| Author | Message | ||
     Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 137 Registered: 03-2005 |
Following up on Padraig's suggestion, here's my public confession of some of the embarrassing music I used to love: 1. Mellotron-era Moody Blues. When I was in my early teens, I thought the Justin Hayward Moodies were the gold standard in musical sophistication. Listening to them now, they just sound impossibly self-important and unintentionally camp. 2. Ten Years After. I had a big British blues period which took me from fairly acceptable types like John Mayall to the sometimes-good Savoy Brown all the way to the embarrassing ego-smattering of Alvin Lee in his band Ten Years After. I bought at least five TYA albums before I got a clue. 3. Moving forward about ten years, I became quite the Lene Lovich fan attending a few of her shows here in Los Angeles as well as buying her Les Chappell era albums. Probably a lot of us fell under the Lovich/Chappell spell. Try listening to them today. 4. Another embarrassing flash in the pan was Adam & the Ants. "Kings of the Wild Frontier" held such a high position in my esteem when it was new that I used a portion of one of their songs on my answering machine (remember those?) In the category of guilty pleasures I will still indulge in now and then I must number the Sweet whose appalling "Fox on the Run" is like Tootsie Rolls for me: I can't stop eating them but they make me sick to my stomach. And, yes, I too will occasionally pull out a little Hawkwind for that slack jawed buzz. And then there are the guilty pleasures that end up being vindicated. I was ten years old when the first Monkees single hit the radio waves and I loved them from the get-go. I distinctly remember buying a very good Australian anthology of them at a tragically cool record store in West Los Angeles in the late 1970s. It included some tracks I'd never found elsewhere so I wanted it really badly. I had to steel my nerves to go up to the cash register and face the expected ridicule. I masked my shameful intentions by also buying something I perceived to be more socially acceptable, but I can't remember what that was. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 137 Registered: 05-2005 |
12 Gold Bars, Status Quo's best of. I bought it in a Euromarche department store in some Paris suburb when I was 14. (The next counter along sold guns, which was definitely bad news for Judas Priest fans). I loved 12 Gold Bars for at least several months. Mercifully it was on cassette. So when people ask what was the first record I ever bought I can truthfully tell them that it was The Jam's Absolute Beginners 7". But now my dirty secret is out I can't hide behind semantics anymore (though I'll try). The Quo are not cool. Never were. The Jam are always cool. | ||
| Graham Twyford Member Username: Graham_twyford Post Number: 29 Registered: 05-2005 |
Well I reckon I can take the biscuit here. My first 'gig' was Chris de Burgh at the RDS in Dublin in 1987. I was only 11 and went with my best friend and his parents. For Chris de Burgh connoisseurs it was the 'Into the Light' tour. To this day I still have a soft spot for songs like 'Fire on the Wall', 'Fatal Hesitation' and 'Borderline'. This doesn't stretch to 'Lady In Red' I'm happy to confess. The first 3 albums I properly bought myself were 'Missing You' (a love songs compilation), 'Joyride' by Roxette and... 'Murmur' by REM. Not hard to guess which one of those albums turned my world and musical tastes upside down. Still have affection for a lot of Roxette stuff though...help!! | ||
| Duncan Hurwood Member Username: Duncan_h Post Number: 32 Registered: 05-2005 |
I once saw Simply Red supporting UB40. Beat that. But I tried, with Status Quo supporting Queen. And also, Sting, and Dire Straits. All in the mid 1980s. | ||
| Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 49 Registered: 05-2005 |
When I started becoming interested in music, I was all over the map. My frist couple of purchases were Bruce Springsteen "Born in the USA" and Van Halen's "1984". I went on to buy the rest of the Van Halen catalog and then the Clash's starting with Combat Rock and going back. And then early U2 Under a Blood Red Sky and the Unforgettable Fire. Later I discovered New Wave or Alternate music was really the core of my musical taste. And got into the Smiths, Cure, New Order, Echo, Cult, etc. There was a period just prior that is most embarrassing but, like several have said here, was a phase and thankfully brief. At 12 or 13 I thought bands like the Meatmen and S.O.D. (that's right Stormtroopers of Death) were hilarious with their brash shocking lyrics. One memorable song by the Meatmen was "Tooling for Anus." I'm ashamed to admit that I remember crank calling people and playing bits from that record. 12 year old mentality. | ||
| abigail law Member Username: Abigail Post Number: 26 Registered: 06-2005 |
Embarrassing musical tastes are a strange thing. I recall being a young indie kid in the early 90s and enjoying things like the levellers, the manic street preachers, nirvana, the wonderstuff and (shame of shame) carter the unstoppable sex machine, none of which I can bare to listen to now. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 116 Registered: 04-2005 |
I won't restate the shameful albums I wrote about in the other thread, but the most embarrassing concerts I attended were the Jefferson Starship in '76 and the Police/the Knack ("My Sharona") in '78 or '79. Oh, and the Kinks in '80, after they'd become a lame self-parody, cranking out cover versions of others' Kinks covers (a Van Halen-ish "You Really Got Me," a Jam-knockoff "David Watts," etc.). | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 67 Registered: 05-2005 |
Abigail - you cant bare to listen to Nirvana? In Utero is one of the best albums of the last 20 years. Now,(most of)Nevermind and the other bands you mention, well I can see your point lol | ||
| Matt Ellis Member Username: Matt_ellis Post Number: 43 Registered: 11-2004 |
I hear that Abigail! Musical tastes are a strange thing: My first record was 'Music by The Kids From Fame' The first bunch of cassettes I ever bought (at age 13) were either 'Breakdance' music or early 80's House. I then found a shoddy copied cassette of what I later discovered was Queen's 'Greatest Hits' discarded in a car park.... For my 16th Birthday I bought the Queen back catalogue....I type this whilst listening to Rival Schools (US hardcore-indie)... I'm not sure what happened, although I still love Queen. First gig I attended was Bryan Adams supported by Pretenders, Jimmy Barnes and others in Gateshead 1994. My mate won free tickets :-( Although I like to pretend that my first gig was R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia 1980. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 38 Registered: 05-2005 |
I loved Suzie Quatro and all of those early singles when I was about 9. I have to admit that Suzie was also the first gig I attended, with my older sister and her friends, for my tenth birthday. It was at the Hordern Pavillion (that I last frequented to see Beck!)and despite all the no smoking signs, everyone was choofing. I spent a good deal of the gig outside spewing from the smoke!!! The place was FULL of bikies as they had royally escorted her from the airport. A memorable gig!!! I lasted 3 albums with Suzie and then discovered the Beatles. The rest is history.......... | ||
| Peter Collins Member Username: Tyroneshoelaces Post Number: 55 Registered: 05-2005 |
I'm proud to say that my first two singles were Monster Mash by Bobby 'Boris' Picket and the Crypt Kickers and Snoopy vs the Red Baron by The Hotshots. And the first lp I bought was, creditably, a greatest hits by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. However, I later got into appalling stuff like the Scorpions - I can't imagine listening to one song by such a band these days |