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[teh pwn queen]

When I was a kid, I listened to whatever my parents listened to.  With my dad it was his classic rock (some of it not so classic at the time) mix tapes (it had stuff like ZZ Top, Supertramp, Queen, cool stuff like that) and my mom's country and pop radio stations.
It was my dad who really got me into music.
Between the ages of 10-14 I was the biggest No Doubt fan. But at that time I was also listented to a vast amount of of Linkin Park, System of a Down (that was when Toxicity album came out, it blew me away).  I had The Eminem Show (edited version, of course -_^) on repeat while on the computer, now whenever I hear a song off of that album, I'm back on Luclin as my Vah Shir.
I've come to realize that bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit were kind of the 'gateway drugs' to the more hardcore stuff.
At the end of my high school career , I was basically attached to the city's local alt rock station, ya know, with bands like Mudvayne, Disturbed, Slipknot, etc., I didn't start checking out the indie scene til my first semester at college.
Oh, and I've always love techno, classic rock, and late 90's pop (thought that does NOT included the boy bands and britney spears... never liked them)

[Liz]

Pretty sure I still know all the words to "I Just Can't Wait to Be King".

I have no regrets.

Everybody look left, everybody look right, everywhere you look I'm standing in the spotlight...

[blaha 41]

The first time I ever heard any music that I knew I liked (I grew up in a house that *NEVER* played any music.. it was all talk radio, all the time) was during art class in the 9th grade (1996 or so) when a friend of mine and I got kicked out of the class so we sat in the hallway listening to his CDs.

He had Soul Coughing's Irresistible Bliss , The Bends, and the S/T Ben Folds Five disc... all this got me into Pearl Jam's post-No Code stuff (which I still love), Dave Matthews Band's first few albums (which I still listen to because my guitar/harmony teacher reintroduced me to it), and U2's later catalog (which my guitar/harmony guy praises constantly).

The only things I have hiding in my old CD cases that I find embarrassing now is Better than Ezra/David Gray type stuff, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't listen to Good and In the Blood at least once a month on repeat.

[idiolect]

unprotected sex

???  Unprotected sex is "cool"?  That's news to me.  I'm only maybe half kidding about that -- is there some kind of weird "condoms are lame" trend floating around that I don't know about?

[QCnerdGrl]

I listened to the typical bad pop. Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and everything else that was popular in the '90s.

Now I listen to bands like I Hate Kate, All-American Rejects, Evanescence and Colbie Caillat.

I am so far from being cool...

[PECOAE]

I used to listen to Linkin Park and Billy Talent and a lot of classic rock.  I don't really regret any of it, just kind of see that it's not as good as I once thought.

[Landstander]

I've been cool my entire music listening career. Even when I wasn't really big into music, I listened to classical and the Russian Red Army Choir almost exclusively. Then I just found more cool stuff and expanded my coolness.
I am cool.

[QCnerdGrl]

I think Aqua is an exception. Not everyone can sing a song about a hunk of plastic and sell over a million records. If they were even called records back then...woe my bad memory! >.<

[jimbunny]

Elton John, Bryan Adams, and Don Henley were pretty much the tapes in my dad's car.

I still love Elton John. At least, the good, pre-'75 Elton John. With a few singles here and there after that.

[thatryanguy]

Went through the first 14 years of my life listening pretty much exclusively to classical/video game/instrumental music. Then I met friends who were into punk and metal and all such wonders, got big into Korn and ICP, as well as 1000's of other groups (pretty much started swarming over all kinds of music at that point)

Then I matured and realized that while I thought ICP used to be funny cause they seemed to take themselves seriously, now I just found that sad.

Although, admittedly, I think I was "Cool" back then. Now I'm just me. And that's dandy by my standards.

[Beastmouth]

Uh, Waters-led Floyd and Zeppelin and the Beatles.  Oasis, too, and the Smashing Pumpkins. 

