Sob's music journey revisit

Newsboys and SCC were my parents’ CDs that I listened to a lot as a kid. There's a particular memory I have of a home video in 2000 dancing with my sister to Steven’s “Diving In” and my youngest sister could barely walk yet. I remained a big fan of Newsboys for many years, getting several of their later CDs as my own and saw them live twice. Peter Furler, the og lead singer, doing a drum battle with the drummer who was lifted up on a platform and played a solo while spinning on a sideways rotating platform was one of the coolest things I had ever seen at 13. Plus One was the Christian answer to N’Sync and I had this one on cassette. Probably the first album I owned that wasn’t kid music. Years later when I was a camp counselor we created a music video to one of these songs. I may or may not be willing to share the youtube link lmao. I also remember the day Backstreet Boys - Black & Blue came out and my neighbor and I had a dance party together.

Putting DJ Sammy - Heaven all the way back here for second grade may be a bit of a stretch. I was trying to remember what the roots of my love for electronic music go back to and I vaguely have memories of singing this song with my friend from Germany. I also remember previously said neighbor and I jamming to Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank. Was this around the time I first heard Blue (Da Ba Dee)? It was in Big Fat Liar in 2002 so I guess so. Whatever they played at Laser Tag birthday parties too.

David Crowder was a Christian artist who stayed with me well past when I had quit listening to CCM. He wrote really good music and heartfelt music that was easy for me to connect to. This is the earliest album I remember enjoying of his. Tobymac and Hawk Nelson were big youth group favorites. We’re getting to the age where I started going to music festivals and seeing a lot of these bands play live. Ya Darude Sandstorm was peak middle school and I won’t apologize. Also loved Basshunter, DDR, “Every Time We Touch.”

Relient K, Skillet, Green Day, and Linkin Park kinda all go together. Was also listening to a lot of Thousand Foot Krutch. Mmhmm was played at a lot of youth group events. My mom bought me the CD during a particularly bad bout of depression and the association made it hard for me to listen to much but that doesn’t change the fact that the album has a soft spot for me and I enjoyed revisiting it. Red is basically the Christian Linkin Park without the rapping. Their first three albums were all good and the second was my favorite. I think someone first showed me Metallica and Led Zeppelin on the bus. They played Enter Sandman a ton at the skate park we went to in middle school.

In high school I was listening to a lot of the follow up albums of these bands and related artists. My crush also gave me a burnt disc for my birthday that had stuff like Saosin, RHCP, Smashing Pumpkins, Hoobastank, The Almost, and Circa Survive. I’m surprised there wasn’t any MCR that I can recall because she and her friends were obsessed. When Mothership came out I bought it on itunes and burnt it to disc for my dad for Christmas. I ended up listening to it way more than he did. This is around the age guitar hero 2 and 3 came out and they heavily inspired my taste and desire to learn guitar. I started taking guitar lessons and a class freshman year of high school and was soon trying to play Metallica, Zeppelin, Sabbath, and Maiden songs. Rodrigo y Gabriella were also big guitar inspirations for me. Mexican brother and sister who started out playing Metallica covers flamenco style. I still play their track “Hanuman” from 11:11 whenever I’m feeling like I suck at guitar.

14 was probably around the age I started getting into heavier music with distortion and screamed vocals. Skillet opened the door with the scream on “Energy” but seeing local metalcore band Bringing Down Broadway at my church and Inhale Exhale at Ichthus’s Edge Tent intrigued me to look for more. The Devil Wears Prada, Becoming the Archetype, and August Burns Red were my favorites but I also listened to a lot of Demon Hunter. I think I started using Pandora in 2009. Idk if I was already listening to Daft Punk before that but I loved Alive around then. Metalcore stations also led me to melodeath and In Flames and Children of Bodom were my favorites. I never pirated back then but I had my buddy download both bands' whole discographies even including the shitty Inearthed demos. I really got into As I Lay Dying too, loving all their albums but especially listening to a lot of An Ocean Between Us while mowing the lawn.

By 2010ish I was a lot better at guitar and started playing in the youth group band with my friends. The band leader and drummer were friends from our high school marching band and huge music nerds. They love all sorts of classic rock, blues, jazz, and prog. The drummer has a crazy knowledge of musicians and specific live shows that inspired me to be more of a nerd about music. I got both my Zeppelin and Yes live DVDs from him. The whole band hung out a lot and we’d watch concert DVDs and comedies or go to the local Big Boy restaurant. I was always kinda into the blues but didn't have a specific album to point to until the band leader got me into all sorts of blues guitarists like Clapton. I got the Who Ultimate Collection inspired by my uncle who loves the Who. I had a Who shirt in high school and even dressed up as Townsend for 70s day during spirit week. My dad got me into XTC, Talking Heads, Pat Metheny, and Yes. Had a ton of friends into Yes and was also listening to Boston a fair deal around then. A lot of these groups I was trying to play on guitar. I remember not being allowed into the jazz band because the director said we already had too many guitars and he wanted me playing clarinet instead. But then one day he heard me playing the intro to “Heart of the Sunrise” in the bandroom office and told me I was hired but I’d already lost interest.

