What's in your blood?

and coincidentally....

"Canciones De Mi Padre", Linda Ronstandt goes mariachi.

when i was a wee kid my dad had a reel-to-reel and would record "Top of the Pops" straight off the tv then edit the results into mix tapes. the radio was - and is - always on.

they disappeared to parties clutching geno washington records.

recording, reorganising, dancing : their fault? don't listen to the radio, but i need my "always on" music.

I think I ended up considering music with vocals to be music with a 'point' to it, approaching everything as a singer rather than a listener - that's what's really in my blood, more than anything else, and if I don't feel like I'm somehow participating (which can include active/critical listening, or dancing) in a piece of music I probably won't like it.

ha!

in other words, I guess my dad got me into dad-rock?

Metallica - Master Of Puppets
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Seam - The Problem With Me

And Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I wish I could say my Dad was into Neu!, Parliament, and Delia Derbyshire, but I'd be lying.

Of course there are many others. Also, before I started listening to music on my own my parents would often play the Beach Boys, the Turtles, The Beatles, Madonna, and alot of those 80's blockbuster soundtracks: Top Gun, Footloose, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Dirty Dancing, etc. My dad also made mixtapes for our frequent car-trips accross Europe (he was in the US Army, stationed overseas). I also remember having the Batman soundtrack by Prince and the Ninja Turtles soundtrack. So basically, oldies and 80's soundtracks define my childhood.

Elvis' "His Latest Flame" on one of my parents' cassettes wormed its way in when I was 5, mainly because I thought he was singing "Anne-Marie's the name of his latest flame" (rather than "and Marie's the name ...") and my best friend at infant school was called Anne-Marie. Later I'd discover that, being Johnny Marr's favourite, that particular song by the old arch enemy of the puritan socialists was reanimated in the mid-80s rerun of the puritan socialist vs rock culture debate (the ethos of "Panic" = the ethos of the original Elvis hataz, nothing more, nothing less), so "His Latest Flame" hits buttons for me that most other Presley songs never can. Weird as hell, but there is a logic to it, somewhere.

Led Zeppelin IV / Yes - Drama / Duran Duran - s/t

Listening to the radio as a kid got me into hip-hop and r&b i.e. Snoop Dogg, Salt n' Pepa, etc., which I renounced for years when my friends introduced to Nirvana and Metallica.

Fad Gadget
Minor threat
The whole neo-occult english gang (C93,Death in June,Coil,PTV,etc.)
San Francisco old rave community (Jeno,Garth,Thomas,DJ Spun)
Cabaret Voltaire
Fugazi (see minor threat)
NO DISCO
Mute & Warp
Sisters of Mercy
Duran Duran
Japan
Velvet Underground
Mudhoney
My Bloody Valentine
Jungle Brothers (Straight Out the Jungle)
Ministry (Twitch)
African Head Charge(Songs of Praise)
Beastie Boys
NWA for Straight Outta Compton
!!!Clock DVA for Thirst
Stooges

My mom listened to LOTS of Reba McEntire and other pop country when I was in gradeschool, and as a result I have a fondness for songs about lonely women, truck drivers and the south as an abtract concept.

Sadly, my parents taste went down the tubes in the 70s after they divorced. My mum got heavily into Rod Stewart (and not the good stuff, I still remember the embarrasment of buying her "Blondes have More Fun" for Xmas) and my Dad got into 70s soft rock, at a party at his house I stuck on one of his old Dave Brubeck albums and he took it off and out on "Hotel California"

The one artist I remember my parents playing the most was Bob Marley. They'd been to Jamaica several times and had other reggae music, but it was mostly all about Bob. Then when I saw Nirvana on MTV at age 7 and told my father I was interested he was very encouraging. So those were the two major touchstones of my youth, and even though I hardly ever listen to them now Legend meets In Utero is as succinct a definition of my taste as any.

Erm... I don't see the connection between those and the things I listen to now, personally.

That said when I downloaded Annie's Song for Popular I got a massive primal memory jolt off it, I would have been 2 or 3, I was really stricken when I listened to it, trying to get at some incredibly fuzzy, happy memory (heh John Denver = my Boards of Canada!)

Other than that, I have been actively searching for music myself, even from I started listening to Radio Lux at age 12.

Funny thing is; in those days if you wanted to find Radio 1 and listen to the Top 40 IN STEREO you had to find the Radio 2 frequency!

my older sister went through a punk/new-wave phase that lasted, oh, one year ... but in that time, i was exposed to david bowie, devo, talking heads, gary numan, a flock of seagulls, and i never looked back.

owing to where i grew up, there was lots of philly soul on the radio. i still have a lot of fondness for that stuff, too.

mom=barbara streisand, elvis (all stages), eddie rabbit
dad=glenn miller
grandma=slim whitman, jim nabors, lawrence welk
grandpa=nothing

no wonder i didnt care much for music when i was a kid.

i very vaguely remember the flap about the sex pistols from when i was a kid -- actually, it was sid vicious after the pistols broke up, he had shacked up with (and allegedly offed) nancy spungeon, and was causing all sorts of mayhem in NYC before offing himself and all of it was on the NYC news. my mom was always like, "what an awful man!"

i also remember seeing alice cooper on the muppet show and (well, it's the holidays) the TV special with david bowie and bing crosby from whence "the little drummer boy/peace on earth" thing came. both times, my mother was like, "what a bunch of freaks!"

my mother's taste in music was awful, needless to say. maternal grandmother liked engelbert humperdinck and tom jones(!) all the cool music-loving was on dad's side of the family (paternal granny liked classical -- especially chopin, tchaikovsky, and prokofiev -- and BRITISH MUSIC HALL (wtf? she was POLISH not BRITISH!))

Songs your parents played

What kind of music are/were your parents into?