I didn't listen to any of that after I started listening to the VU, Roxy Music, &c., except the Pumpkins.  Then one day three or four years ago I was sitting on the couch, totally straight, and it just hit me, 'Mean Mr. Mustard' is a goddamned good song.  So I started listening to the Beatles again, haven't really stopped.  Then at the beginning of this year I started listening to more and more Barrett-era Floyd.  I still can't stand Waters, though.  I started listening to Zeppelin this month again.  I remember the first time I heard Stairway.  I was thirteen and I liked it.  I remember the last time I heard it.  I was twentythree, and it sucked.  Some of their other stuff's okay, tho.  I kinda quit listening to the Pumpkins last summer over some strange personal drama.

Oh, and Lou Reed's in Asheville next month.  ::can't wait::

[Caspian]

Will Smith and Hanson were the shizzle back in year 5. GETTING JIGGY WIT IT, etc etc.

I stopped listening to pop and started listening to nu-metal (and Metallica, I was- and I guess still am- a huge, huge fanboy of them) in year 7 or so when that started becoming popular.

I guess the first "QC-approved" band I heard was Isis, back in year 12, not all that long ago really. Owned me then, and still continues to do so 'til this day.

[Beastmouth]

Holy crap, I'd totally forgotten about Metallica.  I think I just got so pissed about that Napster thing, while *in the fucking liner notes* to their cover album Lars talked about all the imported 45s they'd tape for each other. 

I still think Cliff's bassline is the funkiest part of 'The Number Song' tho 

[Coreh]

shut up i was like 9.

[pinkpiche]

Some girl at my school defends Hanson on the sheer argument that their fan club member count exceeds 30.000.

She also doesn't eat pigs meat because pigs are much smarter than other animals.

[Border Reiver]

The whole topic is based on the premise that I have actually become "cool" at some point in my 39 years on the planet, so then we'd have to list what I've listened to since I had control over my music selection.

Huey Lewis and the News
Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms is my favourite album of all time)
Wierd Al Yankovic
Chuck Berry
Willie Dixon
Muddy Waters
John Lee Hooker
BB King
ZZ Top
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Robert Johnson
Colin James
Styx
George Thorogood
Crash Test Dummies
Enya
Sarah McLaughlan
Annie Lennox
Bob Marley (Legend is an awesome album)
Pogues
and many more

[Beastmouth]

She also doesn't eat pigs meat because pigs are much smarter than other animals.

That doesn't stop pigs.

[Uber Ritter]

Lesse, the only music that I once listened to that I'd never pop into the CD player would be mediocre 90's rock like the Offspring, the Spin Doctors and Green Day, and I got those albums before I turned 12.  Other than that, having avoided Nu-metal when it was around (it was my brother who is to blame for our household's Limp Bizkit, Korn and Godsmack albums) I can pretty happily listen to much of what I used to think was the BEST THING EVER, though without quite as high an estimation, with the possible exception of Metallica's Load/ReLoad, which while not nu-metal or St Anger bad were pretty mediocre, though I didn't realize that when I was 13 and Ride the Lightning was too hard-edged for me.  AC/DC's Back in Black may be retarded, and I may realize that in a way that I didn't when I was 11, but it's still pretty darned fun.  Other albums that I loved, like Appetite for Destruction have if anything increased in my esteem.  Then there's New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which I got when I was 11 and was initially rather disapointed with (it didn't have "It's the End of the World As We Know It" on it, and that was the only REM song I knew) but eventually I came to like a few songs on it, and now I think it's great.
-Wilhelm

[ummmkay]

Hanson pic

I have a friend who thought Hanson were girls for a number of years.

[Tom]

They are rather androgynous.

[Thrillho]

I used to listen to Linkin Park and Billy Talent and a lot of classic rock.  I don't really regret any of it, just kind of see that it's not as good as I once thought.

*looks down at Billy Talent hoodie he is wearing*

Yeah, those bands were shit!

I still love Billy Talent and I am unrepentant.

[LucyStag]

A life list

Age 8 - Rock and roll is terrible.

Age 9-11 I love only the Beatles

Age 12-14 - I love only Simon and Garfunkel

Age 14- Suddenly I sort of like matchbox twenty and Bob Jovi, God help me. Also John Mayer, but I still think "Room for Squares" is a pretty solid album.

15- "London Calling? Looks interesting...."

