what were you listening to at 15?

I had just discovered Graffitti magazine.

New wave & synth-pop (Depeche Mode, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Love & Rockets, Information Society, Camoflauge)

Crossover pop-dance stuff (Black Box, Technotronic, Inner City, Bomb The Bass, D-Mob)

Rap, both cred and non-cred (Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Young MC, Boogie Down Productions)

Counting Crows, August and Everything After
Seal, Seal (the second one)
Sonic Youth, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star
PJ Harvey, 4-Track Demos
Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes
R.E.M., Monster
Morrissey, Vauxhall and I
Oasis, Definitely Maybe
Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
Soundtrack, Reality Bites
Veruca Salt, American Thighs
Dambuilders, Encendedor
Liz Phair, Whip-Smart

... yikes

Probably more than anything else, Disintegration. The rest consisted of things Dave Kendall told me about (The Mission, Echo & the Bunnymen, etc.) and albums I'd pinched from my friend Laura (Depeche Mode, Joy Division, Fugazi, etc.)

Also -- "Encendedor" is quite possibly my favorite 90's album. Props to you for listing it.

The Smiths/New Order/XTC/Led Zeppelin/The Beatles/REM/Dukes Of Stratosphear/INXS/Debbie Gibson/Soup Dragons/The Jesus And Mary Chain/The Kinks/Jefferson Airplane/Eddie Cochrane/Elvis Presley/Monkees/Herman's Hermits

Ice T-original gangster.

Metallica-black album.

Ice Cube-death certificate.

Fugazi-repeater.

Fugazi-3 songs.7".

Fugazi-steady diet of nothing.

Nirvana-sliver/dive.7".

Nirvana-nevermind.

NWA-efil4zaggin.

Dr Dre + Snoop-deep cover.12".

Anthrax-persistence of time.

Public Enemy-apocalypse '91.

Public Enemy-shut 'em down Pete Rock remix.12".

Lard-last temptation of reid.

Geto Boys-we can't be stopped.

Cypress Hill-cypress hill.

And some old Black Flag.

didn't really get back into hip-hop until the following year

I haven't listened to it in years! I found it quite accidentally at the public library, of all places, and copied it to a cassette, which is now sitting somewhere in my closet. But yeah, good album!

1973, the year of Dark Side of the Moon. Also:

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ("Will the Circle be Unbroken"), Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Seatrain, Fleetwood Mac ("Mystery To Me"), Ten Years After, King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Cockney Rebel.

sex pistols
underworld
atari teenage riot
chemical brothers
kmfdm
roni size
daft punk
air
dead kennedys
aphex twin
front 242

NIN
Ministry
KMFDM
Depeche Mode
New Order
the Cure
They Might be Giants
U2
Gang of Four

Matthew Sweet! The Lemonheads!
Weezer -- DGC Rarities / No Alternative -- Frank Black, Pixies, Breeders, Flaming Lips, Smiths, New Order, Beastie Boys, Blur, Helmet

Not much at *all* -- this was a dry gulch year for me in all respects. 1981-1985 was my pop radio time of fascination, very end of 1987 was when I got a first proper stereo system all for myself (even if a Fisher all-in-one ;-) ) followed by a CD player. I think all I bought this year was Sgt. Pepper's and Red Wave, and the only radio hits I remember from the year with clarity were "Addicted to Love," "Rock Me Amadeus" and of course the Pet Shop Boys. Klymaxx's horribly gloopy "I Miss You" literally made me stop listening to Top 40, I remember that much.

Black Flag
Ozzy
Fear
Motley Crue
Flipper
Led Zeppelin
Circle Jerks
Iron Maiden
Minor Threat

Let's see, I turned 15 in Nov 95, so...

Oasis - Definitely Maybe, What's The Story (oh dear)
Blur - Great Escape (oh dear)
Supergrass - I Should Coco
Black Grape - It's Great When You're Straight
Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix
Radiohead - The Bends
REM - Monster, Automatic, New Adventures
Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

15 was a key year now I think of it. I think the Bends and REM definitely brought me into indie-rock pastures and away from Britpop. And then during summer '96 Dancing In The Street aired, which meant I heard the Velvet Underground for the first time. This, and getting Odelay for my 16th birthday, really opened things up.

circle jerks
dead kennedys
bad religion
crass
rudimentary peni
ssd
youth brigade
7 seconds
subhumans (uk)
x
buzzcocks
husker du
specials
selector
8 eyed spy
yaz
bauhaus
velvet underground
whodini
fat boys
kurtis blow
run dmc
joy division
new order
bronski beat
bow wow wow
echo & the bunnymen
stranglers
the jam

and other stuff. and whatever was on the radio. i turned 16 in october of 84, so some of this stuff i might have been listening to after my 16th birthday. i do remember that i listened to husker du all night ON my 16th birthday, drunk and alone in my dorm room at the bad boy's school that my parents had shipped me away to.

Concrete by 999 (I was inexplicably obsessed...pardon the pun...with this record)
Generation X by Generation X....older by a few years, but I bought it at the same time as the 999 record
Give the People What they Want by the Kinks
Joe's Garage Act I by Frank Zappa
The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden
Fire of Unknown Origin by Blue Oyster Cult
Oh No! It's Devo by Devo
Wild in the Streets by the Circle Jerks
Stukas Over Disneyland by the Dickies
Troops of Tomorrow by The Exploited
Let Them Eat Jellybeans by various artists (Alternative Tentacles)
Ghost in the Machine by the Police
Rio by Duran Duran

also, richard hell, the velvet underground, and random punk rock and elephant six-ish indie pop

Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd
Live at Fillmore East
Brothers and Sisters
Eat A Peach
Idelwild South Allman Brothers Band
Hot Rocks Rolling Stones
Mott
All The Young Dudes Mott the Hoople
Houses of the Holy Led Zeppelin
Marshall Tucker Band
Aerosmith
Alladin Sane David Bowie esp "Panic in Detroit"
Live Dates Wishbone Ash
American Beauty Grateful Dead
Quadrophenia The Who

lots of Sly, Spinners and O Jays on AM radio

I remember being slightly obsessed w/the New York Dolls debut but the cover scared me away from buying it!

My Rush infatuation was just around the corner.

(It's my latent Catholic urge to confess.)

I meant you (Daniel) did.

I was very into music but was teased for basically having advanced tatses for my age (due to cool parents and sisters)

...more or less...

For me, the Smashing Pumpkins had pretty much taken over my life, and I listened to Dark Side of the Moon almost every night before I went to bed. Also, I loved CCR, and didn't know music got much better than Live's Throwing Copper, Dookie, Weezer, and KISS: MTV Unplugged.

