Your seminal year for music?

[sal paradise]

Was reminded this morning of an old playlist that I made as a companion piece to an article I wrote about being an outsider, and how my career had transformed from “misunderstood oddball who got sacked ” to “in demand, slightly eccentric creative provocateur.”

It naturally centred on one year in my teens. I badly wanted it to be ‘93, and capture the insane talent of the alternative music scene when I was 11. But 11 was the door opening.

Turns out the year I couldn’t escape was 1995. And it also was a year of incredible music. For me, at least

Spotify: 1995 - change the record

That playlist is so personal to me, and it got me thinking: is there THE YEAR that defines you in some way? Share the music & some stories. I want to discover new music with autobiographical significance to you awesome people

[JSett]

1994-98 were my years. It's impossible for me to nail it to just one as there was a fast and wide development during that time. From discovering my first 'punk' band (Green Day) and subsequent showing of deeper cuts, more hardcore and early Emo. Throw into the mix some friends showing me more alternative and left-field stuff like Björk, Portishead, early PJ Harvey, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and the bands and artists that influenced them. Then a discovery of electronic music like Jungle and DnB alongside my other tastes. Folk music too: Gaelic, Celtic and London-estuary. Dub and reggae too.

Then came skate punk, thrash, garage rock, some britpop. Then came Hiphop - through skate videos and friends playing them on boomboxes at the skatepark. Then Sonic Youth and everything they drag into the mix with themselves.

94-98 was a wild ride for me, musically. I'd do a Spotify list but it would take me forever and I'm lazy after getting home at 3:30am this morning

[distressed]

1987-90. Discovering hardcore punk and indie from the 80s and witnessing some great acts/albums being born in real time.

[stevejamsecono]

Actual Years - 2005-2007 (Freshman to Junior Year of College)
Years of Intense Personal Interest - 1978-1988 (I got HEAVILY into old-school punk and DIY music after starting my journey in Top-40 Pop Punk)

[s_mcsleazy]

i feel 2003 is mine. i was into music before then thanks to my dad but i felt like 2003 was the year where i could say "yeah, i didn't borrow this album from my dad" i feel getting into music when i did was a weird experience because we grew up broke as shit and trying to get into music that was just coming out meant downloading 1 song and figuring out if you wanted to buy that or if a friend had it and you could burn it. saying that, i got into a lot of cool music around that time.

my chemical romance, funeral for a friend, cave-in, at the drive-in, AFI, the used (the first 2 used albums are good, fight me) alexisonfire, thursday, distillers, reuben, yourcodenameis:milo, million dead, death from above 1979

i was also playing a lot of tony hawk at the time which probably didn't help my love of skate-punk/post-hardcore. that lead me into discovering the influences of my favorite bands and finding new favorite bands. i kinda joke that if not for tony hawk games, me and my friend's taste in music would be way different.

[countertext]

1987

I was 14/15yo. Got my first guitar xmas of ‘86, became friends with older/more in touch students that school year, and moved to a bigger town - Macon GA - that summer, which meant greater access to record stores and magazines.

That was the year I learned to look for music on my own, rather than have it handed to me by MTV or my older sisters. I spent every dime I had on cassettes that year… and a ProCo RAT.

Some stuff I listened to non-stop:
R.E.M. - Dead Letter Office and Document
The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me
The dB’s - The Sound Of Music
The Cult - Electric
Prince - Sign ‘’ The Times
Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing
The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
Wendy & Lisa - Wendy and Lisa
Sinead O’Connor - The Lion And The Cobra
Jane’s Addiction - Jane’s Addiction

Late in the year I heard bands that were new to me:
Public Enemy - Yo Bum Rush The Show
Minutemen - Ballot Result
Eric B and Rakim - Paid In Full
Soundgarden - Screaming Life
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Uplift Mofo Party Plan

These are the tapes I remember clearly holding in my hands and sticking in my boom box that year. It was a big transition for me from my childhood in my home town to trying to figure out the future in a (small) city. There seemed to be SO MUCH music, like it was overwhelming to think about how much shit I didn’t know about, even though I was digging as fast as I could.

Now I know there’s way too much good shit to ever hear in a lifetime. I try not to waste my time with insincere or derivative stuff if I can help it.

[panoramic]

1990-1992
My record collection is very into that period. My guitar playing adores it as well.

[interceptör]

For me, it's gotta be 1991/92. I was about 15 y/o and the speed the world of music was evolving was just mind-blowing.

Edit: 2000/01 was another great period in music, but my memories from that time are a lot hazier.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

1978.

Where's Bill Grundy Now? EP, Ever Fallen In Love... (With Someone You Shouldn't've?), I Am The Fly, Public Image, Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, Ghosts Of Princes In Towers, Where Were You, and on and on and on and on it goes....

