On discovering my "ur-music"

[yaoobruni]

iTunes keeps track of how many times I play a song, letting me discover that my favorite tracks have been aired 60, 80, 100 times. The most popular song on my playlist - "Einstein's Day" by the immortal Mission of Burma has graced my earphones 147 times

Comments

[the_star_fish]

If I weren't going to osirusbrisbane's for tea in about an hour, I'd be on my way over with some Jameson's ... I've really only heard one Pogue's song, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God", and that only because a friend made a Boondock Saints vid using it (which you may have seen already, as it's on the VividCon DVDs) but they're certainly infectious.

If I name the Beatles, am I trite? They're certainly one of the first bands I remember spending money on ... and I've never once not wanted to listen to one of their songs.

[kassrachel]

The tapes I listened to until they wore thin, as an adolescent: most of James Taylor's oeuvre, especially Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (which I still regard as his best album; it's the one I'm likeliest to listen to now), Suzanne Vega's Suzanne Vega, Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends. A little later those were joined by Guns n'Roses' Appetite for Destruction and the Indigo Girls' debut album and Sting's Dream of the Blue TurtlesThe first three, the oldschool folky ones, are all albums I owned first on vinyl and then on cassette. And in their vinyl incarnations, I got them all from my sister and the youngest of my older brothers. I remember that kind of obsessive listening -- again and again and again, in part because I only owned so many tapes, and in part because there was something important about the repeated listenings. I remember a time in my life when every experience had a James Taylor quote to match it -- my journal entries from the ages of eleven through fourteen probably reflect that

[ellinor]

I remember the first time I heard the Pogues - it was when they appeared on Saturday Night Live and I was agape that this band existed, and I was broken from my fascination by Dennis Miller saying something along the lines of "now there are some inspired lyrics." They're not an ur-band for me, but I sure understand how they would be.

For me? hmm. A mix as eclectic as my current taste, no surprise. My junior high/high school playlist was absolutely constant and a bit strange. Alphaville's Forever Young was probably my first infinite-repeat album, and I think the only one I burned out the tape on. Then they come in a big flood that, in retrospect, seems instantaneous but - given the release dates - must have happened over several years. They Might Be Giants' Lincoln; Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway; The Indigo Girls; Van Halen's OU812; Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Firebird Overtures; 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe; Yes's 90125; Erasure's The Innocents; The Violent Femmes; Depeche Mode's Music For The Masses; REM's Document

[woobat]

I was a big reader of "Sassy" magazine back in junior high, and they were big fans of alternative pop like R.E.M. and the B-52's. R.E.M's "Green" and the B-52's "Cosmic Thing" were the tapes that I listened to over and over. My brother also introduced me to Jane's Addiction (their self titled album), though I think that was more in high school. And my folks listened pretty exclusively to The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, so I have a wicked soft spot for folk.

Sooooooo jealous that you got to see the Pogues.

[magdalene1]

The Pogues are one of my ur-bands, too. And also that Suzanne Vega album and the Dream of the Blue Turtles and Peter Gabriel's So and Jeff Buckley's Grace and everything by Stevie Wonder and all the old Motown and Johnny Cash that my dad played all the time when I was a kid and also Jesus Christ Superstar, the theatre recording in the brown sleeve, on vinyl, played loudly on Good Friday in my home every year.

If I ever get hitched I want to walk down the aisle to Fairytale of New York.