How much of everyone's tastes then was heavily influenced by what was available in the "Alternative" section of those music clubs?

oh, man...i could just go on and on. this was right smack at the peak of OCD record/tape buying.

Japan
Bauhaus
the Cure
Cocteau Twins
the Waterboys for some reason
the Church
Echo & the Bunnymen
the Alarm (arrrrgh! wtf I was obsessed with them)

OK that was embarrasing.

Later in the same year I was listening to:
The Sex Pistols
The Ramones
The Clash
Blondie
Devo

and the next year 1980, well *that* was golden. 16 in 1980, going to ALL the punk/new wave shows....I'll have to wait for the "what were you listening to when you were 16" thread to tell you about that, old coot that I am.

...but it took me a while to own up to the stuff that I didn't WANT to remember...

Hothouse Flowers - Home [was on a weird Celtic kick, their Gaelic song prompted me to try to teach myself Gaelic with aid of a library book, failed miserably as you can imagine]
Simple Minds - greatest hits [same Celtic kick. patchy, I know]
Pink Floyd - Momentary Lapse Of Reason (ugh. a guy I had a crush on copied it for me. I listened to it all the time while smitten. I still can't listen to it to this day without cringing)
The Cream of Eric Clapton (same guy got me into this. but I actually still enjoy Cream, and fuck it, I can predict the tracklisting for this in my sleep!)
U2 - Achtung Baby
Ratcat - I didn't like Blind Love much, but I was still wearing out the Tingles EP
Twin Peaks soundtrack (wore this one OUT. Was even given the 'Secret Diary of Laura Palmer' book for my 15th birthday.)

alice cooper - killer & schools out
led zeppelin - III & IV
peter frampton - wind of change
atomic rooster - death walks behind you
humble pie - smokin
the guess who - so long,bannatyne
the who - who's next
fleetwood mac - bare trees
rory gallagher - rory gallagher
deep purple - machine head
capt. beefheart - clear spot

...i am sure most kids in nanaimo,bc were listening to this stuff save for the beefheart. CKLG-FM used to be a lot more eclectic back then and "lo yo-yo stuff" [which i loved] was on pretty steady rotation back then.

Pretty much mainstream, you might say.

TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO!

And Europop and rap too.

And (*gasp*) The Cranberries and Bangles.

Oh, and it was the year of "Music for the Jilted Generation", that was massive! It made the number one spot on the Finnish charts, the first time (I think) a techno record made such a feat back here, and I remember thinking, "OK, this the beginning of a new era! No more boring rock'n'roll!".

mighty lemon drops
echo and the bunnymen
cure
new order
chameleons
the the
forgotten rebels
clash
p/i/l
ultravox
book of love
bauhaus
love and rockets
depeche mode
violent femmes
jesus and mary chain
front 242
the cult
CFNY (toronto radio station)

fuck knows what else. 1977

The Beatles, Mega City Four, Green Day... I can't really remember I was 16/17 when i started going mad for all sorts of different things.

Pixies
The Cure
Ride
Jesus & Mary Chain
The Smiths
Wonder Stuff
Carter USM
Nirvana
Senseless Things
Slowdive
Spacemen 3
Sisters of Mercy
Ned's Atomic Dustbin
The Police
"The Sound of the Suburbs" compilation
Beatles/Stones/Animals/Monkees
The Stranglers

This was the age I really became a CIF I think!! Prior to 15 I primarily listened to house/hip hop and Queen.

Never Understand in the spring, You Trip Me Up in the summer, Just Like Honey in the autumn, then Psychocandy just before Christmas. Interspersed with these were a couple of John Peel sessions, the first Primal Scream single, the Shop Assistants ep, and several attempts to dye white school shirts black.

Beatles
B-52s
Living Colour
classic rock radio
pop radio

I didn't actually buy my first album until November of that year, so I guess I wouldn't say I was a hardcore music fan yet.

The Cult, U2, Microdisney, Duran Duran, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, The Cure, The Sugarcubes, A-ha, The The, Erasure, Prefab Sprout, Scritti Politti..

Sisters of Mercy
Joy Division
Nirvana
Bauhaus
New Order
March Violets
Alien Sex Fiend
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Fields of the Nephilim
Sex Gang Children
Throbbing Gristle

bad years.

no ZTT yet, no J&MC, had yet to discover foetus, on-u, cabaret voltaire, shriekback, devo.

subsequently my listening was pretty dire. having said that Madness/2 tone still featured, little did i realise just how big an influence that Herbie Hancocks Future Shock and Malcolm McLarens Duck Rock would have on my future life.

mbv, blur, j&mc, sonic youth, cure, smiths, joy division, rem, huskers, clash, happy mondays, daisy chainsaw...the best stuff being played on 120 minutes and WPRI

All very typical really

Cocteau Twins
Depeche Mode
Diamanda Galas
Neubauten
PTV
Current 93
Chris and Cosey
pretty much anything on 4AD
Prince
my mum raised me on disco, so that never went far away from me...
New Order
Siouxsie
Erasure
A-Ha
Nocturnal Emissions
Severed Heads
Jesus and Mary Chain
Sheila E.
other things that I can't remember as I am at work.

Sisters of Mercy
Joy Division
Nirvana
Bauhaus
New Order
March Violets
Alien Sex Fiend
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Fields of the Nephilim
Sex Gang Children
Throbbing Gristle"

Blimey, with the possible exceptions of The Nephs, that could have been '83-'84.

I remember the one and only time I heard the Dolls on WNEW. The album had just come in to the studio and they decided to play side one track one. Afterward the DJ (I forget who, Pete Fornatale or someone like that) came on and said "I can guarantee that you'll never hear that again on this station." Haha, the Dolls have outlasted WNEW.

Uh, yeah, I had a bit of a thing for the goth rock...

(forgot the X-mal Deutschland, Virgin Prunes & UK Decay, too!)

1982
I was just getting into psychedelia, so The Seeds Raw & Alive lp, Standells, Chocolate Watchband, Move, The Byrds, some Hendrix, The High Tide (80s indie folk-psych), The Playn Jayn (live, they had nothing released yet).
Misunderstood, Small Faces Darlings Of Whapping Wharf Launderette, Creation, The Who, Yardbirds, Purple Hearts (UK mod band), A Splash of Colour compi, ? & The Mysterions 96 Tears single, The Chords, The Hunger, Love (Masters the Elektra compi)
James Brown, Club Ska '67, Prince Buster,
Jumping Jacques
plus X-Ray Spex, Sex Pistols, Echo & The Bunnymen's Porcupine.
& John Peel's show.