Life got better after that.

These things I listen to not enough indie goodness, too much country (but the good kind), and stilll like some John Mayer and Green Day to be "cool". But I am still pretty amazing, thank God.

[Nodaisho]

I suppose I do have something to thank nu-metal for. I listened to the "metal" station on the radio (Lamb of god, godsmack, nirvana, good fucking charlotte  ) and found it lacking, but I wanted something different than I had been listening to (pop-punk and grunge radio station), so I tuned into my Dad's favorite classic rock station, and realized what I had been missing. When was it that guitarists stopped playing solos in popular music?

AC/DC may not be the most talented band on earth, uber, but you are right, they are fun, and that is what music is supposed to be about. They also had a lot of influence on many bands, I bet that some simple AC/DC songs are the first ones most guitarists learn, after Smoke on the Water or Stairway.

[a pack of wolves]

I think Aqua is an exception. Not everyone can sing a song about a hunk of plastic and sell over a million records. If they were even called records back then...woe my bad memory! >.<

I reckon Barbie Girl is a really great pop song, it comes across incredibly sugary and childlike but then it's actually all about some sort of extreme sub/dom relationship which seems to be ultimately unfulfilling and dehumanising. Interesting stuff for a song little kids would sing.

Oh, and AC/DC also have pretty much the best recorded guitar sound ever on Back In Black. They're a great band, there's a reason you can spot an AC/DC sticker in old photographs of the Dischord office.

[B.C.]

Back when I was younger I listened to nothing but pop. Since iTunes and it's play tracker have come out I've listened to Savage Garden's debut album 200 times all the way through. I don't care what all of you say but Savage Garden was awesome and their albums really do stand the test of time.

From pop I got into mainstream Alt rock/nu-metal and eventually mainstream metal. Metallica, System of a Down, Breaking Benjamin, Incubus, Linkin Park, and Deftones were pretty much on constant rotation. Despite the shoddy lyrical content of Linkin Park, you must admit they knew how to right mindlessly catchy dropD hooks.

Right now I'm all over the place musically. In Flames is playing as I type this, and I've got all sorts of MDM bands on my iTunes as well. Chopin is my favorite classical composer, and I have every album from Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Sound Garden, Queens of the Stone Age, and Stone Temple Pilots (Nirvana was overrated so I only have Nevermind and their live from NYC albums).

Good music is music you enjoy listening to, and that varies depending on the person.
This is the part where I also mention that I listen to REM, Smashing Pumpkins, and various indie artists to prevent my ostracization.

[tomselleck69]

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, over and over and over again.

[muffy]

The first song I ever used to love and get excited about was Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. I was two at the time, and loved it unconditionally whilst growing up, and only found out who the band were when I was about fifteen.

It's been downhill ever since.

[RobbieOC]

shut up i was like 9.

Around here it was all "Holy crap! Hanson is from Oklahoma and so are we!!!! Squee!"

I grew up listening to oldies (Beatles, Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, Linda Rondstadt, etc.) and marches - cause that's what my dad listens to. When I started listening to music on my own it was country for a while, back in the Garth Brooks-Tim McGraw-Alan Jackson era of the mid-90s, because other than Hanson, if you were from Oklahoma you listened to country. All through middle-school I just kind of listened to whatever was on the radio, plus I started playing in the jazz band at school, so I started my love affair with Buddy Rich and Count Basie. It wasn't until I hit college that I started to really think about what I was listening to and what kind of bands I supported, not only musically, but also what they stood for. My tastes continue to refine themselves to this day.

Edit: typos

[faylosophy]

Before I began listening to bands like My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground, Elvis Costello, The Stooges, Television, Dinosaur Jr and so on..

I listened to this: Beck, Orgy, Soundgarden, Weezer, The Cranberries, No Doubt and Ok Go, Ambulance LTD, Beastie Boys.. etc. =/

But I guess I shouldn't be answering this question anyway because in no way do I define myself as "cool."

