Your Music

[+ José Soplanucas]

I am sitting in the Hyatt's lobby at Cincinnati and they are playing The Cure! That group was my band, I never identified so strongly with any other group or artist. So the question in this thread is...

If you were to choose ONE, and ONLY ONE group or artist that identifies you, who that would be?

I have many, Bowie, the Stones, REM, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Silvio Rodriguez, but The Cure stands out.

I used to wear make messy make up like Robert Smith, my hair following his, and the same kind of look.

 

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0001/369/MI0001369795.jpg?partner=allrovi.com http://img.wennermedia.com/social/rs-245886-RS-The-Cure.jpg

[+ José Soplanucas]

And now they are playing Roxane by The Police. WTF, the DJ could be me 30 years ago.

[+ oldNbusted]

Bowie was sui generis, it's unfair to everyone else to have to compete with him, so I would say leave him aside, and ask who else?

 

For me, I'm torn between XTC and Fishbone. They were a major part of the soundtrack of my life and it's hard to separate their journeys from my own. Fishbone still tours, but both have effectively stopped producing anything new. Early Talking Heads was a big deal for me, but I kinda lost interest when it turned into the David Byrne Band for the last couple of releases.

 

Honorable Mention has to go to Pet Shop Boys. I really resisted them for a long time, but when Behaviour came out, it really spoke to me and since they are still producing new music, they are still part of my personal soundtrack.

[+ Eric Hassan]

If I had to choose one band - and only one band - it's Shudder to Think. Their album, Pony Express Record, has been my favorite since 1995.

 

Guided by Voices and Yeasayer get honorable mention. I'm stopping here - I could go on for hours when it comes to music!

[+ José Soplanucas]

If I had to choose one band - and only one band - it's Shudder to Think. Their album, Pony Express Record, has been my favorite since 1995.

 

Guided by Voices and Yeasayer get honorable mention. I'm stopping here - I could go on for hours when it comes to music!

 

I will have to research that, never heard of them.

[bigvalboy]

Anything Bob Seger...

 

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by bigvalboy

[mike carey]

I don't pay attention to music all that much, but Steeleye Span would be up there, and as I recall they have come up in the forum in the past.

[+ José Soplanucas]

I wonder whether we all are choosing a band/artist from our 20s. I am.

[LaffingBear]

Ive tried to form an answer here a couple of times, and couldnt.

 

I guess I dont identify with any musical group.

 

The pop rock group Chicago, Van Morrison, Beatles, Beach Boys, Bread define my high school years. In college, I was likely to be listening to Journey, Boston, Kansas.... or, bong-in-hand, Yes, Uriah Heap, Manfred Man, ELO..... I always loved classic rock of The Who

 

I could go on to list many different genres. I enjoy them; I dont identify with any of them.

 

I suppose that the groups that best reflect my personality would be the casts of Broadway Musicals.... how's that for cliché?

[bostonman]

I wonder whether we all are choosing a band/artist from our 20s. I am.

 

Just a side note on that...

 

I work in a college musical theatre program - and given the many pop/rock-oriented shows on Broadway and elsewhere these days, we have made sure that pure pop/rock repertoire training is part of our program. Last summer we were in the process of hiring a new teacher who would be teaching that material among other things - and we were talking about the music that students often relate to when asked to pick a pop/rock song from the past (as opposed to something in the current zeitgeist). It seems that most of them tend to go for something a decade or so in the past - a song they identify with from their early adolescent years. I remarked that it's interesting to see that happen as a general rule - just like we as adults, I think, tend to think back to the songs that defined our high school/college years and maybe a bit beyond into our post-college 20's. Everyone agreed. We all seem to put something special on whatever that musical era was for us.

 

I graduated high school in 1982, and college in '86. And though I like a whole spectrum of music, I will say that the popular music of the 80's does hold a certain emotional resonance for me. Not that I love it all, necessarily, lol - but certain songs of that era will still being up very strong memories of that time in my life - much more than other decades. I wonder somehow if it's really more about those formative late teens-early 20's time in our lives than the music itself - but that the music provides an unforgettable soundtrack to those years?

 

That said, though - I was born in '64, and my parents, who had a huge wonderful eclectic taste for so many kinds of music (my father had been a classical pianist and I owe my huge love of classical and opera to him - also musicals, etc) played the Beatles albums a lot when I was a kid - and I got to know those albums SO well. And maybe it's cheating to say that I identify with them, because in a way I hope we all do - but hearing the Beatles today still puts me in a very special place. I don't know if I necessarily literally identify with them - but I sure feel a parity with their music, in all its wacky wild wonderful variations.