In 1984m Van Halen was nice enough to name their album 1984:

http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/vam_halen_1984.jpg

I didn't buy my first tape until the next year so I mainly listened to the classic rock and commercial metal at the time. The usual suspects: Zep, AC/DC, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Billy Squier.

1975/ 76

Moved to Dublin, and semi-decent record shops, had first summer and weekend job, and no friends or bad habits, so all cash went on records. Velvets 1st, Raw Power, Blood on the Tracks, Little Feat, Steely Dan, Wailers, Burning Spear, Forever Changes, Feelgoods......

1989

Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre, Pet Shop Boys, Tin Machine

Don't know why i missed the Velvets 1st, was walking around school singing bits of that when I was 14.
Also Herman's Hermits' Blaze, Lovin' Spoonful, The Nice Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack.
The Associates Sulk
Beatles Red compi & maybe Revolver
13th Floor Elevators Psychedelic Sounds.

Various bits of Motown especially Revue live in Paris '67
bits of Stax. Possibly Pretty Things too

94-95

Led Zeppelin, REM, new U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Beatles, Doors, Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Yes, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Nirvana, Tori Amos, Pink Floyd, John Cage, Rush, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau, various blues and jazz programmes on the radio, the Carleton University station

Radiohead, MBV, Slowdive, Sigur Ros, maybe Aphex's RDJ album? Can't remember.

Also the Sex Pistols. A lot of regular rock music on the radio too.

'97 was an exciting year for me. my new high school friends were getting me into a lot of older stuff by Television, A Tribe Called Quest, Fugazi, Velvet Underground, etc. my brother and I were delving into current hip hop like Jay-Z, Missy & Timbaland, etc. I was really hyped about albums released that year by Skeleton Key, the Geraldine Fibbers, Superchunk, Pavement and Spiritualized and exploring those bands' back catalogs, and I was still heavily into bands I had started listening to in the 2-3 years before that like Sonic Youth, They Might Be Giants, Soul Coughing and Ben Folds Five.

I was 15 in 1987. I think the two records I played most that year were Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and Metallica's The $5.98 EP. Also Anthrax, Motörhead, Black Flag, the Cramps, Fear, Accept and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm still listening to at 39.

David Bowie, Babybird, Belle & Sebastian, Manic Street Preachers, Blur, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Grass-Show, Beck, Joy Division, New Order, Super Furry Animals, Symposium, Silver Sun, The Fall, The Boo Radleys, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, They Might Be Giants, Frank Black. It was 1996.

oh man, Elvis Costello, pretty sure i was 15 when i started getting heavy into My Aim Is True too, that was a big one

1996

Transitioning from:

Bush, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Ash, Beck, Pixies

to:

Pavement, Guided By Voices, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Television, My Bloody Valentine, Super Furry Animals

mostly through borrowing tapes from a friend at school.

I still like everything on the second list; there's not much on the first list that I've listened to since I was 15. The next year I got my own stereo, started reading music mags and it became inevitable that I would one day turn up on ILM.

was 15 in 88... was huge into Anthrax, Metallica, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, King Diamond, S.O.D., Slayer, and then somewhat into Butthole Surfers, Beastie Boys, Dead Milkmen, 2 Live Crew, and random stuff I listened to on top 40 radio. I was way too poor for cassettes, so pretty much everything i liked was recorded from friends or off the radio.

concerts i saw in 1994 pretty much sum up my listening around then - pavement, frank black, breeders, beck, john cale, robyn hitchcock, they might be giants, grant lee buffalo. my older brother would've just gone off to college and i remember he (for some reason) got heavily into british folk rock like fairport and steeleye span, so i listened to a lot of that. could probably throw in a bunch of other stuff like guided by voices, neil young, tom waits, velvet underground, etc. haha, my listening habits have not changed all that much, really.

1976...Rocks, Machine Head, Frampton Comes Alive, Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine, Hendrix's Smash Hits, and Worst of the Jefferson Airplane; still listening to Toronto's two Top-40 stations, crazy about "Bohemian Rhapsody"; just starting to branch out into older-brother music like Neil Young, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. The Ramones don't exist, and won't for another three years. I've read about the Velvet Underground in Lillian Roxon's book, but haven't heard them yet; I do remember looking at a cutout copy of White Light/White Heat in Sam the Record Man. Disco exists, but I'm pretty sure I don't think of it as disco yet; I love "Get Down Tonight" and "Right Back Where We Started From."

Man is the Bastard, Wu-Tang

1993

pavement
black sabbath
sebadoh
blues explosion
nirvana
beastie boys
sonic youth
the boo radleys
smashing pumpkins
my bloody valentine
husker du/sugar
cypress hill
the fall
dinosaur jr
flipper
teenage fanclub
babes in toyland
rollins band
soundgarden
mudhoney

1982
elvis costello
the specials, madness, english beat
talking heads
gang of four
psychdelic furs
x
human switchboard
the stooges
ramones
patti smith group
velvet underground
LOTS of zappa
Lou - the blue mask
new york dolls
the rolling stones
eno

1998

Mansun
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci
Ultrasound
Jeff Buckley
The Boo Radleys
Suede
Pulp
New Order
The Divine Comedy
Strangelove
Super Furry Animals
Supergrass
The Bluetones
Duran Duran

95-96

Yo La Tengo
Unwound
Pavement
Sleater-Kinney
Nation Of Ulysses
Oval
Tortoise
Mixtape after mixtape of songs I'd impulsively recorded off college radio after hearing about five seconds.
LOTSA OTHER STUFF

It was at age 15 when I first started going to the indie record stores located in nearby towns on a regular basis. I was actually making decent money at the time, mowing lawns, and I spent pretty much all of it on records and shows.

I could make a list here, but really, if it was any kind of shoegaze or space-rock that was popular in those circles at the time (the more obscure the better), chances are I was ordering it from Parasol mail order or at least had it on a mixtape from one of my shoegaze friends on Prodigy.

92/93 btw

96/97

beck
beastie boys
beatles
de la soul
wu-tang
pavement
belle and sebastian
jeff mills
elastica
blur
daft punk
aphex twin

i thought i was soooo cool compared to all the moshers and casuals.

15 was an awesome year actually, my dad started making good money so i got some nice clothes and a pc, had my first proper girlfriend, school was actually kinda fun, first time going to gigs, getting drunk, high, etc.

*sigh* good times.

1991

Public Enemy, Metallica, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Anthrax, N.W.A., Ice T, 2 Live Crew, Jodeci, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana

it would be next year that I really got into like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and stuff like that

1985:
New Order
The Cure
The Chameleons
The Sound
Echo & the Bunnymen
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Sisters of Mercy
Bauhaus
Joy Division
Killing Joke
Depeche Mode

Was going through a bit of a gothy phase and moving away from listening to Big Country and the Alarm and U2 and other horrific shite like that. The year after this was when I discovered Husker Du, and then I started getting much more into a lot of US indie instead.

