M
Mick Dundee
Guest
I had horrendous taste in music before the age of 13. I did like some decent stuff, like britpop and a bit of mainstream hip hop, but it was mainly horrendous chart bilge.
When I was 14, Barenaked Ladies had a hit with One Week, I bought the album and was hooked - got their entire back catalogue. Also, because of my age I started to dislike the worst of the shite I had previously listened to and more into the indie/britpop side of things. Aside from BNL, my favourite bands were Ash, Space and the Lightning Seeds. I also won a phone in on UK Play (a crappy music channel run by the owners of UK Gold etc) and alongside Reef and Blur, there were quite a lot of less mainstream indie records in there. I was also really into No Doubt after Tragic Kingdom and then stumbling upon their debut album for £3 in Woolies but had no idea where to find any other bands that sounded like then.
Aged 15, on a school trip to Switzerland, I was introduced to Green Day (mainly Dookie although Nimrod was their current album at the time). That, together with Blink 182 and The Offspring hitting the mainstream a year or 2 later, introduced me to guitar music. I was never as into the latter 2 bands as my mates were, but through them I discovered the Epitaph record label and bands like Pennywise and Bad Religion who are both (as well as the Descendents) still my favourite American Punk bands. Over the next couple of years this evolved into a lot of ska-punk bands (I think
I'd discovered the connection between these punk bands and No Doubt's early material) like Less Than Jake, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Capdown, Reel Big Fish, and this got me into Two Tone ska with the likes of The Special, The Selecter, Bad Manners and Madness.
This also coincided with the rise of Nu metal and I loved a lot of those bands too (Slipknot, Korn and Limp Bizkit mainly), although it was Punk and ska that were my main loves. After a while, these bands became stale and unexciting so I started to look out other similar artists - One Minute Silence, Marilyn Manson; earlier hard rock like Rage Against The Machine and Janes Addiction (thanks to the chef in my part time job washing dishes); Cypress Hill released the rap-rock hybrid Skull and Bones. Because of the nu metal scene, my search went in 2 directions, "proper metal" and hip hop - Pantera, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies for the former, The Roots, Jurassic 5, Ugly Duckling for the latter.
Around this time, The Libertines exploded as well and I was still a big fan of the rockier end of the indie scale (Ash, Idlewild, Feeder). I started listening to a lot of the bands featured in NME as well and looking out bands like The Jam, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and I was discovering a lot of American indie bands and solo artists (Ben Kweller, Pete Yorn, Ryan Adams, Ben Folds Five are all still big favourites of mine nearly 15 years later).
My taste in music got very eclectic and then m I started getting into a lot of political music from the likes of Ben Harper, Michael Franti, Xavier Rudd, Public Enemy, Gil Scot Heron.
In 2007, I bought my first house so had no disposable income. I was in a musical rut for almost 10 years, buying only the new releases by the artists already in my massive CD collection without any room for new artists or genres. I did, however, get quite heavily into Johnny Cash and Tom Petty during that time.
Then Apple Music was launched in 2015 and reinvigorated my love of music. It made suggestions so my tastes expanded even further, both with new genres (stoner rock, alt-country) and new artists. I'm still learning about music and expanding my tastes all the time with music streaming - shameless plug I'm documenting this through my blog (see my sig) where I review the albums I've been listening to that week.
When I was 14, Barenaked Ladies had a hit with One Week, I bought the album and was hooked - got their entire back catalogue. Also, because of my age I started to dislike the worst of the shite I had previously listened to and more into the indie/britpop side of things. Aside from BNL, my favourite bands were Ash, Space and the Lightning Seeds. I also won a phone in on UK Play (a crappy music channel run by the owners of UK Gold etc) and alongside Reef and Blur, there were quite a lot of less mainstream indie records in there. I was also really into No Doubt after Tragic Kingdom and then stumbling upon their debut album for £3 in Woolies but had no idea where to find any other bands that sounded like then.
Aged 15, on a school trip to Switzerland, I was introduced to Green Day (mainly Dookie although Nimrod was their current album at the time). That, together with Blink 182 and The Offspring hitting the mainstream a year or 2 later, introduced me to guitar music. I was never as into the latter 2 bands as my mates were, but through them I discovered the Epitaph record label and bands like Pennywise and Bad Religion who are both (as well as the Descendents) still my favourite American Punk bands. Over the next couple of years this evolved into a lot of ska-punk bands (I think
I'd discovered the connection between these punk bands and No Doubt's early material) like Less Than Jake, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Capdown, Reel Big Fish, and this got me into Two Tone ska with the likes of The Special, The Selecter, Bad Manners and Madness.
This also coincided with the rise of Nu metal and I loved a lot of those bands too (Slipknot, Korn and Limp Bizkit mainly), although it was Punk and ska that were my main loves. After a while, these bands became stale and unexciting so I started to look out other similar artists - One Minute Silence, Marilyn Manson; earlier hard rock like Rage Against The Machine and Janes Addiction (thanks to the chef in my part time job washing dishes); Cypress Hill released the rap-rock hybrid Skull and Bones. Because of the nu metal scene, my search went in 2 directions, "proper metal" and hip hop - Pantera, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies for the former, The Roots, Jurassic 5, Ugly Duckling for the latter.
Around this time, The Libertines exploded as well and I was still a big fan of the rockier end of the indie scale (Ash, Idlewild, Feeder). I started listening to a lot of the bands featured in NME as well and looking out bands like The Jam, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and I was discovering a lot of American indie bands and solo artists (Ben Kweller, Pete Yorn, Ryan Adams, Ben Folds Five are all still big favourites of mine nearly 15 years later).
My taste in music got very eclectic and then m I started getting into a lot of political music from the likes of Ben Harper, Michael Franti, Xavier Rudd, Public Enemy, Gil Scot Heron.
In 2007, I bought my first house so had no disposable income. I was in a musical rut for almost 10 years, buying only the new releases by the artists already in my massive CD collection without any room for new artists or genres. I did, however, get quite heavily into Johnny Cash and Tom Petty during that time.
Then Apple Music was launched in 2015 and reinvigorated my love of music. It made suggestions so my tastes expanded even further, both with new genres (stoner rock, alt-country) and new artists. I'm still learning about music and expanding my tastes all the time with music streaming - shameless plug I'm documenting this through my blog (see my sig) where I review the albums I've been listening to that week.