How has your taste in music changed over the years?

In high school I listened to bands like The Beatles, Blink 182, AFI, Atreyu, Iron Maiden, The Cure, Social Distortion, RHCP, The Police, Incubus, Rise Against, and many other artists,

In college I started broadening my horizons, listening to more rap and a lot electronic/house music. Then Radiohead caught my attention, never really liked them in high school, I just thought their music was weird. As I listened to Paranoid Android for the thousandths I looked through my old music and thought to myself "Wow i never thought I could listen to Radiohead and love it." Radiohead is quickly becoming one of my favorite bands.

How has your taste in music changed over the years?

Have you found yourself listening to music you never thought you would have listened to when you were younger? Have you stayed the same?

Garth Brooks -> Boys 2 Men -> Weird Al -> Arcade Fire

I listen to about every genre that exists. Except metal. I can't stand metal.

I was going to type out my own, but this is more or less the same type of experience I went through in less words.

I avoided music until my teens, when I began listening to heavy metal. Mainly thrash / speed metal like Exodus, Testament, Megadeth etc. After some years I 'progressed' to more progressive metal. But I was stubborn and refused to listen to any other kind of music. Thinking back some of the music I used to listen to makes me cringe. Dream Theater for example. I just can't bring myself to listen to anything like that these days, apart from a few tracks which aren't goofy and noodle-y.

However as I emerged from my teenage years my tastes changed quite a bit, I now listen to virtually anything that sounds good to me. My iPod playlist usually flits between electronic, rock, metal and pop.

When I was younger I'd pull my face at anything that wasn't either Metal or 'technically proficient'.. Such a moronic view I had back then. But hey, I guess it's all part of growing up.

I have less tolerance for the ridiculously dumb things being said in the Gangsta Rap I used to listen to a lot. Why can't they just angrily rap about barbecue and traffic 'cause I still like the music part.

In general, my taste has broadened in that I don't just exclusively need to listen to songs with words in them that are three and a half minutes long.

I used to listen to a lot of different kinds of metal. Death metal, some black metal, thrash metal, speed metal, etc. Then I drifted away from that and started listening to mostly podcasts, without listening to a lot of music. Then, a couple years ago, I started listening to all sorts of punk music, and now I've expanded beyond that to really listen to a bit of everything.

Like, I don't want to sound like one of those guys who says "I listen to everything" but actually mean "I listen to about twenty different subgenres of Scandinavian black metal," but I don't know how else to describe it. Among the genres/bands I listen to regularly are folk (Mountain Goats, Townes Van Zandt, Todd Snider), metal (Deafheaven, Mastodon, Nile, Orbs), punk (Bomb the Music Industry!, Future of the Left, Cloud Nothings, Orchid, Fucked Up, Titus Andronicus, Nu Sensae), noise (Swans), pop (Vampire Weekend, Fiona Apple, Frightened Rabbit, Grizzly Bear, The National), hip hop (Aesop Rock, Killer Mike), and some electronic (Autechre). I'm listening to more music now than ever before, and feel like I have something for any mood or moment. Though of course the bands listed here show a definite preference in a certain direction.

Jazz->80's Metal->Progressive Metal-> Electronica/Classical

My favorite bands age 12 - 17

Taking Back Sunday ~> Metallica ~> Haste the Day ~> Streetlight Manifesto ~> Between the Buried and Me (Still my favorite band 4 years later and I don't think it's going to change)

Alternative/Pop rock ~> Older Metal ~> Newer Metal ~> Ska phase(who doesn't have one?) ~> Adult contemporary progressive death metal

I have and always will hate Radiohead.