Still baffled at how obsessed I was with the Alarm at 15. I mean ffs why didn't I just get into the Clash or something, what was the matter with me.

BTW NickB, 15-16 year old me would totally have had a big crush on 15 year old you with that set of bands!!!

Could never afford much music - became an expert at anticipating a good song within 1-2 seconds of it's playing on the radio.

Don't feel much nostalgia for those times beyond my moments by the radio, doing homework or somthing, listening to the college radio stationsc - I still have those few hundred cassettes with me, should I find myself in some odd music emergency or something. I played them so often that they became their own narratives, the false starts and cut-offs thoroughly integrated with the music. I'm always astonished whenever I hear the intro bit to New Order's "Regret" - that's not supposed to be there!

Yeah Trayce, I could have sold you my old Alarm records too. Where were you?!?

I was on the other side of the planet! ;_;

I still have a copy of "Declaration" on vinyl. Cringe.

yeah, taping radio was essential in the pre-mp3 era. i would sit through dross for ages listening to the evening session or john peel in the hopes of finding something cool to tape.

x-post to r baez

The Cure, Public Enemy, De La Soul, EPMD, PWEI, LL Cool J, NWA, The KLF, Happy Mondays, Awesome Dre & The Hardcore Committee

Max -

I'm American, so my own specific John Peel experiences all involved me staying up til 4AM on a Friday night listening to the BBC World Service, waiting for the one hour of Peel we got a week.

'And in the subways I can hear them whisper "Trayce has still got Declaration on vinyl"'

1991 - Ride, The Stone Roses, Pixies, Happy Mondays, The Charlatans, Slowdive, Lush.

1987
pink floyd, u2, zep, skynyrd (who i saw that year on their first post-crash tour)

pittsburgh amirite

'And in the subways I can hear them whisper "Trayce has still got Declaration on vinyl"'

*dies of laughter*

'98/'99
All the classic rock greats like led zeppelin, pink floyd, lynyrd skynyrd, the who, cream, queen and deep purple. At 15 or 16 I found my big favs in king crimson, jethro tull and yes. Laying on my bed listening to prog rock was a spiritual experience

^ p much same deal. It was all Grand Funk Railroad, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones for me... actually never got into The Beatles until I was at least 18. At that age I couldn't stand the fact that their music was so commercialized... 15yr old mentality, I know, but I basically considered them to be a bunch of overhyped sell-outs.

NYC mainstream radio, Yes, Pink Floyd, Bowie. The last probably being the most significant. Randomly found Ziggy Stardust in a collection of LPs donated to my school, then never looked back. Two years later I knew who the Shaggs were...

...now I have the Alarm stuck in my head, god dammit ;_;

these are the only CDs/cassettes I played on my own volition when I was 15 (2002-2003):

Default - The Fallout
Staind - Break The Cycle
Barenaked Ladies - Maroon
Fastball - All the Pain Money Can Buy, All the Pain Money Can Buy
Pearl Jam - Ten, Vs., Riot Act
P.O.D. Satellite
Nirvana - Nevermind
System of a Down - Toxicity, Steal This Album

for the most part my musical tastes were informed by Clear Channel alt-rock radio, though I'm pretty sure Loveline introduced me to a couple of these acts. I wasn't really into music in those days.

2001-2002 but i think that year was a lot of Rush and some corny nu-prog like Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree maybe. i had just gone through a 'classic rock' phase so i was listening to more old music than new. pretty sure my Radiohead phase started before i turned 16 too.

This would have been between Octobers 95-96. A crossover point from being a casual listener to a proper obsessive. We used to go to the local indie and buy up all their baragain-bin singles for 25-50p. Ended up with a whole load of twaddle, but I did also discover some great bands such as dEUS this way.

I'd "discovered" "alternative" and "indie" music about a year or so before, via Blur's 'Parklife' and Nirvana etc. My friends at school had taken on an extreme-rockist snobbery that disallowed nearly all forms of pop, dance and hiphop (I remember being called a "raver" once because I deigned to mention liking Cypress Hill). This was a shame because up to then I'd been an unabashed fan of most chart dance. The Prodigy and a few other things got a free pass for a while. 'Firestarter' definitely opened a few people's minds when it came out.

Most of what I listened to was grunge/britpop/punky fodder from around the time:

Radiohead - The Bends / Pablo Honey
Blur - The Great Escape
Green Day - Dookie
Offspring - Self Esteem
Faith No More - King For A Day
The Boo Radleys - Wake Up / Giant Steps
Nirvana - You weren't allowed in the gang unless you had all their albums
Space - Spiders
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie
Tripping Daisy - I Am An Elastic Firecracker
dEUS - Worst Case Scenario / In A Bar Under The Sea
Terrorvision - How To Make Friends And Influence People
Rage Against The Machine - RATM
Black Grape - It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KAQ8QVMQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

And that was about it.

For my 15th birthday (1995) I asked for and got the new albums by Terrorvision, the Foo Fighters and the Wildhearts. So that's where I was at the start of the year.

Back then I didn't live near a record shop and didn't have much money so my listening was largely composed of things I'd taped from the library and magazine cover tapes/CDs. Every month I'd buy whichever music magazine had a free tape/CD that month. They'd largely be full of Britpop, but I was just getting interested in electronic music, so occasionally it'd be a Mixmag or Muzik mix.

Things my friends liked and so did I: Ash, Blur, Portishead, the Prodigy, Leftfield, Soul Asylum, Radiohead, the Manics
Things my friends didn't like but I taped off a friend's cooler boyfriend: the Fall, Sparklehorse, Pearl Jam, RATM (uh)
Things I thought were my own little secret: Belly, the Breeders, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and various other bands I first heard listening to Mark Radcliffe's evening show

Later in the year I'd start listening to John Peel and obsessively writing down the names of tracks I liked, even though at that time I had no way of finding them. 15 was also the year I discovered Pavement; aged 16 I would get online and googling for bands similar to Pavement would open up a whole new world of "own little secrets", and a larger allowance (increased so I could join in in the communal clothes shopping trips my friends went on) would soon all be spent on music...

Wasn't into music at 15 BUT my folks had bought me a cd player so I had a good few U2 cd's,a springsteen cd tunnel of love i think it was (I had born in the usa on lp) some various greatest hits compilations of big bands like the stones,dire straits, I had a couple of bon jovi cds too i got as a gift.
I didn't really get into music til i was 18 and I heard Nirvana. More details here

dEUS - Worst Case Scenario / In A Bar Under The Sea

I discovered dEUS in the early days of being 16 (IaBuTS was the first album I ever had on CD) and they were my favourite band in the world for about two years after that.

