A Late Night Personal Music-Related Rant
It's such a weird feeling to be experiencing the heavy metal revolution displaced both in time and space. Looking to my playlists the past few days I come to the conclusion that I'm having fun like a kid listening to the first few Maiden albums. I feel the sheer power and open-heartedness of Maiden's debut album as if it came out yesterday and I go delirious with the riffing of Hallowed Be Thy Name or Revelations just to name a couple. This means, like I said, that I'm lagging both in the space (I'm not in England or the States) and time (almost 30 years too late) continuum. But you know what? I couldn't care less! This is the magic and beauty of music, especially the kind that passes the test of time, as Maiden's clearly does.
I'm now 21 and I've been into a lot of different music styles in my yet short life. We all know we're very much influenced by our surroundings, the people we deal with, etc.. I think my very first influences came from the punk-ish field, with albums like Green Day's Dookie and Offspring's Smash (sorry I'm too young to have gone through all the Clash/Sex Pistols revolution, yes I know I got the shitty punk, hell it's not even punk! I know!) influencing me no end. Those first few bass chords from "Bad Habit" still give me goosebumps and I'll never forget how they kickstarted their show in Portugal (Feb 2001) with them.
Then there was this short spell (say, a couple of years) where dance music dominated my world. Some would say I was getting kinda lost and I probably was indeed. I got off of it but I guess shades of it still sticked in my mind and that's probably why I enjoy electronic music so much. From those times I still keep a few albums hidden out of sight as I try to forget the act of buying them. I don't want to offend anyone who's into that stuff but it simply isn't part of who I am.
I also don't pretend to say that right now I've attained musical nirvana or anything like that. I'm pretty sure we're all evolving all the time and I'm absolutely no exception to this rule. But onwards with this short trip down Memory Lane...
So after all the dance crazy shit I got into the alternative pop/rock kind of stuff. Even if nowadays I only listen to a few selected records from that era, I still have a profound respect for all the bands that do it. This was the way I got to know awesome acts like Pavement, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Tindersticks and oh so many others not to mention getting into Radiohead, Jeff Buckley or Nick Cave. I still love to listen to all these, by the way. I guess the byproduct of all these changes in style (and keeping things from one phase to the next) have helped me have this really big spectrum of tastes and the enjoyment in listening to new stuff. Basically, I'm on a never ending quest for new stuff, new sounds, new music. I keep buying and downloading music. I got addicted but guess what, I don't really want to stop. I've come to know awesome bands I wouldn't otherwise, so that makes me happy.
This lasted again for a couple of years and then it was time for the current phase: metal and all related styles. Again, I don't think I found "home" but I feel it's very close. This is the kind of sound I've been craving for all these years but hadn't found yet because the context was not really appropriate. Now I guess I've just been catching up with all the metal revolution both past and present and it's gonna take me a while.
At the same time, some inclination towards jazz and old progressive rock has been growing in me. I've really been into most of the great jazz masters (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, to name a few) and also some more contemporary stuff like Esbjorn Svensson Trio (heads up to itsari on this one!). On the prog rock side of things, I really do think Camel were an amazing band, at least in the beginning, and I must thank the great Mikael Akerfeldt for turning me to them. Thanks Mike! And keep up with all the great music.
When all's said and done, right now, if I had to name the top 10 bands of my life, hard as it were, here they are, in no particular order (except for Nirvana which will always be Number One):
- Nirvana
- Pink Floyd
- Green Day
- Offspring
- Opeth
- Tool
- Dream Theater
- Within Temptation
- The Gathering
- Queen
With Camel, Iron Maiden, Devin Townsend, Queens of the Stone Age, Porcupine Tree, A Perfect Circle, Dark Tranquility, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pavement, Men At Work, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Stratovarius, Jag Panzer, Entwine, Evergrey, Mastodon, Fates Warning, Queensryche and thousands of others playing a very important role.
OK, this is probably the crappiest rant of my life and it probably looks like I'm drunk. But that's fine.
I'm now 21 and I've been into a lot of different music styles in my yet short life. We all know we're very much influenced by our surroundings, the people we deal with, etc.. I think my very first influences came from the punk-ish field, with albums like Green Day's Dookie and Offspring's Smash (sorry I'm too young to have gone through all the Clash/Sex Pistols revolution, yes I know I got the shitty punk, hell it's not even punk! I know!) influencing me no end. Those first few bass chords from "Bad Habit" still give me goosebumps and I'll never forget how they kickstarted their show in Portugal (Feb 2001) with them.
Then there was this short spell (say, a couple of years) where dance music dominated my world. Some would say I was getting kinda lost and I probably was indeed. I got off of it but I guess shades of it still sticked in my mind and that's probably why I enjoy electronic music so much. From those times I still keep a few albums hidden out of sight as I try to forget the act of buying them. I don't want to offend anyone who's into that stuff but it simply isn't part of who I am.
I also don't pretend to say that right now I've attained musical nirvana or anything like that. I'm pretty sure we're all evolving all the time and I'm absolutely no exception to this rule. But onwards with this short trip down Memory Lane...
So after all the dance crazy shit I got into the alternative pop/rock kind of stuff. Even if nowadays I only listen to a few selected records from that era, I still have a profound respect for all the bands that do it. This was the way I got to know awesome acts like Pavement, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Tindersticks and oh so many others not to mention getting into Radiohead, Jeff Buckley or Nick Cave. I still love to listen to all these, by the way. I guess the byproduct of all these changes in style (and keeping things from one phase to the next) have helped me have this really big spectrum of tastes and the enjoyment in listening to new stuff. Basically, I'm on a never ending quest for new stuff, new sounds, new music. I keep buying and downloading music. I got addicted but guess what, I don't really want to stop. I've come to know awesome bands I wouldn't otherwise, so that makes me happy.
This lasted again for a couple of years and then it was time for the current phase: metal and all related styles. Again, I don't think I found "home" but I feel it's very close. This is the kind of sound I've been craving for all these years but hadn't found yet because the context was not really appropriate. Now I guess I've just been catching up with all the metal revolution both past and present and it's gonna take me a while.
At the same time, some inclination towards jazz and old progressive rock has been growing in me. I've really been into most of the great jazz masters (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, to name a few) and also some more contemporary stuff like Esbjorn Svensson Trio (heads up to itsari on this one!). On the prog rock side of things, I really do think Camel were an amazing band, at least in the beginning, and I must thank the great Mikael Akerfeldt for turning me to them. Thanks Mike! And keep up with all the great music.
When all's said and done, right now, if I had to name the top 10 bands of my life, hard as it were, here they are, in no particular order (except for Nirvana which will always be Number One):
- Nirvana
- Pink Floyd
- Green Day
- Offspring
- Opeth
- Tool
- Dream Theater
- Within Temptation
- The Gathering
- Queen
With Camel, Iron Maiden, Devin Townsend, Queens of the Stone Age, Porcupine Tree, A Perfect Circle, Dark Tranquility, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pavement, Men At Work, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Stratovarius, Jag Panzer, Entwine, Evergrey, Mastodon, Fates Warning, Queensryche and thousands of others playing a very important role.
OK, this is probably the crappiest rant of my life and it probably looks like I'm drunk. But that's fine.