Like most people will probably answer, I mostly just broadened my horizons. I was just going through my library one day and 99% of what I had in there was just rap and hiphop. I wanted to try new things, I did, and I'm mad it took me that long to do it. I went from pretty much exclusively listening to artists like Eminem, 50 Cent, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Kanye, Snoop, Shad, Del, Gorillaz, Outkast, Nujabes, and the Roots to branching out into stuff like Tenacious D, Genki Rockets, Daft Punk, Green Day, Foo Fighters, System of a Down, Ozomatli, Norah Jones, Arctic Monkeys, White Stripes, Radiohead, Ratatat, Black Keys, Fitz & the Tantrums, KT Tunstall, and a bunch of other random artists. There's so much fucking good music out there that the concept of listening to only one genre seems completely alien to me at this point.

Mostly just gotten more experimental, but that's to be expected, right? I listen to the same sorts of music I always have (which to be fair is most anything that isn't most metal or country), but I dunno, I feel like the more you listen to music in general, or a genre specifically, the more you get interested in how far it can be stretched. S'why I'm most interested in intensely experimental Jazz, Classical, and Electronic, since those are the genres I've listened to most regularly through my life.

A few others have mentioned that their tastes just tended to get a bit more experimental or specialized, and I would say I fall into that category. I haven't delved greatly into other genres or anything, but I have discovered through research (good grief is the internet a fucking amazing this for this!) bands/artists that are ones that share common traits with ones that I already liked but are perhaps more obscure and less popularity-focused. This seems like the natural way of things for art of any kind, to me. Going in the opposite direction does not seem genuine.

I listen to mostly Jazz and classical music now, after getting into band in high school.

Inthe 90s it was Grunge (fav rock genre) and Hip-Hop, the 2000s, R&B and rock, during Colledge got back into Grunge and grew into Jazz, in Uni i dabbled in Trip-hop, Acid Jazz and house, mainly subgenres.

Now?

Jazz (and all the subgenres and I include Blues), Alternative Rock, and Electronic music (House and similar genres).

I've always liked Classical, Funk, Heavy Metal and stuff but the above is my main interests.

My tastes were all over the place when I was younger, but these days I've refined my collection down to mainly synth wave, electronica, and trip hop. In fact, for the past year I've pretty much been listening to nothing but Perturbator. So good...

Elementary School- Linkin Park, Disturbed, really, really stupid shit

Middle School- Green Day, Fall Out Boy My Chemical Romance, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse (still my favorite band)

High School- Kanye West, E-40, Arcade Fire, Passion Pit, of Montreal, Vampire Weekend

College (now)- Exclusively Death Grips and Lil B

@theveteran13: That's a shame, but to each their own. I think Metallica songs are too long, and I get bored 3 minutes into them.

Why so much hate for them? Just not your cup of tea? I really don't get why people hate specific artists without any real reason.

I don't think I was into music before Middle School, which was about the time portable CD players became affordable where I live. I started out listening to whatever music came my way: Rock and Roll, mostly. I then slowly transition over to Pop-Rock and Punk (I think) over the next couple years. At the tail end of high school I discovered Metal and never turned back. My CD collection, iTunes library and all other audio mediums are stuffed full of every parent upsetting, child terrifying, obnoxiously loud, Metal song's I can find. The artist doesn't matter to me. All that matters is the sound, and it better be loud.

...I also enjoy a little bit of J-Pop from time to time...

I grew up in my pre-teen years mainly listening to my parent's records of The Beatles and the Ghostbusters OST along with an 8-track player that I think I had a single cassette which was the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack. I really loved blasting those speakers in the basement with Also Sprach Zarathustra by Strauss playing on repeat. My parents soon got rid of 8 track player needless to say. I later became more concious socially of what my friends were listening to and what was popular at the time. Ghostbusters 2 OST, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles OST, Snap and MC Hammer mainly comprised my first mix tape which had a lot recordings directly from the Canadian Mtv: "Much Music."

I joined Columbia House in my early teens and got a ton of music I soon realized I hated. I tried to get into hard rap with my first cassette being 2 Live Crew: Banned in the the USA. It was garbage and I quickly lost interest in rap as a genre(though I feigned interest in order to fit in with my friends) with a few exceptions(Dream Warriors, Souls of Mischief, Del, Beastie Boys) which I really loved later on. Nirvana hit it big and I was changed overnight when I saw them perform on SNL. I got into Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers and later in my teens devoutly followed Sonic Youth, Radiohead and a little Nine Inch Nails.