I don't think I ever responded, but I was a huge fan of Howard Jones and Thompson Twins at the time, and I still listen to some of it. Thompson Twins' records have held up better than Jones' although "Hide & Seek" is still a classic. And Jones actually did a surprisingly good comeback album in 2005.

Hmmmm. Why did I decide that only college radio was worthwhile in 1980? (Of course I do understand. I think it had a lot to do with needing a soundtrack for my adolescent outcast identity.) Most of this sounds pretty good, at the very least, but it's not what I was listening to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3k6dnxCOUo

(And other reasons, I'm sure.)

i think about this a lot, as i was 15 in 1982, and that seems like THE pivotal year in terms of my cultural development. it's when i really started to get into music in an active way, rather than just passively absorbing and reacting to the stuff that happened around me. some of my favorite albums circa 1982:

Cheap Trick - One On One
Blue Oyster Cult - Fire of Unknown Origin and Some Enchanted Evening
Prince - 1999
The B-52's - The B-52's
Devo - Freedom of Choice and New Traditionalists
The Buggles - The Age of Plastic (came late to several of these)
Rush - Moving Pictures and Permanent Waves
Adam Ant - Friend or Foe
The Cars - The Cars (side one of Shake It Up was cool too)
AC/DC - Back In Black and Dirty Deeds
Blondie - Parallel Lines (and some of the later stuff, too)
The Police - Ghost In the Machine
Pink Floyd - The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon
The Rolling Stones - Tattoo You (along w Hot Rocks, a childhood staple)
Roxy Music - Avalon
The Go-Go's - We Got the Beat
The Clash - Combat Rock
Billy Joel - Glass Houses
Talking Heads - 77 (a gift from my dad, inaccessible aside from the hit, but kind of fascinating)
Laurie Anderson - Big Science (similar to the talking heads - i didn't really "get it", but kept listening anyway)
The J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
Men at Work - Business As Usual
Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

it will be noted that i wasn't digging terribly deep, i seem only to have liked music by white guys, and there's a lot of fairly embarrassing crap in that list. still, it all meant a great deal to me at the time. was getting tired of earlier favorites like KISS, my parents' beatles albums, abba's greatest hits and the star wars soundtrack.

a year or so later, my tastes would be upended by murmur, the violent femmes' debut, boys don't cry, speaking in tongues, peter gabriel, king crimson, and xtc

It was 2000-2001 when I was 15. This are the albums I remember buying and listening to the most those months... (several of these are actually 1998-1999 but I was catching up):

Amon Tobin - Supermodified
Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children
Bows - Blush
DNTEL - Life Is Full Of Possibilities
Four Tet - Pause
Godspeed You Black Emperor! - f#a# infinity
Sigur Ros - Aegetis Byrjun
Sparklehorse - Good Morning Spider / It's A Wonderful Life
Modest Mouse - This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About / The Lonesome Crowded West / The Moon & Antarctica
Múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Okay
Radiohead - Kid A
A Silver Mt. Zion - He Has Left Us Alone / Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward

Sort of typical... I remember my classmates and friends at the time listened to Manu Chao, Mogwai, Moonspell, Lostprophets, Incubus and Depeche Mode. There were several more, of course but those are the ones I remember.

Ah yes, I forgot Cat Power! I was a huge fan of her and Modest Mouse at the time. I very rarely listen to them anymore tho.

As for older stuff I think the Pixies and the Breeders consumed most of my listening iirc.

95-96. Blur, the Boo Radleys, Bis, the whole Britpop brigade, dEUS, Cypress Hill, lots of grunge, not of Metallica. Nothing mindblowing tbh

I was born in June 1979, so in 1994 and 1995 I was listening to mostly to electronic and dance music: trance, techno, jungle, rave, etc. Some of my favourite tracks from the were:

The Prodigy - Break & Enter
Westbam - Wizards of the Sonic
Marusha - Raveland
Paperclip People - Throw
Love Inc. - R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Lemon Interrupt (aka Underworld) - Dirty (the instrumental version with the Akira sample, not the later vocal version called "Dirty Epic")
Moby - Everytime You Touch Me
M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy - Automatic Lover
Banco de Gaia - Kincajou
Hardsequencer - Plastic Fantastic
ULTRA-SONIC - Check Your Head
M-People - Moving on Up
Stakka Bo - Living It Up
Shy FX & UK Apache - Original Nuttah
Subnation - Scottie
DJ Krome & Mr. Time - Ganja Man
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain
Warren G. - Regulators
Michelle Gayle - Sweetness (LTJ Bukem Remix)
Toni Braxton - Another Sad Love Song
Erasure - Saturday Night

"some of my favourite tracks from that era were"

was a pretty hardcore music fan from a young age... I was raised in a very musical household, with a lot of Laurel Canyon folk, psych, bluegrass, and 70s Jesus music always playing, got heavily into 60s and 70s soul on my own at age 8 for some reason, and then metal and stoner rock at age 11 - as my worldview got a little darker (as it can when you enter middle school).

by age 15 - 1995 - I'd followed metal back into psychedelia and fell deeply in love with the Grateful Dead - who I realized pretty quickly were much more about shows than albums, and collected a lot of their live tapes.

things really opened up for me musically around that time - something about the whole nomadic philosophy around the Dead, their extended jams and use of drums and space,(plus my getting into head drugs) introduced me to beats/groove and abstraction, and I soon got obsessed with Sun Ra, hip hop, dancehall, and then raves - esp jungle/dnb - which, next to the Dead, was probably the other great musical love of my life

the whole crossover alternative thing happening though (well, the post-Nirvana stuff, with some exceptions) - and the wave of pop-punk and ska that followed - was totally beyond the pale for me, really rang false

it was 91 and i was listening to the geto boys, epmd, misfits, dead kennedys, sonic youth, jfa, gang starr, black flag, public enemy, fugazi

1989 - mostly Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Depeche Mode, Cure, Jesus & Mary Chain, Sisters of Mercy - plus assorted dance/hip hop hits like Bomb the Bass, S'Express, De La Soul, etc.

1977. Punk rock year-zero fundamentalism, informed by taping Peel every night I possibly could. Pistols, Clash, Ramones, Pere Ubu import singles, Peel sessions from The Slits / Banshees / Generation X / XTC / Adverts. Loads of singles, very few albums.

It was 1979 and I listened to everything because it was all great.

