Anthrax, all of which I like.

I am also fond of classic rock, classical composition, a scant few songs that are Rap/hip-hop (early stuff like Tone Loc, Herbie Hancock, Young MC, Sugarhill gang).

Music is where I usually get a lot of quotes and if I put them in my signature from time to time, a great deal of my quotes come from some song I happen to be thinking about.

All in all I have 840 CD's. It is a bunch of music. Darn near all of it is rock. They convenientlly all fit in my iPod classic. So I can listen to anything in my collection at a moments' notice.

Now the second part Why do I like it?

Well for Hair metal it is because I remember going to a few rock 'n' roll shows with my sister. My sister was 7 years older than me and I was a tag-along kid-brother. Since I was the middle of three I was often left out and my sister was my advocate. So I got to tag-along with her a lot. I saw WASP, Poison and a few others I cannot remember at the moment on the rare occasion she went to a concert with her friends. I have fond memories tied up with it, one and two because the music was about having a blast. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and having a blast on Saturday night because on Sunday the hangover was going to be killer. It was also that these concerts were a lot more than musicians playing songs for 2 + hours. It was a SHOW! Pyrotechnics, acrobatics *remembers David Lee Roth swinging on the wire in the Panama Music Video.* You got a show for your money and it was played by people who were happy to be rock stars. And at the risk of sounding a little like a Bob Seger Song (Old Time Rock 'n' Roll) Today's bands just don't deliver that anymore. Many seemed bothered to be there.

Thrash is because it was angry and loud and I was those things when I was a teenager. The show Beavis and Butthead made them even better, especially when you heard their "expert" *cough, cough* opinions of the bands!

How about you?

[Fen]

Hmmm

I would say I am a big Skid Row "Hair Band" fan. Skid Row, Motley Crue, AC/DC, Ozzy Ozbourne, and Def Leppard to name a few.

Lately I've been listening to more reggie and world music. Mainly, Bob and Ziggy Marley. As well as Owl City and what could be classed as emo-electric rock. With a heavy use of synthesizers and computer layering. I also like The Killers, Dashboard Confessional, Bullet for my Valentine, My Chemical Romance, Hellogoodbye, Train, Reliant K, The Postal Service, and Jacks Mannequin.

I also like Blackmore's Night, Enya, and Secret Garden. I find the music relaxing and a great inspiration for writing. As well, as modern classical music by Karl Jenkins and James Horner.

[Sylverwolfe]

I didn't put in there that I also like a little bit of alternative. It was the music that was popular, when I was a teenager. I HATED it at first. Absolutely! I liked stuff that was on before.

But it grew on me a bit. My heart first warmed to the bands Candlebox, Collective Soul and Soundgarden. It all goes back to a family vacation to Florida in 1993. It was when the tastes in music really shifted and I think the songs Don't You, Change, You and Far Behind by Candlebox, Shine by Collective Soul, and Spoonman by Soundgarden must have played every twenty minutes on that trip, as my father tuned from rock station to rock station on that trip.

My heart belongs to Hair metal. Although I do like the '80's New Wave quite a bit.

[tdickensheets]

I grow up in 1960's. Beattles, golden oldies.

[theonemouse]

I grew up in the 1970s so a lot of Mini Pops and ABBA.

Later tha changed to commercial Heavy Metal (AD/DC, Metallica, Def Leppard), with some of the popular rock bands thrown in (Bon Jovi mostly) and a little 2 Live Crew.

Now, I would have to say I am into 30 Seconds to Mars, Adam Lambert, Beyoncé, Nikki Yanovski (she did the CBC 2010 Olympic Theme Song), and traditional shakuhachi music (Japanese flute).

What can I say, I'm ecclectic.

[TRO Admin]

I'm a big Country and 80's/Hair Metal fan..... Trace Adkins, Tim McGraw, Chris LeDoux, Brad Paisley, Lynyrd Skynyrd.... then on the metal side, KISS, Poison and Ratt are probably my favorites with Guns & Roses an honorable mention.

Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Chesney, Trace Adkins and Tim McGraw are the most played artists on my Ipod. Nobody beats "The Boss".

Also, the year 1996 in music was perhaps the best in my lifetime, thus far. The Wallflowers. Joan Osborne. Sheryl Crow. Donna Lewis. That was just a terrific 18 months of music from 95/96.

[Sylverwolfe]

Ratt makes my weekly playlist lineup. KISS makes a monthly lineup.

It is interesting where we each think that "Sweet spot" was for the greatest music. You said 1995-1996 was yours Josh. I find that interesting as well. If I had to guess, I'd say you are probably between 27 and 29 years old. (My brother is that age and he says that 18 months of music was his best as well.)

For me the preponderance of the music I have collected falls in the 1990-1992 range. So I would have to say for me it was 1990-1992. Bands like:

Slaughter,
Skid Row,
Firehouse,
Ugly Kid Joe,
Killer Dwarfs,
Bulletboys,
Trixter,
Dangerous Toys,
Wildside,
Sleeze Beez,
Helix,

Were all hair bands I listen to from that time period. It is very late in the period of the genre though. Many of these are lost to the annals of history because they had one or two albums before Alternative and Grunge began coming in and overthrew their rule of the airwaves.