I then graduated highschool and left for college. It was then I stopped listening to major labels altogether with Sonic Youth and Radiohead being exceptions. I starting listening to dozens of indie bands that none of you have probably heard of(Canadian indie rock such as Treble Charger, Sloan, Triggerhappy, Punchbuggy, Smoother) and which I now often cringe of when I try to remember what they sound like. Anyway, being a contemptuous young hipster, I followed the trends of CMJ, NME, the local weeklies and early pitchforkmedia.com for about 10 years. I dabbled in Jazz, weird experimental Japanese stuff(Ground Zero), punk rock, retro 80's stuff etc.

I really started to tire of the predictable melodies and time changes associated with traditional rock and started to gravitate towards electronic music sometime during my hipster phase beginning with Aphex Twin and stuff by Ninja Tune and Warp. The Avalanches' "since I left you.."(still one of my all time favs) was the album that turned around my views of dance and pop music and what it could be when it was good (Daft Punk, Annie etc). Currently, I can't get enough of Burial, Glass Candy, Squarepusher, Clark, MOON(loved the Hotline Miami soundtrack!). I still love the Beatles and Stauss still gives my spine tingles when I hear it. Other than that, I could mercilessly leave all that other stuff behind and not think of it ever again. Also, classical music is called classical music for a reason, it will never die.

PS: I'm old

I went from David Hasselhof (hey, it was the 80's) to classic rock and metal bands like AC/DC, Sabbath and Priest to Slipknot and similar shit.

Some time later I went on to pretty much everything hardcore, which is where I'm still at mostly, aside from really learning to love the true greats like Springsteen (who is simply a god, when seen live) and Dylan.

In high school, I was way into pop punk, punk, and pop rock. It was right around the time that blink-182 and Linkin Park were all the rage. A whole lot of Taking Back Sunday, some Saosin, and for some reason Tupac.

Sometime in my early to mid twenties, I got way into classic rock, and just started appreciating it a lot more. Realized that Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were two of my favorite albums of all time, and that it's perfectly fine to like pop music. In general, I opened up more to everything. Except country. NEVER COUNTRY.

Now, I just try to get as much as I can! Of Monsters and Men, Pierce the Veil, Lady GaGa, Daft Punk, MOON, Kanye West, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Goo Goo Dolls, CHVRCHES, hell, I can jam to Ke$ha if I'm in the right mindset.

I recently charged up and plugged in an iPod Nano from several years back and I still like a good half of what's on there.

@noctisluciscaelum: We seem pretty similar, except I got more in Steve Wilson, Maynard James Keenan, and Trent Reznor that Radiohead.

Radiohead is awesome though.

@noctisluciscaelum: I had heard people talk about them like they were the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I went in expecting something fantastic instead what I got was the most milquetoast listening experience of my life.

*begin hyperbole* It made me want to kill myself, not because it stirred any emotions in me but because I was so bored listening to it *end hyperbole*

I've gone back several times over the years listening to different songs or albums and I just hated all of it. So to me Radiohead is the band that any time they are brought up in conversation I automatically just hear a giant fart noise in my head.

When I was really young I listened to almost nothing. Music wasn't really a thing I got into until I was... maybe 12? All I know is I found Neil Young, Joe Satriani, and Slayer songs on my dad's computer and was just completely blown away. After that I pretty much went down the standard metal track, getting more and more extreme until I realized a lot of what I was listening to was trash. I think it was around the time I was listening to DSBM albums that were only available on the internet around 2008 from websites that no longer exist. After that I got into a very, very long phase where I didn't listen to anything with standard melody/consonance.