1989/90 - a steady diet of Disintegration and Nothing's Shocking

late 80s. i was taping a bunch of pop tunes from the radio and basically had no clue about other stuff beyond the mainstream realm. i started getting into post punk, goth and underground music at 16/17.

1993-4. Mainly thrash and death metal, a little bit of grunge and industrial. About a year off getting into electronic music via NIN and the Prodigy.

whoa i am way younger than everybody responding to this question

Lots of people saying dEUS. It's a wonder they didn't become the biggest band in the whole world at some point.

oh no just me and seandalai

Faith No More
Dag Nasty
Ozzy Osbourne
Metallica
Led Zeppelin
Jimi Hendrix
Pink Floyd
Dead Kennedys
Angry Samoans
Lords of Acid
Blues Traveller
Black Crowes
Minutemen
Sinead O'Connor
The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience
Smokin Dave and the Premo Dopes
Jane's Addiction
The Pixies

Oh I forgot Bonnie Raitt and k.d. lang

Peter Gabriel
The Beatles
Peter Murphy
Blue Aeroplanes
Prince
The Cure
Sinead O'Connor

I also forgot the Butthole Surfers

I also forgot Eazy E!!! Fuck.
D.O.C.
Public Enemy
N.W.A.

At age 15 I had banished my love of Michael Jackson and Prince and Madonna etc to some kind of purgatory of soft-rock pre-consciousness, what they call "the full rockism"

Phish
Jethro Tull
The Toasters
The Specials
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61DEN0W6EFL._SL500_AA300_.gif
Janis Joplin
Jimi Hendrix
Blues Traveller
Dead Kennedys
Mudhoney
Operation Ivy
Beastie Boys
Jane's Addiction

Bad Religion

Death
The Grateful Dead
Minor Threat

Oh man I also forgot about the amount of time I spent listening to Fishbone.

Was anybody listening to this at 15?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RajyzvqVZiM

in 1980, The Jam, Stranglers, Tom Robinson Band, Beatles and a bit of disco.

If there was the internet when I was 15 (there wasn't, it was early '90s) my listening tastes would have been completely different. I was a slave to the radio, specifically KISS FM, London. The specialist shows, House, Techno, Soul & R&B, Jazz ... pencil and pad in hand scribbling down songs so that I could follow up with purchases in Soho record shops..

Odd thinking that I would hear something once and then completely forget what it sounded like until I eventually tracked it down physically.

Will have to look for that xpost Club Ska '67--unseasonably hot springtime, and I crave ska not reggae (weather makin me antsy) This is what I was listening to at 15
http://images.wikia.com/beatles/images/4/4d/Beatles_65_Album_Cover.jpg

also

http://images2.fanpop.com/image/polls/344000/344484_1261331588711_full.jpg

1990, kind of a jumble from what I recall:

Pixies, RHCP, Rush, Pat Metheny Group, Yes, Steely Dan, Public Enemy, R.E.M., Joy Division, Frank Zappa

The Animals, Animal Tracks--a military dependent buddy brought this from UK, better cover than US, and some diff tracks, don't remember which was a better selection, if either--what the hell, it was the Animals!
http://www.sentimento.pl/images/AnimTr1.jpg

1982...tie between MDC, Echo & The Bunnymen and Afrika Bambaata. yes, a lot of NDW too.

...forgot an "a"

fuck you're all so cool.

me @ 15 = 1983

madness - various
duck rock - malcolm mclaren
thomas dolby - golden age of wireless
david bowie - lodger/scary monsters/lets dance

ben folds five
dave matthews band
dream theater

1998
also getting into radiohead

for some reason no one liked to listen to music with me

i think you know the reason all too well mad god.

That year it would have been

Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Gimme Back My Bullets"
Steve Miller, "Fly Like an Eagle"
Rolling Stones, "Black and Blue"
Boz Scaggs, "Silk Degrees"

and some older stuff. And the radio.

Brad C, I am one album younger than you. At 15 I was listening to

Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Street Survivors"
Steve Miller, "Book of Dreams"
Rolling Stones, "Some Girls"
Boz Scaggs, "Down Two, Then Left"

Also older stuff and the radio.

1985- Muncie, Indiana
Led Zeppelin
Rush
The Police
Jimi Hendrix
Iron Maiden
The Who
The Scorpions
Yes
Triumph
Ozzy/Sabbath
Prince (It was 1985, everybody listened to Prince. We had this little dude at my highschool that used to come to school dressed like him, white flowing shirt and weird boots with heels.)

Around that time I probably heard The Clash, Violent Femmes and Black Flag around there for the first time or so. I know Metallica was '86 as I heard them right before seeing them open for Ozzy. I know I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn in 86 and I probably heard him for the first time in 85.

I know I was also a die-hard WFBQ (Q-95) listener, where Bob & Tom started and still are to this day. It wasn't "classic rock" quite yet, it was just rock. So all that Bob Seger and Mellancamp was pretty much heard all the time too.

Love, The Doors, The Animals, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Dean Martin, Piaf, Connie Francis and other older music

The Pogues
The Cure
REM
The Rievers
Fairground Attraction
Kate Bush (Experiment IV)
Dr Calculus (Designer Beatnik)

in '97 some of my favorite recent records were by Ben Folds Five, Skeleton Key, Timbaland & Magoo, the Geraldine Fibbers and Spiritualized, while I was delving into the back catalogs of Elvis Costello, A Tribe Called Quest, Fugazi, the Velvet Underground, etc.

15 was cool cause that was the year i re-figured out that mainstream rap wasn't evil

Prince, Rolling Stones, Billy Joel

in '97 it was impossible to ignore how evil it was, or to resist it (xpost)

just saying, bumping the blueprint sure beat the hell out of blackalicious

Electric Light Orchestra, Wendy/Walter Carlos, AM radio, the STAR WARS soundtrack, very early MTV, smattering of punk rock with my reprobate friends.

oh i know, i was just thinking of my own milder grappling with mainstream/non-mainstream rap at 15

I don't think I even knew what "underground rap" was until freshman year of college.

yeah as a teenager for me it was mostly puffy vs. not-puffy, nothing more obscure than black star

I don't think I even knew what "underground rap" was until freshman year of college.

― suidavyvan eht nioj (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, April 30, 2012 8:26 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel this way about indie rock

j5, dilated, and pre-fergie BEPs used to get a small amount regular radio play here tho circa 98-02. you didn't have to dig that deep to find that stuff. blackalicious were like one level down the corny west coast underground rap pyramid.

Zeppelin, Beatles, Iron Butterfly, Hendrix, Kraftwerk.
And (as a concession to the then present-day) the hippest sounds that '82-83 AM radio had to offer ("Electric Avenue", "Da Da Da", "1999" and "I Ran" in particular.)