[imagist42]

When I was really young and still shared a room with my older brothers (so, early '90's), it was all The Cranberries, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer. I liked all of them when they were on but I wasn't big on music so I never bothered to find out who they were and listen to them on my own. This was a mistake. In middle school (after my brothers left the house), if I listened to anything it was "the best mix of all the hit songs" type radio. Avril Lavigne, Five For Fighting, Jet, Maroon 5, Sheryl Crowe, Train... ugh. This was also a mistake. Then I found out about OverClocked ReMix and listened to that pretty much exclusively until partway through sophomore year. This was certainly a step up. Finally something turned me on to the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse and the Pixies. I believe stuff like Air, Beck, Broken Social Scene and The Flaming Lips followed. There we go.

[Beastmouth]

Def the first song I heard that I thought totally rocked was 'Because the Night'.  I was listening to it on the radio in the waiting room while my mother was in therapy.  Ah, to be eight years old again. 

[SliverArion]

  i could not get enough Bush. when i was young i thought the album 16stone was sent by god to make me happy.....  now i hope the whole band gets eaten (  DAMM YOU  Gwen Stefani! ) 

[ruyi]

Before I was cool I listened to Not Michael Jackson.

Lately I have been thinking about how this topic is so utterly contingent on environment. I brought up pretty much the same question to one of my friends, (what did you listen to before you were cool?) and he responded (slightly jokingly) that he had never listened to uncool music. He started off with stuff like Simon and Garfunkle and various folksy-bluesy things.

The thing is, why should it matter that he started off there and I started off with Alien Ant Farm and Destiny's Child? When I started listening to music for pleasure as an adolescent I was living in suburbia. My mother listened almost exclusively to Chinese worship songs. In fact, she still does, as she is a rather casual consumer of music. My peers liked Avril Lavigne and Nelly. I didn't even know about much other kinds of music before joining these forums. I still don't know anyone who's even heard of pitchfork besides some friends I've met only after transferring to university several months ago.

My friend, on the other hand, started listening to music under the influence of his parents, who both grew up as the kind of people who are avid music listeners.

I don't really have a larger point, as I'm sure many of you understand this already. It just helped me see how so much of this is relative.

[E. Spaceman]

Surely!

Like I said in my original post, I was raised in the home of an avid music listener. Growing up I guess I listened to "cooler" music that my peers  but I simply didn't know other, just like average-boy will not grow up listening to Joy Division because he doesn't know them, I never listened to the average pop because we didn't have it in the house. There were several moments in my earlier years where i felt distinctly out of place (and decidedly uncool) because i didn't know any Backstreet Boys songs, hell, I still don't know any! In a sense I was really just the same as a kid who listens to whatever just cause his dad does, just in a different environment. I didn't actually branch off or create my own style or became cool or whatever until i was 15-16 and I found two albums, two compilations actually, that changed the way i thought radically. New Order's Substance and Abba's Gold.

Seriously, those two albums have had a lot more impact on me than all the Daydream Nations, all the Fear of a Black Planets, all the Sgt Peppers and the Dark Sides of The Moons.
For all the virtues of my dad's record collection, he doesn't dance. Sure we had some weird electronic music and stuff, and the Talking Heads, but it just wasn't a thing you did. Then one day, around the time my form of misfittery was becoming more acceptable and now some other kids listened to Radiohead and stuff, i found myself shopping for a record to give my friend. I wasn't too sure what to get so i just went with something easy and I thought "Hey, I'll get him, Substance by Joy Division", cause it has all the singles and it is a pretty rad compilation, so I asked the clerk and he said sure and pointed me to where I would fnd it. Sure enough I did, but the cover wasn't black, it was white, and on the front there was no Joy Division, it read New Order. Now, I was vaguely aware of New Order, I knew that they were a band related to Joy Division somehow but I never gave them a second thought. Looking at the tracklist I only recognised one song, Ceremony, that was a song on Still! A song where you couldn't hear the vocals but whatever. So instead of having the album i wanted to buy for my friend I found myself holding a clunky two cd box (those atrociously designed double cases that used to be commonplace) by a band I'd never heard. At this point I made a Big Decision and bought that, didn't give anything to my friend and went home to listen to it. It was a really weird experience, the first song WAS the same Ceremony! but now you could hear the vocals. And it wasn't as grim and hmmm my feet are tapping along. By the time I got to Temptation, I was in love. It's actually been my favourite song for a number of years, and then came Blue Monday, man It was so awesome and maybe this was what people meant by dance music (it wasn't, they meant ricky martin) and every track was a really big discovery for me.