Music your parents listened to: was it any good?

early: lots of Elvis and popular country hits: Lorreta Lynn, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Dolly Parton

1971-74 (1st grade-4th grade): Janis Joplin, more Elvis, country gospel, Mahalia Jackson, Partridge Family (I thought "I Think I Love You" was the coolest song ever), The Jackson 5. Peter, Paul and Mary. This was stuff my parents listened to.

Then in 1975-6 (5th grade, 6th grade) (and shortly after) a friend gave my mom some albums she never listened to but I did:
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
Linda Ronstadt: Hasten Down the Wind
The Turtles (I forget the title of the album)
Elton John Greatest Hits (I)
John Denver greatest hits
Frank Zappa and the Mothers:Just Another Band from LA
Eric Clapton: Slowhand
Alice Cooper: Goes to Hell
Alice Cooper: Killer

singles:
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport
Cherish
Alone Again, Naturally
Convoy
Amos Moses
Popcorn
The Hustle

In 1976-78 (7th and 8th grade) I started buying my own stuf (Kiss, Queen, Foreigner, Led Zeppelin, An Evening With John Denver, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, more Alice Cooper, Elton John Greatest Hits II). But the early stuff warped me.

Then high school was 1979-80 and well you know that story...punk-ola and new wave city.

It all stuck with me.

(my parents were lapsed hippies)

Various points from age 13 to now:
Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik'
Blur 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'
Various 'Let Them Eat Jellybeans'
Husker Du 'Zen Arcade'
Shellac 'At Action Park'
Big Black 'Songs About Fucking'
Jeff Mills 'Waveform Transmissions 3'

The cheesier end of glam rock (Mud, Sweet, Gary Glitter) still does it to me, bringing back memories of TOTP in it's heyday with it's audience full of people dancing badly with even worse haircuts and trousers. "Tiger Feet" is pretty seminal in my own personal A la Recherce Du Temps Perdu

And "Excerpt From a Teenage Opera" by Keith West (aka "Grocer Jack") almost brings a tear to my eye as, to me, it reeks of childhood.

I was pretty aware of what was popular from watching videos and talking about songs at school. I first started listening to the radio pretty closely in '84-85 some time (when I was 10).

My father was a big Elvis and Everly Brothers fan, while my mother was a big Beatles fan, which shows the age gap between them. Being born in 1969 I had music playing all the time during my formative years and a lot of it has stayed with me. My father was forced to get rid of all his records in the mid 70s so taped the bits he liked, leaving huge swathes of music unheard by me for many years. During my teens I would find the occasional compilation tape he'd compiled from around 1972 and the music was so utterly enriched with memories of growing up that it would invariably make me burst into tears.

So, LPs that I grew up with that still mean a lot to me, in that around the age of 20 I had to go and buy them again.

"Abbey Road" (played it into work last week, had to spend ten minutes in the loo composing myself afterwards)
"One year" - Colin Blunstone
"Can't help falling in love" - Andy Williams
"A nod's as good as a wink..." - Faces
"Tommy" - The Who
"Every picture tells a story" - Rod Stewart
"Tapestry" - Carole King

(The odd thing is that my parents only ever played one side of each of the latter two albums, so half of the songs were completely new to me!)

As to records that I discovered myself that 'made me what I am', that would take far too long, but quick mentions for "Dazzle ships", "Say what you mean, mean what you say", "Isn't anything" and "Temple Cloud" for all changing my life.

Oh crikey yes! EFATO for me is saturday mornings in bed, aged about 7 or 8, listening to the Ed Stewart show. (Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack....). I bought the Marc Bolan box set at the weekend and I hadn't realised quite how much T-Rex are part of my DNA. Hot Love was in the charts the first time I remember consciously sitting down to watch TOTP (Feb 71?) - I think poor old Bolan is in part responsible for my lifetime addiction to music. Listening to Hot Love yesterday I (think) I can see how T-Rex hooked my 9 yr old self with their cosmic rock/abilly pop-ness. No other record *moves* like Hot Love - *swaggers* really. That little bit of arrogance and certainty which seemed to be missing in the scree and scrawl of elder sisters' boyfriends' Led Zep albums grabbed me and slapped me round the head like punk would 5 yrs later.

Also engraved on my heart since the early 70s - Israelites/Double Barrel/10538 Overture/Skywriting/Tears Of A Clown.....and millions more. Great times!

Me too, thinking about this last night I suddenly remembered "Sparky The Magic Piano"

Recapping.... my first taste of music was Creedence in the Australian summer of 1972 and I came to appreciate the other delights in the charts at the time. I grew up in a household that did not have a music system other than the AM radio. Mum liked Tom Jones & Engleburthumydink (spelling?) and Dad didn't care. I had a cassette machine that I would record from AM radio. I felt like a refugee with no "musical" home to go to. The remarkes about the music I listened to were derogatory.
I am 47 now with 3 kids (all learning music), the eldest 13, doing pianno and just this year played his graduation piece at the opera house in Sydney. One thing is that I can't stand some forms of music such as Techno & Rap but I have actually come to like some of what my kids are listening to. Apolo 440, moby, etc. We actually all agree that the best radio station to listen to is 2 JJJ in Sydney.
My son is learning rock guitar at his school (using my old electric) and we jam.

then

Also..

Singer/songwriters such as Cat Stevens, Don McLean and Paul McCartney's solo stuff was fed to me from the earliest age.

Worse still, my soft spot for Dan Fogleberg was all my own doing.

Which is probably just saw well - can you imagine if my heart had to try to beat to the rhythm of Pachuco Cadaver or The Buggy Boogie Woogie?! Far better to stick with dumdum: dumdum / dumdum: dum dum / dumdum: dumdum / dumdum: dumdum....