I spent a lot of time listening to Axis of Perdition, Gorguts's Obscura, Nadja, Godflesh, and the like. Anything industrial, dark ambient, or just bizarre. That was around my senior year of high school, when I started dabbling in producing electronic music and was followed by a rediscovering of pop, dance, and everything else under those weird umbrellas. I've always had a soft spot for indie rock and acoustic rock, which just kinda came in as well. Now I have a monolithic list of Spotify playlists that house whatever nonsense I feel like listening to, ranging from shit like Deicide and Suffocation to Tommy Emmanuel, Prince, and Miami Nights 1984.

What I've learned over the years: listen to great music, whatever the hell genre it is.

Hmm, yes and no. The older I get, the more stuff I refused in my youthful ignorance appeals to me. In my preteen and early teenage years, I was mostly Top 40, in high school I was classic rock, in college it was all alternative with some punk mixed in. Also, my introduction to Jpop was back then. As an adult, I've learned I don't need to restrict myself to any one genre. I can freely enough everything from Buffalo Springfield's Mr. Soul to Perfume's Secret Secret. So, yes what I am open to has expanded over the years, but I haven't abandoned anything I loved long ago.

It's just become more inclusive. Around 8th grade I got out of just playing concert band music and exploring alternative. Eventually I got a guitar in high school and got into some metal. Which eventually led to just technical, virtuoso stuff during college.

Now I try to find something positive in just about everything. I can enjoy Gorguts, Norah Jones, Chopin, Glitch Mob, and video game music within the same car ride.

You and I are gonna be good friends.

Thanks for clarifying. Bummer you don't like them but I totally respect your reasons.

I don't think people should go around proclaiming (insert artist) as the best thing ever, because it never ends well. It usually ends up backfiring. Like I said before, I thought Radiohead was boring in high school, but nobody was hyping them as the best thing ever either. I just naturally started to appreciate their music as I got older. I went from banging my head to Atreyu's Bleeding Mascara to getting lost in Thom York's falsettos.

Well pretty much as when I was teen (I always liked Deftones for example , also classical , country , medieval , pop ,etc.) .. I still love metal to the core but now I listen to older heavy metal as well , also some rock from 60´s and 70´stuff too. I still hate Jazz, mariachi or any "latino" rythm/ music you can think of its like the most horrible thing ever produced to my poor ears :( and now I no longer listen to dance music (it was short lived anyway).

When I started getting seriously into music as an actual hobby I was one of those insufferable kids who only listens to classic rock. I was in that phase for a few years, and then I started expanding into modern stuff, particularly into indie rock/folk. I also listened to a bunch of extreme metal, like Necrophagist and Between the Buried and Me, so much so that I totally burned myself on that style and I can't really enjoy Death Metal and Metalcore and stuff like that anymore.

Starting around December 2012, my ears really started opening to more experimental/avant-garde type stuff, thanks to Can and early Animal Collective. Since then, I've just been amassing music from all genres and styles. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Kate Bush. She's one of the few pop acts in my library, and most if not all of the other ones produce a similar kind of arty, slightly obtuse variation on the verse-chorus-verse type of songwriting. I've also been digging into John Fahey, who developed this really cool bluesy folk music inspired by modern classical, and just makes his acoustic guitar sing so well. I've also found myself drawn to the early Detroit techno scene. Yesterday I just listened to this great compilation of Kevin Saunderson's work called Faces and Phases, which is a two hour compilation of various projects he was involved in during the birth of Techno music. Really great stuff. If I listen to metal, it's probably going to be Baroness or Electric Wizard or something else in the sludge/stoner spectrum, or maybe some drone stuff like Earth and Boris. I've also rekindled my love of Black Sabbath as well, so I've been listening to their Ozzy era stuff and I plan on digging into the modern Doom metal that they inspired.

I used to listen to like 'punk' and 'emo' stuff I guess... like My Chemical Romance, Fall out Boy, Sum 41, Panic at the Disco but I also liked rock bands like Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Strokes. Now I absolutely do not like the punk and emo stuff at all. It makes me cringe when I hear it and think about how I used to listen to it.

