How did you all get started?

Kyle Jackson54 said:And honestly, when you base everything on whether someone likes metal or not, that kind of hatred just spreads like wildfire through dry grass. Except maybe this grass was already soaked in gasoline.

I’ve got a bad feeling that we’re only going to make this massive divide even deeper by just deleting threads like "METAL FAN MILE KITTY!!!!!!!!!" 😢 instead of actually dealing with it.

By the time I finally make it over to Interflex, it’s like everything they wrote has become totally illegible. 😢

Honestly, I didn't listen to anything until the 7th grade. I was pretty disillusioned with whatever pop or love songs were playing on the radio back then. Then, Hit Depo and MTV stepped in and basically saved my life.
Phase 1: 7th Grade—Total fanboy era. It was all about Red Hot Chili Peppers. Before that, I liked them a bit, but I wasn't really listening to stuff like Scooter or Daft Punk.

Phase 2: Early High School—Along with the Peppers, I started diving into a trio of influences: Metallica, Nirvana, and Guns N' Roses (with a little AC/DC mixed in).

Phase 3: Late High School—The expansion phase. I really started broadening my horizons within rock and metal. I moved into Queens of the Stone Age, Alice in Chains, Tool, Pantera, Apocalyptica, Velvet Revolver, Rage Against the Machine, and System of a Down... just about everything, plus a touch of Depeche Mode.

Phase 4: College through today—The horizons kept expanding. I got into A Perfect Circle, Kyuss, and The Strokes. Looking back at the classics, I’ve always held Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath in higher regard than Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. From there, it was John Frusciante, Muse, Melvins, Nine Inch Nails, and some progressive metal like Mastodon and Tool. Then I branched into electronic music—Depeche Mode, Dave Gahan, Daft Punk, The Prodigy, Moby... essentially, if it’s high quality, I'm in.

I haven't stopped listening to any of this since I first discovered it (except for Guns N' Roses), and I take real pride in my taste🙂 because I never once fell for the nu-metal craze like Slipknot, Korn, or Linkin Park.

In middle school, we were all blasting Oasis 😍 and some dirty punk bands, just like any other suburban kid. 😬 Then high school hit, a friend shoved some punk tapes like The Exploited into my rotation, and everything just went to hell. 😁

So, I was just thinking about how much everything changes once you finish elementary school... 😍 🙏

this topic is wild, honestly

placidlynx23 🙏

gentlepuma20 🙏🙏

Kyle Jackson54 🙏🙏🙏

Samuel Murphy6 🙏🙏🤣

man, I don't even want to start listing everything that actually made me happy growing up.

I started out with Nirvana. My brother brought them home, I liked it, and that was that—me, thirteen years old, just nodding my head along. I was basically a hardcore grunge kid who didn't know a damn thing about music, but hey, I had the flannel shirts and the greasy hair down to a science.

Then later, during high school, all kinds of stuff started trickling in from everywhere. It was a total mess, really. Body Count, Lagwagon, NOFX, Beastie Boys, Therapy?, The Offspring, Radiohead, Clawfinger, The Cure, Eels (seriously!), Bad Religion, Pulp... I was listening to everything. It was kind of a revelation, realizing there was actually music out there where the guitars weren't constantly screaming in your face—or, god forbid, didn't exist at all.

Even now, I still dive deep into the grunge stuff quite a bit—though, I guess people seem to be vibing more with Smashing Pumpkins lately and less with Stone Temple Pilots 🙂 plus those local bands I mentioned earlier.

Then came college. A little bit of The Clash, then an Idles and Bob Marley phase that eventually bled into Belle & Sebastian, and then a total obsession with The Smiths.

After that, it was just pure eclecticism—Soulseek, Pitchfork, random blogs, whatever else you could find on the internet back then.

(even if B&S is still my favorite band in the world, and Stuart's work on Dark Was the Night is just... something else entirely)

I first got into the Backstreet Boys back in the 90s... at the time I was living in Germany where they were an absolute sensation everywhere... then towards the end of the decade I moved back home to the States... and that's when I started listening to Eminem.... back then everyone at school and in the local hangouts was constantly talking about him... girls thought he was this sweet, sexy icon while guys just respected him because his tracks actually went hard... so I figured I’d see what all the fuss was about and picked up a few of those greatest hits compilations.... and I really appreciated how every single song felt like its own distinct story, especially with the beats... they were musically composed and layered rather than just some monotonous three-minute loop of the same tone... after that, I started downloading music videos... which honestly made the whole experience even better. Then Em kind of faded out of the spotlight and with the whole 50 Cent era and all those other new talents coming up, nothing really grabbed my attention... so I eventually transitioned into Linkin Park—who, in my opinion, are nothing short of phenomenal... just that perfect intersection of melody, lyrical depth, live energy, technology, and pure creativity... since then I've drifted through all sorts of genres, but whenever someone asks me what I'm into these days, I usually just say Hip Hop Rock..... and if we're talking about American artists, I can't really bypass Din Din.

as far as current stuff goes, I don't think Connect is bad at all...... and then there's that kid Berny, who I find pretty interesting..... total legends...

