Seems like most indie-rock bands have extraordinary record collections, ranging from dollar-bin commons to plastic-bag rarities. Supposedly Kurt Cobain was a major wax hound, and when Brett Milano came out with his VINYL book (profiling record collectors), quite a few of those people played in alt-rock bands. Rappers seem to have a thirst for other people's music as well (and not just to sample, either - I'm thinking of ?uestlove from the Roots). And it seemed like every arena-rock band of the 70's, both large and small, had a member who was an INSANE crate-digger (Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, the J. Geils Band's Peter Wolf, Brownsville Station's Cub Koda).
But on the other hand...there's some musicians who don't listen to outside music for fear of being influenced (I remember reading an Ian Anderson quote to that effect), or they're just content to settle for what's on the radio. (I remember once Rolling Stone asked Jon Bon Jovi to list his Top 10 fave records of the year...his response was to go up and down the Billboard chart of that week and add snarky little comments about what he liked and didn't like...okay, clever, but that fact that he had to consult Billboard was kinda lame. Then again, he once lashed out at Musician magazine for featuring the Replacements on the cover because he'd never heard of 'em...so he's obviously no musicologist.)
― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 26 August 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)