And that is how Substance saved my life

[minorbird]

Tina Arena's 'Don't Ask'. I was still using a cassette player until about the age of 12, and this was the only cassette I owned apart from audio books. Then I felt like an outsider in Year 5 because I didn't like Blink 182, so that started my CD collection. In retrospect, the fact that the first CD I ever bought for myself was 'Enema of the State' makes me feel sick. Now I pretty much listen to Radiohead...so I guess I'm still not hip/cool huh?

[Uber Ritter]

RE Me

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, over and over and over again.

You know, there is a reason why I don't classify Smashing Pumpkins with mediocre 90's rock, and that may be because I still find this album to be pretty enjoyable.  Not sure you're saying it isn't, of course.

[Beastmouth]

i could not get enough bush

it is a popular item  ^___^

[pinkpiche]

I think Aqua is an exception. Not everyone can sing a song about a hunk of plastic and sell over a million records. If they were even called records back then...woe my bad memory! >.<

I reckon Barbie Girl is a really great pop song, it comes across incredibly sugary and childlike but then it's actually all about some sort of extreme sub/dom relationship which seems to be ultimately unfulfilling and dehumanising. Interesting stuff for a song little kids would sing.

I really don't think that they thought other of it than a kid playing with a barbie doll.

[tomselleck69]

You know, there is a reason why I don't classify Smashing Pumpkins with mediocre 90's rock, and that may be because I still find this album to be pretty enjoyable.  Not sure you're saying it isn't, of course.

Oh, I still love it, but I was not cool when I bought it.

[a pack of wolves]

I really don't think that they thought other of it than a kid playing with a barbie doll.

Maybe, but I think there's enough there that they couldn't be unaware of it. It doesn't really matter to me if they were or not though, Barbie Girl's still an excellently fucked up pop song.

[Kai]

the first band I ever listened to was Chumbawumba, and I just never evolved past that--I have never listened to music that was not chumbawumba

[PECOAE]

In other words, you got knocked down but never got up again?

[s0ck ninja]

Well I used to listen to Evanescence, and then it was some scattered nu-metal, then emo, Flogging Molly, and finally a general explosion in every direction at once. Right now I'm still a SOAD devotee, and I still have a soft spot for Alice Cooper and the less scene-ish, more "emotional hardcore" sort of emo like AFI.

I'm still not cool, though. Nobody even knows who Pavement IS at my school.

[orangepeas]

I'm reading this thread and some of the bands that you people don't like I like. Hanson's newer stuff is pretty good. I know I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this but the band that made me start my music collection over again was Silverchair, this was about 6 years ago. Diorama is an amazing album.
 Before that my favorite band was The Moffatts. I still even listen to them occasionally. I'll basically listen to anything. I'm extremely open minded. I'm offended by some of the comments in this thread, but I'm not one to start drama. I came here solely for the fact that I love music and everything about it. It's one thing that's keeping me alive right now.

[KharBevNor]

the first band I ever listened to was Chumbawumba, and I just never evolved past that--I have never listened to music that was not chumbawumba

I saw Chumbawamba live playing an acoustic set. It was pretty fun.

[a pack of wolves]

Me too, although it actually made me cringe a bit. They did help us make a ton of money for the social centre I volunteer at though, and I'm pretty sure they've lent us PA equipment before so that's cool. They're not a bad effort really.

[Glorfindel]

I think I knew (and may still know) every word to the first Avril Lavigne album.

[MadassAlex]

At least you're true to your username.

[Thrillho]

I listened loads to The Hives. I have all their albums. I don't so much "lol I listened to that" as bawl my eyes out when I think of it.

The Hives are AWESOME. Howlin' Pelle is a legend.

"Watch as I drink the water!"

[KharBevNor]

Me too, although it actually made me cringe a bit.

Vodka can help with that.