First musical love (no, not like that!)

Yet another "Trev thinking too much" thread, perhaps :D ...

Anyway, what was your first musical love? By that I don't mean "crush on a singer" or anything like that, but what artist/band/form of music made a huge impact on you when you first got into music, or what A/B/F of M made you interested in music in the first place? It had to start somewhere, right? So let's hear it!

Mine would have to be the British Invasion stuff I first really started listening to around the age of 12/13. That's when music started to be important to me, starting to become more than just background music in movies or TV and actually mean something, and I went gaga over the British beat. I started out with tapes of the Beatles and the Who that either were given to me or that I bought, and my first ever CD was "The Best of the Animals". Just about anything from the British Isles was more than welcome in my CD player or tape deck, and I can remember many wintery evenings spent sitting outside my house, in the bitter cold, listening to the Beatles or Pink Floyd on headphones because I just wanted to enjoy it for myself, I didn't really feel like sharing. Though I've since moved on to other eras in English rock history, I still have a fondness for a lot of the stuff that first started me on this pilgirmage of Anglophilia, if you will.

The reason I bring all this up is my recent purchases of some Yardbirds CDs (as we speak, "Five Live Yardbirds" is on order from Amazon, I'm gonna send off the money order tomorrow) and the amazing DVD of "The Kids Are Alright", and all this has reminded me of the great thrill in that initial discovery and reinforced the love I have for all that early blues-influenced British rock.

Anyway, that's my story. What's yours?

I think for me it was Madness doing Baggy Trousers on Top of the Pops. It's the first TOTP performance I remember (I was 6 I think) and it has always stuck with me. However, I didn't have any records or tapes of my own when I was 6, so I don't know if that really counts.

The first record I ever knew all the words to was "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (the LP) by Simon & Garfunkel, which is such overproduced pap really, but at the time (aged about 8) I thought it was awesome, especially "The Boxer". It was my Dad's LP and I remember playing it on the record deck when he wasn't around - which was extremely risky as children and records didn't really go together in my Dad's mind. He always encouraged me to listen to music, but he wasn't keen on me actually touching the records. Around that time I also got really into The Beatles' "Abbey Road" LP (again, overproduced mostly) and particularly liked "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"!!

My first ever tape of my own was J-M Jarre's "Concerts In China" - how sad is that?!

Otherwise it was all Madness and Adam and the Ants (highwayman period).

This is going to turn into that bloody Nick Hornby book soon, so I'll shut the fuck up now.

the first two bands that i was Massively into were Rush and The Police, both really because at the time i wanted to play bass so bad (i was like 8!) and they were the two bands that i could here the bass being played. ultimatly i did get my bass (9 years later) and learned all the rush and police i could.

The Cars and The Police. Thought they were cooler than Jesus. Twasn't til the summer of 1983 that I discovered the Order. By 1984 I never played The Cars again. I'll listen to Zenyaata Mondatta every now and then.

The Cars and The Police. Thought they were cooler than Jesus. Twasn't til the summer of 1983 that I discovered the Order. By 1984 I never played The Cars again. I'll listen to Zenyaata Mondatta every now and then.

Well, first it was The Beatles, when Beatlemania hit here in the States. But the group that really, really knocked me out after seeing them on TV was The Yardbirds. Only saw 'em once, I think, but remembered 'em ever after.

Tabboo, if you don't already have it, you need to get "Roger The Engineer" and "Having a Rave-Up with The Yardbirds." Also, check out Michelangelo Antonioni's film "Blow-Up." It has a great club scene with The Yardbirds,-- apparently lyp-syncing their performance-- doing "Stroll On," which was a version of "Train Kept-A-Rollin'" that they wrote for the film. The director wanted a group that would be "like The Who." Why he didn't just hire The Who is a mystery, but it captured a brief moment in the band's history, with Jimmy Page on bass and Jeff Beck on guitar (the song they perform, Stroll On, actually has Page and Beck on twin lead guitars, and thus, the performance is apparently lyp-synced).

Anyway, back to the retirement home for me.

when I was about 4 years old, I made my mom take me to the store so I could spend some of my christmas money on Three Dog Nights Joy to the World single, so they were first.....but the first bands that I thought I had to own everything they ever made were Duran Duran, the Cars, and the Police

When I was a very young boy, the stuff that my parents played that I liked a lot was Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, Led Zep, and the Stones. Pretty much listened to FM rock until 76, though I didn't buy many records, just wasn't anything different to listen to, though I do remember hearing the odd Lou Reed ("Mommy, what does 'giving head' mean?") or Roxy Music track between such dross as Uriah Heep , which is why it was very damn easy to embrace the punk rock attitude. It's been great listening ever since

my first musical loves were the chipmunks, allan sherman's comedy albums, jackson 5, osmonds, wings, beatles, bee gees.... :D

I think my official first musical love was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At the time, when I was 12, I couldn't get enough of singing "Aeroplane," even in school, much to my peers and teachers' dismay, but soon I fell in love with Smashing Pumpkins and didn't turn back since.

My first love were the Velvet Underground - found the banana record at age 4 in an uncle's record collection and got hooked far too soon. Graduated to The Doors (and back again) by age 6 and had a fully warped perspective of what was good and what wasn't by the time punk arrived and gave us a chance. Was the only 10 year old round by us with tartan bondage trews and the mohair stripey jumper!

Before Joy Division/New Order I was into The Cars. Too bad they got so cheesey after their fourth album.

U2 , Depeche Mode , The Sisters Of Mercy Can't understand why it took me so long to get into NO & JD?

The Cars lost me after Shake it up. Panarama was a great album, it got dark for them, a nice contrast to their second album that featured the women spread on the car (title escapes me).

The Police shitted out with Syncronicity. I had that South African bootleg of the Syncro tour, their music exceeded their live skills 10 fold, over teched themselves in the studio. Sting's vocals suck. You think Barney is bad, Sting at best is barney at his worst. Then Sting's ego killed the band. What a shame.

The first Fixx album was great. TY for reminding me of them, Grigori. The one with Red Skies Tonight, Stand or Fall. But when I saw him with Tina Turner, I knew it was over.

Used to be into the Doors til I went to college. I remember having a party one night and some hippie wannabe tried to get us to take Front 242 out and put in Morrison Hotel. "Sorry kid, perhaps you are at the wrong party."

My first musical love that was my own (as opposed to trying to listen to the pop r&b stuff the other kids were into) was Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains....you know, the big "grunge" bands, as that was the time when those were big.

By the first time i really started listening to NO/JD my favs were The Smiths, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. It was the late 80's then :). I discovered the early 80's and the late 70's later along with the details of NO/JD, and in fact they bacame my fav music era ever