In Florida in the 90s we had Rap City on BET. Anything subterranean was early No Limit, Suave House and Jam Pony cassette tapes. I saw Dr. Octagon on 120 Minutes, I guess.

we had BET but it shared a channel with the CHANNEL GUIDE CHANNEL FFS until like '02 and cut out to tell you what was on nbc and espn right when you heard "rap titty...rap titty"

mostly the original versions of the motown songs performed on the early seasons of american idol, which, you know, were probably better than the stuff i've listened to since officially getting into music

1993/4
Public Image Ltd, Pink Floyd, Wire, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Stooges, Joy Division, Ramones, Residents, Rolling Stones, Negativland

About 2/3 of what I listened to was culled from the pages of the Trouser Press Record Guide. (Now it's only about half.)

luckily i got full-time BET in time to see killer mike rap about the stickers

I don't think I even knew what "underground rap" was until freshman year of college.

i don't think i knew what it was until they invented it, when i was about 25

Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Pavement and Massive Attack when I was 13. Does that give me cool points or does it reduces them?

i think you know the answer to that question

At 12, Throwing Muses and Pixies, courtesy of an older cousin deeply into 4AD (this was mid-90s Norway). Christmas Eve, 1996, 10pm, "Debaser". Fuck me, what an eye-opener that was.

Then alt-rock extravaganza all through my teenge years. Pumpkins, Jane's, assorted grunge (stuck to first generation, mostly, thank god), Weezer etc.

I definitely think I was cooler than most people my age at the time who were listening to Spice Girls, Guns N Roses and Metallica but judging by ILM's standards I don't know.

Pavement's pretty cool.. I didn't get them until way later.

Fifteen for me is 1994, so anything that was on the pop stations of that time, mostly embarrassing stuff like Ace of Base, The Cranberries, Enigma (LOL), U2, REM, etc.

I turned fifteen in 92. Things I remember listening to include:

Nirvana
Public Enemy
Ned's Atomic Dusbin (God Fodder was the first CD I ever bought.)
Beastie Boys
Ice-T - O.G.
Black Sheep
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Lemonheads
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
INXS
U2 - Achtung Baby

Obviously not exceptionally cool or anything, but I still like most of this stuff.

I think it was the next year that I started getting into indie rock, etc.

1983 - Mill Valley, CA

The Smiths, The English Beat, Simple Minds, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure, Adam Ant

I had switched over from KRQR, an AOR format like the ones I had grown up in the Sierras to KQAK, 'The Quake' 'rock of the 80's' format, essentially leaving behind 60's and 70's classic rock for post-punk and new wave, to some extent impelled by MTV and by the New Wave girls in high school who I lusted after. A friend of mine came back from England w/The Smiths first album which he made a cassette of for me just before I left that summer to tour around Britain on a BritRail pass. That album seemed more moving than any of the pop we were listening to and even more dangerous than any of the gothy poses out there.

1998/1999 - by this point I thought I was really too cool for school - Air, Bad Religion, Belle & Sebastian, Beck, Daft Punk, Fugazi, Imperial Teen, Komeda, Lush, Luna, Moby, Quasi, Radiohead, Sebadoh, Stereolab, Sunny Day Real Estate, Tool, Weezer, Yo La Tengo

Turned 15 in july 1985. That was the combustion year for me-- I didn't stop liking synth pop (saw Howard Jones at the St. Paul Civic Center touring Dream Into Action!) but SST stuff and Sire Records art-haircut stuff teamed up to overhaul my world. Plus Robyn Hitchcock and Foetus. The influence of Greg at Rockhead Records & Tapes on Wabasha in downtown St. Paul (who looked exactly like John Waite) is all over my 1985 shift.

It was also the year I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, the year I started reading indie comix and the first time a girl I liked liked me back (I blew the chance ;_;). So all in all, super pivotal on every level. I think this would have roughly been my top 10:

Husker Du - New Day Rising
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun
Black Flag - My War
New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies
Foetus - Hole
The Fall - Wonderful And Frightening World Of
Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth
Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine
Robyn Hitchcock - Fegmania

It's safe to say that every single person on this thread was a cooler 15-year-old than I was, lol.

the best concert i saw when i was 15 was THE HORDE FESTIVAL, but at least it was the semi-cool year that they had Neil Young, Spiritualized, Soul Coughing, Morphine, Primus, Beck, etc.

I just realized that the first show I ever saw was when I was fifteen -- Helmet / Faith No More at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC.

Apparently I liked New Order (see shirt), Depeche Mode (see wall), and The Replacements (see below) I liked lots of other stuff too, but these pictures were the funnier than a list of bands I liked.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4030/4708560877_a83a99844d.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7169/6718436027_a8c0ffb9ee.jpg

1990 btw

actually i might have been aaaaalmost 16 there -- it was the summer before i turned 16, so 1991

I am in my 1985 yearbook with a New Order shirt and porcupine hair

that was my attic bedroom. i loved it so much! it was like having an apartment all to myself. i had a record player, a cassette player, a radio, tons of magazines, scissors, tape, and sometimes my friends would come over and write all over the walls. good times. some of the writing is still there.

lol, jon lewis' list = exactly what i was listening to in 1985, when i was 18. plus the butthole surfers, big black, homestead's speed trials comp, replacements, gun club, cramps, etc. definitely wasn't into that kind of stuff when i was 15, though. at 15, i was much closer to musicfanatic (though 12 years prior).

lol <3 those lechera pix

I wrote all over my damn bedroom walls too, in sharpie. Drew the bird from the cover of Meat Puppets' Out My Way.

hoping someone will step in here and say "All I did when I was fifteen was listen to Rene & Angela records."

i had small discreet shrine to marty willson-piper near my vanity mirror -- what do i win?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3549/3487401534_066bd048d8.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wDkOwxqKmsM/SN5nB2R0bAI/AAAAAAAABw4/Izv49biRb1c/s400/Byrds+-+Mr+Tambourine+Man+pic+sleeve.jpg

dow, if you were 15 when the above hits were new, then I must relinquish to you my sobriquet as "ilx's oldest known non-lurker". I'd count that as a huge relief.

XTC
Green (the Chicago pop-punk-soul band, not the Scritti Politti singer)
James Brown
the Replacements
Husker Du
Elvis Costello
Midnight Oil
Prince
the Who
Pink Floyd

Stereotypes of a high school sophomore misunderstood, but it's still all good:

Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
Selby Tigers - Year of the Tigers
Pavement - Brighten The Corners
Radiohead - OK Computer
Pixies - Doolittle
X - Under The Big Black Sun
Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Bjork - Homogenic
Cibo Mato - Viva! La Woman
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation...
Tricky - Pre-Millenium Tension
Portishead - Portishead
Atari Teenage Riot - Burn, Berlin, Burn

When I was 14/15, my friends and I would go to the record shop nearly every day and buy up cut-out cassette singles for 25p each. Most of them were awful, but I discovered dEUS through that, and a couple of other neat things.