 

Maybe actually that's what I love about them the most - there is no one genre they fit into. Their music itself was so eclectic.

Edited June 19, 2017 by bostonman

[+ pitman]

Talking Heads. On my first West Coast road trip I drove to Vancouver. Since I was getting tired of the music I had been listening on the way up there, I bought a bunch of tapes to play on the way back, including Fear of Music. I ended up playing it almost continuously all the way back to SF. Its still my favorite album, but I love their others too. And Stop Making Sense is the best concert film ever, with The Last Waltz being a close second.

[+ WmClarke]

I suppose that the groups that best reflect my personality would be the casts of Broadway Musicals.... how's that for cliché?

That's great. Unless it's Sweeney Todd.

 

Because that one's mine.

[+ purplekow]

Two songs which I have played over and over again are Billy Joel's Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Right up there is Elton John's The Bitch is Back; Meatloaf with Paradise by the Dashboard Light; Jackson Brown's Running on Empty and Springsteen's Born to Run. So, if I could have a "mixed tape" with those on it, plus a few more, that would be my selection.

 

If pressed to select one artist, I batted around other songs by these artists and decided on Springsteen because he can make me dance and with Philadelphia, he can make me cry, none of the others inspire such a diverse emotional range for me.

[MikeyGMin]

I wonder somehow if it's really more about those formative late teens-early 20's time in our lives than the music itself - but that the music provides an unforgettable soundtrack to those years

The music of the 80's and 90's bring back memories, but I don't have any of it on my playlists. My taste in music has always changed with the time. I've always been a sucker for breakup ballads, so give me a Sam Smith or an Adele song any day.

[+ José Soplanucas]

Talking Heads. On my first West Coast road trip I drove to Vancouver. Since I was getting tired of the music I had been listening on the way up there, I bought a bunch of tapes to play on the way back, including Fear of Music. I ended up playing it almost continuously all the way back to SF. Its still my favorite album, but I love their others too. And Stop Making Sense is the best concert film ever, with The Last Waltz being a close second.

Absolutely love them.

[+ José Soplanucas]

I am with @bostonman , the 80s were a very special decade in my life. Take a look at this.

 

I graduated from high school in 1980 in a provincial capital in Argentina, under a military dictatorship. In 1981 I am drafted for mandatory military service. By the end of 1981 I am released from the army, I moved to Buenos Aires away from my family for the first time, to go to college. After I take my admission exam in the university, Argentina declares war against Great Britain and invades the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) in 1982. I am drafted again and almost sent to the battlefield. Fortunately it was a short war and we lost. I am released again, I go back to Buenos Aires, the dictatorship crumbles down and Democracy starts. I become first a centrist political activist and then a Trotskyist one. The cousin who was the only guy I was playing with and was in love with dies in a car accident by the end of 1982. I come out in 1983, and join gay rights groups, first an anarchist one, then a Queer group. In 1985 I come out to my parents and starts living in full disclosure. I start learning acting and drama direction and neglects my Sociology Studies. I start experimenting with drugs and sex. I meet Facundo, the love of my life, and Pablito, my long term lover. Buenos Aires is an orgy of freedom and creativity after a decade of repression. In 1987 I join the theatre underground movement. In 1989 I perform my own unipersonal in Buenos Aires off-off Broadway.

 

Those were my 80s.

Edited June 20, 2017 by latbear4blk

[Chad Constantine]

Well I am sure a majority of the users have never heard of the band FT Island but for me I could listen to their songs for all eternity. They are the reason I switch from J-pop/ J-rock to all Korean music. They are the reason I am learning Korean so I can truly understand their songs. Through watching lead singer Lee Hong Ki in "The Beautiful You" opened my eye to watchable Asian television. Japanese dramas are to short and the acting omg just horrible which makes no sense since they make great movies. Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and Mainland dramas are interesting but just don't hold my attention like Korean dramas due.

 

http://i1.jpopasia.com/albums/1/9441-fivetreasureisland-8w5c.jpg

 

[+ easygoingpal]

Well, no one mentioned Eagles (Hotel California), Fleetwood Mac (Rumors), Simon and Garfunkel (Sounds of Silence), Carpenters (Top of the World). The one vivid image about listening to Hotel California is that it was playing in the background the first time I discovered a booth where you had a choice of watching a gay film instead of a straight film. Also, the first time I attended a strip club they were playing the Pet Shop boys "West End Girls" and "What have I done to deserve this". Memories...