Late highschool going into early college I was not immune to the brostep and EDM craze. Sure Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites was huge and I listened to Timestretch first but Divergent Spectrum was the longest lasting for me out of all those albums. Klaypex, Excision, Flux Pavilion, Pendulum, Pretty Lights etc. Bassnectar and Deadmou5 (I Remember and Strobe) were the only ones that lasted from this phase. Into the Sun and Unlimited were huge albums for me and demonstrated Bassnectar was more than just festival fodder. You can even search me on this server defending him. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnd then he got metood for being a nonce… Him and Dagon are my two nickels on this chart. What ya gonna do.

I could write a whole love letter to The Avett Brothers. I don’t listen to a lot of that indie folk from 2010-2012 much anymore that was perfect for living in the college dorms but since Avetts were much older and purer than that movement they have remained one of my most cherished bands. Emotionalism and I And Love And You are perfect albums. Please see them live if you can. I regret skipping seeing them so many times in college bc I wasn’t yet comfortable going to shows alone. Thankfully I did see them in 2019 with Trampled By Turtles and it was wonderful. I think OMAM and Fleet Foxes still hold up but I don’t listen to them often. Also really really love MGMT. I don’t actually remember when I started listening to them. I have reconstructed memories of it being in high school but I think those are fake. I definitely listened in college and still do. Oracular Spectacular is probably my entry point for loving synth pop and weird psych pop.

One of the saxophone players in marching band lent me Blood Mountain in high school and I thought it sucked ass. It wasn’t until The Hunter came out that I fell in love with Mastodon and had listened to enough other music to be open to their older stuff. Ya people hate this album but it was a big moment for my taste.

I got into black metal freshman year of college. It started with the music video for “Call of the Wintermoon” which I thought was hilarious but slowly I realized I loved the music. These three albums aren’t that big a stretch to enjoy for someone who already loved Children of Bodom. Sometime around 2013ish I got to sublet my first apartment and first went through a list of essential old school death metal albums. Symbolic was my favorite but I also liked Obituary early on. Don’t Break the Oath was an album so good I no longer cared about satanic imagery keeping me away from extreme metal. Holy shit this album was and still is intoxicating.

When I first started getting into shoegaze it was branching out from post-rock and related indie rock. I went back and looked at my shoegaze Pandora station and almost none of it was shoegaze. So ya Idk which band I got into first but I probably thought Sonic Youth was shoegaze for a bit. These bands combined with Mastodon are probably why Boris has become one of my most listened to bands.
Darkthrone kult ETERNAL HAILS……

Portal was my entry to weirdo music but probably also my entry into Incantation and Immolation type bands which I later went heavy into. The Mantle is probably my entry to a lot of pagan and atmo metal. Early in my shreddit journey was the beginning and peak of Fallen Empire, Vrasubatlat, and Mystiskaos. I let Skaphe be my representation for all those releases as well as my love for Icelandic Black Metal. I was pretty deep in the sauce of TapeKvlt. Fell in love with Alcest when doing prep listening for Wacken 2016 which was a really fun europe trip to do with a buddy once I had some savings from my first job. I got to be front and center for their set. Inquisition, Manilla Road, Riot, Absu, Discharge, all shreddit darlings that opened me up to many albums of occult bm, epic and USPM, speed metal, and black thrash. Discovered Gizz from some of the radio singles off Nonagon playing on the college radio station. Really opened me up to modern hard psych and reinvigorated my love for 60s psychedelia too. I was into some punk before Discharge but oh boy did HNSNSN rock my world. Before I liked some Clash, Bad Brains, Hüsker Dü, Dead Kennedys, and Circle Jerks. I went off the deep end when I discovered dbeat and crust. Similarly I’d heard some hiphop albums over the years that I liked from the east coast and conscious styles but Scaring the Hoes last year really opened me up to exploring more underground and weirdo stuff. The Detroit scene is so good.

I didn’t include any goth in this list. I had Christian Death - Only Theatre of Pain which was my entry point courtesy of DOTS but I think going all the way back to my dad giving me XTC - Black Sea and Talking Heads - Fear of Music was my real entry to all forms of post-punk and related genres. Also not pictured are outlaw country that TVZ opened me up to. I’ve also listened to Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel over the years. There are quite a few times over the years where I may have argued that the Rolling Stones and The Kinks are better than the Beatles. Whatever, I like all three. Also forgot to mention anything about getting my first record player with my buddy freshman year in the dorms and convincing the shop owner to sell me Number of the Beast as my first record despite someone else having requested it set aside for them.