I'm way into Queens of the Stone Age and related bands now. I also listen to some metal and really like psychedelic rock. I listen to jazz and the blues on occasion and enjoy rap, although I don't listen to it a lot.

oldies > rock > punk > metal > techno > jambands > Umphrey's McGee

The past 6 years, all I really listen to now is Umphrey's McGee. They have managed to give me everything I want from music, and continue to surprise me. Improvisation and constant unique live shows always brings new emotions and experiences. I love a lot of video game music, but have never rally listened to it outside of video games.

People still like Radiohead? What is this, 2007?

Basically my taste has just evolved, except for that I don't like almost all the metal I used to like. I liked to listen to straight up Nu-Metal type of metal and now just don't at all. Even a lot of the black and death metal I used to. Have a few metal bands I still like (Agalloch is even better to me, one of my favorite bands).

Otherwise got really into Soul, R & B, and Jazz (a lot at first from finding the original music that was sampled in Hip-Hop) and otherwise continue to listen to Hip-Hop and Rock music.

People still like hating Radiohead? What is this, 2014?

its only grown broader and more diverse. I still like all the stuff i liked when i was a teenager.

i still very much enjoy a nicely done guitar solo/riff, but the screaming i used to listen to when i was a teenager i could live without.

OK Computer.

For the most part I listened to hip hop mainstream / underground specifically. I'm from Seattle so growing up was very much into the rap scene here with Blue Scholars and yeah even Macklemore before he hit it big. As I've aged my taste in music has changed and probably listen to rock and electronica music more than ever. While I still like some of the new stuff I've grown a real deep appreciation and fondness for Otis Redding, usually got that waking up in the morning.

I listen to less than I ever did before, and I barely listened to it when I was younger. I can't remember the last time I intentionally listened to modern music, outside of a video game.

For much of my teenage years my music tastes were limited to hip-hop and shitty rock music. Some bands have stuck with me from my early music listening years to now - I still think Thrice's Vheissu and At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command are two of the greatest albums ever made - but I experienced a huge change around 18 years old when I got into more alternative stuff and more older stuff (this was my prog era, led by Pink Floyd (old) and The Mars Volta (new), but it's also when I first listened to Radiohead, Bjork, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, all of which continue to be hugely important to me). It was around age 20 that I really started getting into classical music, and I got into jazz a little later than that. Beethoven's piano sonatas and Chopin's nocturnes were my formative classical experiences, and John Coltrane's Blue Train and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady were my formative jazz experiences.

I never "grew out" of liking emo/screamo/punk/metal, and in some ways I like it more now than I ever did - bands like Underoath, Fugazi, and Thursday are still super important to me, and recently I've gotten into Cave In and Converge in a big way - but I've broadened my horizons significantly since my teenage years, and I'm generally much more open-minded about music, and appreciative of music that isn't necessarily in my wheelhouse. I even still listen to a bit of hip-hop here and there - Nas was always my favourite.

To be fair, The King of Limbs was super disappointing, and in 13 years they still haven't topped Kid A, but goddamn In Rainbows was awesome. They're also still one of the best live bands you could ever hope to see.

I'm fortunate to want the same things a lot of artists are wanting these days: more bass, more glitchy noise, more vocal distortion.

It was only 3 or 4 years ago that seeking out any sort of electronic music first occurred to me. That, plus realizing I loved rap and a specific subset of metal, all happened solely because I started using Pandora. I don't think I liked kinds of music before then, only songs and a few artists that I encountered.

On the subject of Radiohead, I heard a lot of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac when they came out, but I only started liking them just a few years ago. So, not long after their current music became a stuffy self-indulgent bore.

It's gotten weirder.

From good to better.

I haven't loved all their albums, but they have great ones (I really like Kid A too). I just don't get the hate.

I went from Avril Lavigne (in my defence, only the first two albums) to Death, over the course of 7 years or so. I barely listen to music nowadays; I usually listen to less demanding stuff, Classical music for the most part.