I love the movie Airheads because this movie chronicled perfectly the period of the switch to Grunge and Alternative. But more than that. It also chronicled the hostility that true hair-metal and metal fans had to the switch:
(After Chazz, the frontman to the band "The Lone-Rangers" (Brendan Frasier) and his band have seized control of the radio station using waterguns that look like mac-10 sub-machine-guns He decided to control the radio booth by playing requests. One caller calls in for a grunge band and he is just put out by it. says to a caller "You really like all that Seattle Bull****?")

The movie also chronicled what happened to hair metal acts who were trying to get signed right at the end of the genre.
And it showed that the music business had become more about a money making image and less about substance.

But I digress.

My girlfriend says hers was in 1997 or 1998.

You know something funny. Many people think it is funny. I guess it is because I live in Texas and I am a Texan. I cannot stand much in the way of country music. I like a small handful by Allen Jackson, I like Junior Brown (Semi Crazy specifically, because he plays the steel guitar the way 1960's surfer band, the Ventures, did.) John Michael Montgomery has a few I like, as well as some of Brooks and Dunn. In all I probably have about 2 hours of country music on an iPod crammed with 33 days worth of music.

My sister though went from listening to hair metal right into country. She is convinced I will but I am not interested. Country music is nice for a good two step though.

[TRO Admin]

Country is for sure a niche... I believe for about an 8 year period from the 90's into early in this previous decade we left 10 months ago though it was actually the biggest selling genre of music... not by #1 albums or individual artists but as a whole. Mediocre country artists seem to still sell fairly well, at least compared to their counterparts in Rock & Rap. I think a lot of people are closet country fans. For me, Country music (listening to it and writing it) helps soothe a lot of pain and put a lot of things in perspective. It's definitely not what I turn to when I'm in the mood to party... the up tempo honky tonk stuff doesn't do a lot for me. Brooks & Dunn is one of my favorites... but only about half their songs. The other half fall into the honky tonk "boot scootin boogie" stuff that doesn't really call to me. I am looking forward to Kix Brooks having a solo career again now that they have called it quits. He's got a great "tear in your beer" country voice

You got my age almost right... I have been 26 for about 90 days now. It is ironic how so many of us say our favorite musical time period falls within a time frame of being a young teenager. I think this must be when our brain is developing the tastes for music we will carry with us for the long haul. Despite my love for the overall sounds of this period, though, only one song from 1995/96 falls into my Top 25 on Itunes... (The Wallflowers' One Headlight.. which comes in at #24 currently) I think this is partly due to the overwhelming amount of songs I have from that era though, probably more than any other. They get diluted on the playlists compared to older and more recent songs that stand out more than their peers.

I am quite the musical paradox. My first musical influences were country artists- namely George Strait. "Ocean Front Property" is the first song I remember thinking was my all-time favorite, back at about age 3. As a teenager I grew more into harder rock, some rap, and 70's stuff. About the age of 21 I turned back around and developed more of a love for country. From about '06 to '08 that was about all I listened to. In the last year plus, I've come back around to a lot of the heavier sounds as well as developed a strong liking for Bruce Springsteen.. I think it takes some age and wisdom to appreciate all the good music you will eventually have on life's soundtrack.

Good discussion.

[Sylverwolfe]

Hmmm...
I think a lot of our music tastes are found in our younger teenage years. You are definitely onto something there. I wonder if it goes to our earlier teenage years or later years. For instance I wonder if one's opinions etc are formed at the onset of puberty. I think onset of puberty is when our brains also develop better cognitive skills and so forth. We are "coming into our own" as it were with our personalities, our willfulness etc.

Very good thought there! One worth further study. If only there was a way to study it.

My music tastes are described a little out of my time. I liked mostly acid rock, hard rock and metal when I was between 11 and 16. I have been told my tastes are those of someone between 5 years and 20 years older than me. I was 11 to 13 when most of the bands I like were popular. Which does support the theory a bit. (I was quite an early bloomer. - and early bloomers are as much outcasts as the late bloomers!)


Now when it comes to country I like country that sings about overcome it. I like most songs that sing about overcoming it.
Stuff like Country boys can survive by Hank Williams Junior for instance.

'Cause you can't stomp us out and you can't make us run.
'Cause when we were boys we were raised with shotguns...
And we say grace...and we say ma'am...
and if you ain't in with that well we don't give a damn!
But the lyrics later about what he'd like to do to his friend's killer are particularly like me.
I'd like to spit some beechnut in that dude's eyes...
and shoot him with my old .45...
'cause a country boy can survive.

I don't like to cry. I do. I am a human being, but usually I want revenge for my hurt first, then cry later. (I would guess that would mean my mascot character would probably more accurate if he were a bear and not a wolf.)

The stuff that is "Cry in your beer" is just not my thing. I find most of George Jones for instance terribly depressing! Like suicidal depressing. I can't bear too much of it for long.

Now for contrast, in the instance of being treated like crap from someone who loves you, I like something like Type O Negative's Hey Pete, which is a cover of Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe The late Peter Steele, lead singer and writer of songs for Type O Negative dealt with his girlfriend/fiancee cheating on him and he was really angry in the first albums about it. Song titles reflected it, like I know your ****ing someone else and lyrics such as unjustifiable existence
His was a soul that was bruised and he was angry over it. Which is instinctively how I react first as well.


Neat conversation though.

And yes, as I have gotten older I too have noticed I am beginning to assemble a "life's soundtrack" as you cleverly put it.