User:SwitChar/Music

I have diverse taste in music. My tastes have also changed greatly and somewhat rapidly over the years.

History
My mother was a part of the Australian punk scene in the early 1980s. Through the scene, she became involved with various forms of social activism and spent time living in anarchist communes, campaigning for nuclear disarmament and an end to imperialism, et cetera. She was also a big fan of folk music, and as a result some of her favourite artists are anti-folk or folk punk. Her lifestyle and tastes gave her an affinity for political music. She has been a big influence on my musical taste, as well as my politics. Unlike most children in Australia, I grew up listening not to AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Guns 'N Roses and Pink Floyd, but instead was raised on a steady but eclectic diet of Billy Bragg, Violent Femmes, The Smiths, Public Image Ltd., U2, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Midnight Oil.

As a child in the early 1990s, I was exposed to the prominent alternative rock scene of the time. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hole and Silverchair gave me an appreciation of hard rock music.

In high school, I started to get into punk rock. I had been raised with respect for punk, but never been involved myself, so I actively entered the scene and pursued punk culture. I slowly went from Bad Religion to the Sex Pistols and eventually to Black Flag and Crass. I got very much into hardcore and anarcho-punk for about a year, but then began to go back to the bands that had led me there as well. I wound up a little bit lost within the punk scene; at anarchist folk-punk events my Sex Pistols patch earned me scorn, while in a more mainstream audience I struggled to find anyone who knew Crass, let alone Flux of Pink Indians, Disharge or Negative Approach. I began to largely forsake the punk scene, and got interested in the origins and immediate effects of the genre. I discovered the 60s pioneering of The Velvet Underground as well as post-punk and New Wave. The combination of the energy and simplicity of punk with a more artistic and ambitious attitude struck a chord, and I quickly immersed myself in various punk-related genres such as gothic rock, deathrock, post-punk, New Wave, noise rock and 2 tone.

In recent years, I have been most influenced by my friends. I began widening my musical tastes, listening to ska, industrial music, jazz, funk, soul, blues, psychedelic rock, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, pop and even classical music, and have gained a particular fondness for genre-bending bands. My main preferences in music became songwriting ability and creativity, as well as the ability to blend diverse influences seamlessly. This mixed well with my already-found attraction to post-punk, and also allowed me to appreciate the alternative metal and alternative rock bands of the late '80s and early '90s.

Today, my tastes still include primarily post-punk, as well as punk rock and other related genres. I like anything from The Damned to Dead Boys to Descendents to Dead Kennedys to Discharge to Doom to Devo. I also greatly enjoy funk, particularly Zapp, Parliament/Funkadelic and the Go go band Trouble Funk. I'm into reggae, dub music and ska, epsecially 2 tone, and heavy metal, primarily fist-wave bands like Black Sabbath, but also Motörhead and slow, heavy doom metal bands like Pentagram and Saint Vitus. I am also a fan, in a boader sense, of alternative rock and alternative metal. I enjoy free jazz, industrial music, soul, and almost anything else as long as it's good. I have recently been getting interested in hip hop and rock 'n' roll.

Bands

 * Alice in Chains – Amen – Aus-Rotten – The B-52's – Bad Religion – Banyan – The Beatles – Big Boys – Black Flag – Black Sabbath – Blur – The Clash – Conflict – Crass – Crash Test Dummies – The Cult – The Cure – Dead Kennedys – Devo – The Doors – Earth, Wind & Fire – Einstürzende Neubauten – fIREHOSE – Flux of Pink Indians – Gang of Four – Home Cookin' – Interpol – Joy Division – Killing Joke – Die Krupps – The Levellers – The Living End – Manic Street Preachers – The Melvins – Midnight Oil – Minor Threat – Parliament/Funkadelic – Pentagram – Pixies – Placebo – The Pogues – The Pop Group – Primus – The Prodigy – Rage Against the Machine – Reagan Youth – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Refused – The Residents – The Roots – The Saints – Sex Pistols – The Sisters of Mercy – Sly and the Family Stone – The Smashing Pumpkins – The Smiths – Soundgarden – The Specials – The Stooges – Throbbing Gristle – Tool – Trouble Funk – The Velvet Underground – Violent Femmes – This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb – Wire – Zapp

Musicians

 * Adam Ant – Afrika Bambaataa – Billie Holiday – Billy Idol – Billy Bragg – Bob Dylan – Bob Marley – Brian Eno – Buddy Holly – Chuck Berry – Chuck D – Danny Elfman – Elvis Costello – Emcee Lynx – Fela Kuti – Frank Zappa – Glenn Danzig – Henry Rollins – James Brown – Jerry Lee Lewis – Joe Strummer – John Lydon – Kira Roessler – Lemmy – Les Claypool – Louis Armstrong – Mike Watt – Morrissey – Nick Cave – PJ Harvey – Richard Hell – Ritchie Valens – Siouxsie Sioux – Talib Kweli – Tom Waits – Van Morrison – Woody Guthrie – Zack de la Rocha

Songs

 * See My entry on Phaedriel's "Soundtrack of Wikipedians"