Well, I got into metal at a pretty young age. In elementary and middle school, I liked what was popular because I didn't know how to find anything else at the time. So, a lot of Disturbed, Slipknot, and the like. I was always looking for something and heavier and heavier though, not really caring about other aspects of the music. As I got older, I started to appreciate melody a lot more, which opened the floodgates and ended up with me listening to bands I never thought I'd be listening to. I didn't really care for Deftones the first time I heard them, but now they're one of my favorite bands. At the same time, I was also discovering more extreme types of metal and was constantly searching out new bands to check out based on what I already liked. Then I started playing guitar and that got me to appreciate music in a whole new light. I began to hear music in different ways and payed attention to each instrument individually as well as what they were all doing together.

Basically my tastes branched out in two different directions at once, my love of metal and urge to discover more in the genre, and my love for beautiful melodies that ingrain themselves in your head. Eventually these converged with finding bands like Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, and Scar Symmetry. I'm still expanding my horizons and finding new stuff today, more than ever most likely. 8 or 9 years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to appreciate a band like Agalloch, but today I fucking adore them. What I love about metal is that it's the most diverse genre in all of music and has so much to offer.

These days I enjoy a lot of different music, as long as it's honest and well-written and not manufactured dogshit. I like the wide spectrum of metal, thrash, death, melo-death, metalcore, alt metal, progressive, djent, groove, a little black, as well as hard rock, blues rock, and just good old fashioned rock n' roll. I also like more ambient and melodic electronic music, as well as a little bit of rap here and there, depending on who does it.

I think I had the pretty common "broadening of tastes" thing as I went through my late teens and up to to now. In secondary school I'd listen to MCR, Foo Fighters, Blink 182, Green Day, and similar bands. Some of those bands I've left behind, but some of them I haven't. I still really love the Foo Fighters above a lot of other artists and rock has remained first and foremost my favourite genre. I've gotten more into classical music, pop, electronic music, and a some other stuff though, as well as quite a few artists that were significantly before my time and I've been way better off for it.

A few years ago, it was older stuff, 60s, 70s, 80s. The popular stuff from back then. Then I got into a little bit of rap--nothing too much though, I still don't like most rap. Now i'm into dubstep, chillstep, drumstep, etc.

Started with basic grunge stuff as it was what my Dad and brother listened to mostly, then went through the obligatory Linkin Park stage when I was 12ish. Still love me some grunge and also modern alt rock but a few years ago my adventure into metal began and I've been building a larger collection of that. Been slowly getting into some rap too through work as my coworkers usually play it while closing.

Overall I have a fairly wide range of stuff though most of it would overall be classified as Rock. I have chill west coast stonery kind of music like Daniel Wesley, super fuzzy stoner rock like We Hunt Buffalo and Red Fang, both classic and modern grunge (look up the Vancouver band War Baby for an awesome modern grunge band), Pop-Rock stuff like Franz Ferdinand, Crazy Scandinavian Melodic Death Metal like Wintersun and In Vain, Prog Metal like Tool and Mastodon, Post Metal/Rock like Pelican and Baroness, a little jazz fusion from Guthrie Govan, and Canadian Folk Rocky stuff like Neil Young and The Tragically Hip. Just getting into a little bit of rap though mostly only through having it on in the background at work, stuff that I have in my collection is RATM (may be rock backing but still rapping), Beastie Boys cause I'm super white, and Eric B and Rakim.

When I was 4 I was luckily introduced to hair rock / metal / beastie boys. 7 or so years later I then stole a couple tapes from a neighbor down the street where I found Metallicas albums , Nirvana, Alice N Chains, Tool, SOAD, Pantera.. then quickly got a CD player and started my NIN, ministry, and random bands from Target journey. I got into hip hop and gangster rap followed by creating dark drone type music, nu metal was next on the menu followed by Dubstep / oldies / metal core / death core / death metal / grind / doom / tech death... etc. Its been quite the experience but wouldn't trade it for anything.