Kyle Jackson54 said:Pop is actually better than
Metallica
... **

But honestly, when people finally ditch their heavy stuff for pop, you can almost hear everyone saying they’ve finally grown up and found some sense... 🙂
though what really gets to me is watching those "hardcore" metalheads or punks suddenly make the switch over to catchy pop tunes... 😂 so yeah, basically moving from 🤮Metallica🙂 straight to pop... 😱

Elementary school favorites included Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, and Metallica.
High school years were defined by listening to Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Stryper, Misfits, Sex Pistols, Helloween, Stratovarius, L.A. Guns, Mötley Crüe, Rage Against the Machine, and Burning Souls.

My all-time favorites... spanning everything from the early days of the presidency to modern times:

ABBA -> Ramones -> The Stooges -> Joy Division -> Sonic Youth -> Gun Club -> The Cramps -> Back from the Grave 1 - 165 -> Dead Moon

Kyle Wilson74 said:therapy?

Auuu, such an important high school band! I used to listen to Troublegum all the time—I still remember every single lyric😍

i know where you live
and i know you're on your own

🙂

Another embarrassing fact... I didn't really discover Nirvana until maybe... I don't know, my early twenties

Karen Roberts32 said:When they show up to a Metallica show with their little drum kits... honestly, it’s almost impressive how much nerve some people have.

Karen Roberts32 As if I haven't heard this all before, because apparently, we're just going to sit here and pretend that what was said actually carries any weight.
Those "exemplary" metalheads, punks, and all that crowd—you should see the look on their faces once they actually stumble into a drug den.

Are there actually people like that out there? 🤔
I honestly can't think of a single "musical" convert to my way of thinking... at least not one who underwent a truly radical, total personality transplant like that. And don't even get me started on those people who just listen to both genres simultaneously; that doesn't count as a conversion, it's just being indecisive.🙂).

gentlepuma20 said:Just another embarrassing truth... I didn't actually stumble upon Nirvana until I was, what, maybe twenty?

Personally, I think it’s for the best. After twelve years of staying away from Nirvana, I can listen to them now—fully conscious and with a clear head—and tell you that you just aren't ready for this music when you're a kid. It all turns into a cheap act, a performance. But with Nirvana, it's never about the act.

Hey, how are things going with the legend himself? 🙂

gentlepuma20 said:Auuu, what a massive high school band! I used to worship Troublegum—I still know every single lyric by heart. 😍

i know where you live
and i know you're on your own

🙂

Another embarrassing truth... I didn't even really discover Nirvana until, I don't know... maybe my early twenties?

I honestly know all the lyrics from every album up through Shameless.

☕

Therapy? Absolute legends. Saw them live a couple of years back (?), Pišta put it together, 🙄 and man, they were so good—it was such a total flashback moment.

The essentials: Britney, Shakira, Eminem, Green Day 🙈
The middle ground: Honestly, I can't pick just one—I listen to pretty much anything, provided it isn't the stuff listed above or some mindless pop trash

It started out with those rare, legitimate rockers—you know, the Rockers from the Mississippi. Then I ended up trading my buddy's old cassette box just to score five tubes of that Tiger glue from Pirot, and that’s when I stumbled onto Slayer Satan and S. o. d. But then? Everything just went to hell. We moved into the era of CDs (which, honestly, I still recommend) and all that mindless noise, and well... now everything is just 🙂

It all started with nirvana back when I was a kid. 🙂 These days, I mostly stick to 60s and 70s rock, or maybe some modern alternative.

My musical journey is pretty much on the same track as Budjet's, except I wasn't busy counting radio hits or TV rotations. Instead, I was obsessed with tracking player stats for the Los Angeles Dodgers (back when we were glued to the TV watching legends like Jackie Robinson or Sandy Koufax). The moment that actually changed everything for me was discovering Radiohead. Back then, I was working at a fish cannery during the summer just to scrape together some cash to spend on original cassette tapes—I've still got about a hundred of them sitting at my place in Florida. One day, while visiting family in Miami, I saw this list in a high school newsletter written by some smart kid ranking the greatest albums of all time. At the top was Aphex Twin. I honestly thought it was some weird techno stuff, and I hated techno because I was strictly into Metallica, AC/DC, Queen, and Hendrix. Still, I decided to buy it just to see what the fuss was about. Once I listened to it, I realized I hadn't even truly heard any of the other seven tapes I'd bought that day...
And that’s how it all kicked off. I started buying Discmen and hunting down lyrics for Mogwai or Belle & Sebastian—stuff you couldn't find in the local shops in Florida, let alone downtown Miami. But I did manage to pick up Primal Scream's *Exterminator*, which is what really pulled me toward electronic music. Then, once I started college, I met Marina and then Karl, who basically introduced me to everything I ever wanted to hear and then some. Before long, my playlist went from indie to metal, hip-hop, and experimental stuff. Then the internet hit the dorms, and suddenly I was downloading 40 albums a day via Napster, and well, that led me straight to the beautiful mess I'm in today.

Just a side note, from nirvana until I was 17, the only thing I ever heard from them was the MTV Unplugged session, which I thought was amazing. Then, on a school trip to Jersey, I met some really cool high school girls (who Victor eventually managed to drive away with his sheer stupidity), and they let me listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I popped it into my Walkman and was just like, "What the hell is this?" It was way too noisy. But a few months later, it clicked, and I decided nirvana was the greatest band ever (right after Radiohead, obviously).