[Chad Constantine]

Well, no one mentioned Eagles (Hotel California), Fleetwood Mac (Rumors), Simon and Garfunkel (Sounds of Silence), Carpenters (Top of the World). The one vivid image about listening to Hotel California is that it was playing in the background the first time I discovered a booth where you had a choice of watching a gay film instead of a straight film. Also, the first time I attended a strip club they were playing the Pet Shop boys "West End Girls" and "What have I done to deserve this". Memories...

Oh I love Fleetwood Mac, the Carpenters, the Monkies, etc... I still remember when I was 5 and my uncle would take my cousin and I to school. The whole trip we would be listening to 101.1 fm oldies but goodies.

[bostonman]

Steely Dan.

 

I still remember the first time I heard "Peg" as a kid. Those jazz-inflected harmonies were so fucking cool - and yet this wasn't really jazz. But the sound of it wasn't built on the "basic" rock chords one would expect. As a young musician, the chord progression underneath "then the shutter falls" etc really caught my ear. It still does. Amazing stuff.

[+ purplekow]

Oh I love Fleetwood Mac, the Carpenters, the Monkies, etc... I still remember when I was 5 and my uncle would take my cousin and I to school. The whole trip we would be listening to 101.1 fm oldies but goodies.

I had radio music available in the examination rooms of my office. The speakers were connected to a radio and 101.1 was the channel of choice. Music of the 60's and 70's was either comforting and familiar to the patient or it was innocuous background music that did not offend anyone. I had more than one patient who had been waiting for more than the usual amount of time tell me that they did not mind so much as the music brought back so many pleasurable memories.

Music indeed is one of the keys to soul.

[MikeyGMin]

Steely Dan.

I was still in elementary when "Can't Buy a Thrill" came out. "Dirty Work" is the first song I can remember really appreciating and noticing something like the saxophone solo in the middle. It was and is a really beautiful song, but can't quite stand up next to Sam Smith's "Stay With Me." It's like watching a black and white movie compared to color.

[samhexum]

Steely Dan.

 

I still remember the first time I heard "Peg" as a kid. Those jazz-inflected harmonies were so fucking cool - and yet this wasn't really jazz. But the sound of it wasn't built on the "basic" rock chords one would expect. As a young musician, the chord progression underneath "then the shutter falls" etc really caught my ear. It still does. Amazing stuff.

 

A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member with Queens roots will be posthumously honored for his contributions to the music industry during his lifetime.

 

Walter Becker, a Forest Hills native and co-founder of the band Steely Dan, will have his memory honored by co-naming the corner of 112th Street and 72nd Avenue, the street where Becker grew up, as “Walter Becker Way.”

It’s a block from my aunt’s old apt, where I lived for a couple of years, & a block (in the other direction) from the Yeshiva I attended until I was paroled in early Dec. during 5th grade.

Fun Fact: If you take 112th St. north until it ends, you run into the athletic field for Forest Hills H.S., where Simon & Garfunkel attended.

 

Coincidentally, I saw a listing for a house for sale that I liked on that same corner 7 weeks ago:

https://qns.com/story/2018/05/22/see-forest-hills-home-modern-design-market-2-1m/

 

 

 

The unveiling will take place on Oct. 28.

 

Becker and his partner, Donald Fagen, formed the jazz-rock band Steely Dan in 1971. He released many albums with Steely Dan and on his own, and performed with Steely Dan when the band reformed. Becker died of esophageal cancer on Sept. 3, 2017, at the age of 67.

 

Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills, co-sponsored the “Walter Becker Way” renaming as part of a bill that passed the City Council on June 28.

 

WAXQ-FM radio will host the renaming ceremony, which will include special guests, remembrances from Becker’s friends and colleagues, and giveaways. Festivities will be planned by Becker’s fans.

“Walter’s fans have decades of experience holding ‘Danfests’ throughout the country,” said Delia Becker, Becker’s widow. “And they always find innovative and eclectic ways of celebrating. It will undoubtedly be a fun and free gathering to honor and commemorate Walter as only they can!”

Edited July 10, 2018 by samhexum

[+ poolboy48220]

Oh, Queens as in the borough. I was looking through the post trying to find out his connection to Freddie Mercury.

[Courage]

I wonder whether we all are choosing a band/artist from our 20s. I am.

 

My favorite act right now is Cake, which is a band from my 20s (though I didn't discover them until a few years ago).

 

My other favorites in general descending order are Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Blind Melon. Recently the Flaming Lips have been in my head...a lot.

 

Through Shazam and YouTube, I've been discovering older artists and now have a much greater appreciation for 60s and 70s rock, and to my great surprise, older country, folk, and even standards.

 

The reason your 20s bands stand out: science!

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-stop-discovering-new-music-around-age-30-2018-6