It's safe to say that every single person on this thread was a cooler 15-year-old than I was, lol.

No worries, I was listening to Ace of Base and Enigma too. And I still like them today.

hahaha when I was 18, I made a bunch of my friends lie on the floor of my parents' darkened family room and meditate while blasting the first Enigma album

I don't know what is more amazing, the fact that I suggested this or the fact that THEY DID IT

15 was also just a year or two before everything exploded for me, in terms of music. Having a car and having friends who brought back IT'LL END IN TEARS from the import bins, after a steady diet of LA punk and rock, was a revelation. Then there was all those whack jobs I met when I went off to college.

I do think that 15was the year that 91X, the San Diego rock station (you'd call it classic rock now) went from their old format to new wave/college ratio/alternative before it was alternative. I kept listening, but mostly when the batteries in the Walkman died.

Turned 15 in March 1996, was mostly listening to NME-friendly dance music (Underworld, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Leftfield), Epitaph Records skatepunk (NoFX, Bad Religion, Pennywise, Rancid) and the Cardiacs. Also still liked some of the britpop/indie I'd been into earlier (I got Suede's Coming Up that year). Wish I still had my homework planner covered in band logos...

It's safe to say that every single person on this thread was a cooler 15-year-old than I was, lol.

Well, 15/16 was arguably my apex of cool a music listener, but my nadir of cool as a socially functional human being.

it's funny, but i don't think it really occurred to me that music could be "cool", that it could have social and fashion significance, until i was 16 or 17. i mean, i was peripherally aware that others viewed music as cool or uncool, but didn't really get where they were coming from, figured that this sort of judgement was basically the same as simply liking billy joel or not.

i didn't start listening to stuff that i personally thought of as cooler than other music until i was 18 or so. i guess that's the year i became a snob, went along w getting seriously into the proto-indie "underground rock" that jon lewis mentioned above. it's taken me along time to shake the teenage idea that some sounds, audiences, aesthetics and ways of listening are better than others by virtue of their coolness. still rooting out traces (e.g., contempt for bro-rock a la puddle of mudd, jam bands, etc)

Beyond kneejerk class/status etc, coolness can be a good thing, if it involves perspective, not just mindlessly melding w the artiste's self-seriousness etc--not that we don't all need someone we can feed on, comfort-wise for inst

yeah, i'm cool w all that. it's the kneejerk/class status thing i was talking about. got really sucked into that for a while. honestly, i think it's in my nature to divide up the world that way, but i'm trying to me a bit more open-minded these days.

The Fall, the Slits, the Clash, Wire, the Banshees and the Buzzcocks were biggies, as was anything on Rough Trade. Two-Tone. Burgeoning taste in reggae, which was quite tough to find in suburban America, but Linton Kwesi Johnson was a big fave. At 15 or 16, I remember my mother asking what I wanted for Christmas, and I gave her a list of records - from which she bought Wire's "Pink Flag," the Fall's "Early Fall" and the Pop Group's "How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?" albums. I still smile thinking about it, and the pain of waiting to play these on the stereo, which couldn't be done until my grandparents had left! Thanks, mom. Beyond that, nothing too embarrassing, remarkably, though I quite liked a lot of things that are forgotten / dismissed today - the Yachts' "Box 202," Chelsea's "Urban Kids," Henry Badowski's "Baby Sign Here With Me" and many others . . . as well as stuff like the debut Lene Lovich album, which is still pretty fine, but probably too silly to be revived in any way nowadays.

Ages 13 through 16 or so were lonely and odd . . . you can't imagine how much crap you'd get just walking down the street being into "punk rock" at this time, and I didn't even look or dress in punk-style! (I still love that the dismissive remark I'd always get from jocks riding by in a care was always "Devo sucks!" - apparently the sole weirdo-music frame of reference amongst Neanderthals.) In fact, pre-internet suburbia at that time offered few ways to learn much about punk at all - there weren't really any books about it when I got into music, and imported copies of the NME or whatever cost as much as a 7", so guess what I'd buy! Consequently, the idea I had of punk - shared by one other guy, and later two "much older" guys (one year older) - was largely self-invented, and involved things like making attaching resistors and funny looking but tiny electrical parts from Radio Shack to odd parts of our clothes, doing any drug we could find at any time and quite a lot of what today would be considered much more dada or situationist than recognizably punk. By the time I was a senior in high school, "new wave" had become just mainstream enough so that it appealed to the officially "cool" kids, and quite suddenly I was very popular and even looked up to by those who avoided me like the plague just two years earlier.

The early days of punk were great - so many concepts that are common today just didn't exist then - the idea of anything "retro," for instance. Records that weren't big sellers stayed in print for about 18 months and then you never saw them again. A lot of crucial stuff, like the Velvet Underground, was unknown to young music fans with good taste, because their best records had been out of print forever. Being into punk was a heavy choice; more or less one's musical choice was either REO Speedwagon, Styx, Kansas and Foreigner and the dregs of disco or stuff that was *genuinely* upsetting to people. I remember, around 1982, that there were suddenly records that offered kind of a middle path - you didn't have to make that crucial decision to avoid Eddie Money in favor of things that would get you beat up . . . you could listen to Soft Cell or the English Beat or something like that instead.

later two "much older" guys (one year older)

That should read ". . . later two "much older" girls (both one year older) . . . "

Reggae was extremely tough to find a long time ago, a crime considering how some American kids followed the British press! I used to like to read articles about reggae.

New wave and r & b.

Don't remember xpost "retro" til maybe late-ish 70s, a fashion thing, re bomber jackets etc--xgau defined it as "nostalgia with a will to power." When was it first applied to music? Anyway, although that was when I finally bought The Velvet Underground & Nico and The Who Sings My Generation--a punk deed, in my mind--after recently buying Nuggets, and in the wake of Patti Smith x Lenny Kaye distilling 60s into their own minimalist art-punk; ditto New York Dolls, folding "Pills," "Stranded In The Jungle" and "Don't You Start Me Talkin'" with their glam-punk originals. I bought new copies of those VU and Who LPs, but yeah, lots of other stuff now taken for granted was hard as hell to find until CDs took off. Sorry bout the boomer bait, but can't resist one more (it wasn't all Anglophilia)
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