[dinosaurkale->]

i wasnt alive but can it be a year before you were born ?

1974

krautrock - cluster, harmonia, popol vuh, klaus schulze
reggae - toots, burning spear, augustus, king tubby, ton of lovers rock and ska singles,
pop/ rock - elton john, stevie wonder, gladys knight, olivia newton john, kool and the gang, the ojays, jackson five, steely dan, stylistics, ELO, queen, bowie, sparks, big star, rush, zappa, abba
northern soul - too many bangers
metal/nwobhm - budgie, judas priest, scorpions, acdc, raven, golden earring
punk / proto punk - patti smith, stooges, blondie, ramones, ny dolls, eno, television, velvet underground, lou reed
prog - king crimson, gong, rick wakeman, genesis, mike oldfield, magma, nektar, gentle giant, harmonium, supertramp, hawkwind, tangerine dream
glam - mott the hoople, roxy music, sweet, slade, trex
disco - so many bangers
country - dolly, merle haggard, tammy, conway twitty, waylon jennings, loretta, john denver
soundtracks - phantom of the paradise, foxy brown, chinatown, deathwish
folk - joni mitchell, neil young, leonard cohen, van morrison, nico, bob dylan, carly simon, cat stevens
yacht rock
kraftwerk
TSOP

i could probably keep going but i'll stop

[welshywelsh]

1995 for me. I was 11 for most of it, so had no concept of what was cool or not, so my collection ranged from Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Garbage to Celine Dion (!), PJ and Duncan, Bryan Adams and if I recall correctly a compilation of the best football songs ever.

I think the Brit Awards compilation I got really formulated my music tastes though, once I heard Weezer and Green Day, I knew distorted guitar music was the one for me, even if those bands have since been surpassed by bands I realised did that whole thing better.

[blacktiger]

I have a few:

1982 - In 1980, my next-door neighbor (who was 4 years older than me) got the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks for his birthday. He happened to have a pool and a little pool house with a stereo, and we listened to that record all summer long. By fall, the Sex Pistols were my favorite band. Fast forward to two years later, my uncle (who’s only 10 years older than me) got wind that I loved the Sex Pistols and sent over the first Clash album and the Circle Jerks’ Wild in the Streets, which, somehow, was my first inkling that the Pistols were a punk band, and there was a whole world of other punk music out there. For the next six years or so, punk rock and skateboarding were my life.

1988 - Punk rock had basically run its (initial) course, and we came back full circle to bands doing their best to pretend that it was 1982 again. I had no interest in going backwards, and thankfully, I met a dude who was obsessed with not only the Misfits, but Joy Division. Even though they had been dead and gone for eight years at that point, they were amazingly fresh and new to me. I had already been exploring stuff like JAMC, The Cure, and The Smiths, and this really cemented my turn in that direction. My crew of friends all quit skating around that time, and many of them drifted off in other directions. Luckily, I met a girl in art class, and she introduced me to three other girls, who became my new crew. They were all into stuff like Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, etc., which fell right in line with my new love for Joy Division. That was the tipping point from punk rock all the way into post-punk and indie rock, which I lived and breathed for the next eight years or so.

1996 - Good indie rock had taken a turn for the dreaded britpop and second-tier grunge and “alternative rock.” I had just been through the break up of a four year relationship right around the time I finished grad school. I was kind of at a dead end in many ways. One of those girls from the group of four was back home after finishing college. We hadn’t seen each other in a few years, but we were both bored and lonely and started hanging out again. I found out that she had become a raver in the previous years, and she encouraged me to roadtrip with her up to DC to go to a warehouse party. I was wary, but bored, so I went. There, I encountered ecstasy for the first time, and also a weird music with really fast drums. My friend explained that it was called “jungle” or “drum & bass.” One thing led to another, and not long after, I sold my guitar and amp, bought turntables and a mixer, and spent the next few years driving to parties and club nights all over the mid-Atlantic.

[budda12ax7]

Still ongoing....I find new cool music all the time....can’t break it down into a year or two....however I link music to whatever girl I was going out with at the time..
I think I wrote about the Betty Paige hair , clove smoking punker girl who stabbed me in another post...so that was 1994 and the sound track to that was LUSH,,,,,good times.

[jorri]

2005 probably. As in when I introduced myself to a lot of music from the 90s and 80s mostly, got into post-rock and shoegaze but developed outside of genre and all sorts of jazz or classical things. It seemed exciting to start ignoring what was 'current'.

[rhythmjones]

Definitely fall-96 to spring-97.

Fashion Nugget. Whatever and Ever Amen. Pinkerton. That second wave of almost anti-grunge 90s alternative is my wheelhouse and that was the thick of it.