Broadly speaking, there’s two types of music fan. There’s those who buy new albums and singles as they come out, and as they are exposed to them. These people generally speaking only have contemporary artists, but they may on occasion buy something from an artist’s back catalogue if they really like them. The second type is the musical researcher. They’ll hear something, then go find out about it, and go off on tangents. They like to work backwards, and pick up on older stuff. Before long they’ve got some obscure album, and are digging around after a random track. I fall into the latter group.
I think too many people today are relying on contemporary music, without realising where it’s roots lie. Recent punk bands like Green Day, Rancid or The Offspring have their roots in 80s bands like The Clash and The Sex Pistols. Modern metal bands look to Metallica. Even these older bands cite earlier artists as an influence on their music.
I’ve recently been listening to some Eagles stuff, and going back through Weezer’s back catalogue of albums. I find it quite fun to drill into a band’s history, find their solo stuff (sometimes go get odd tracks from iTunes) and just generally go mad with stuff. There’s a whole world of music out there which is probably forgotten about to most people as they just hear a band’s hits, or the more popular songs. I think that’s a shame.
I’ve always avoided what I consider to be the biggest musical cliché – The Beatles. Yes, it’s true they churned out a lot of good music over their career, but there’s so many other bands and artists who are just ignored or not considered when it comes to citing influences. I try to vary my own musical tastes. I’ve got stuff from Hip-hop, Metal, Jazz, Blues, Country, Folk, Pop, Dance, Funk – pretty much most styles I think. All music is good music, no matter how ‘bad’ you might think a song is, somebody out there will like it.
If you’ve read this far and are still wondering what point I’m trying to make – it’s this: go vary your musical tastes. Don’t be afraid to listen to different things and try new things. The worst thing you can do is pigeon-hole your tastes.
