what was the coolest band/artist you were into when you were 17?

A couple years later Doug Carrion of Dag Nasty worked at a Tracks records in Bloomington and that dude turned me onto a bunch of stuff like Gang of Four and P-Funk.

One thing I should point out for period correctness, I had all this stuff on tape. I had a bitchin' set of tapes. I was way too big a dope to actually buy it on vinyl or actually own a CD player yet. I didn't get a CD player for a year or so later.

I also wish I had better taste back then. Most of the bands I listened to back then I still enjoy to some degree so I guess some of them were decent or my taste didnt evolve that much.

I guess this thread is only for people that had fully developed tastes and knowledge at 17.

― Evan

on consideration i guess liking led zeppelin _does_ qualify as "fully developed tastes and knowledge". everything since then has been gravy.

Depends what "cool" means but I was mostly listening to then-current "indie" music so stuff like shoegaze/baggy/fraggle/other ridiculous NME genre names. My favourite band was the Pixies who had just broken up. Most of that stuff isn't really considered cool apart from maybe some of the shoegaze stuff. Spacemen 3 were mentioned upthread that's not a bad shout I suppose.

I had Kick Out The Jams on tape, but I dunno how cool the MC5 are these days.

Is rave nostalgia still a thing? Maybe some of the rave stuff we used to listen to - they were my mate's mixtapes so I never actually knew who did any of the music, so probably doesn't count. tbh I was kind of getting out of dance music at that age. That was more of an early teenage obsession for me.

This was like 2002/2003, so I was mostly listening to stuff from the burgeoning mashup scene (or Bootleg/Bastard Pop as it was known then) like Go Home Productions and other stuff that was being posted on the likes of Boom Selection and GYBO. And I was listening to the early recording of some guy named Neil.

So in other words, nothing cool.

seems like "what was the coolest band/artist you were into when you were 13?" would be more interesting, or more fun anyway

― erudite beach boys fan (sheesh), Monday, September 12, 2016 8:55 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true because the idea that something is "cooler" than something else probably only makes sense to a 13 year old

(not trying to be facetious)

Coolest album I bought when I was 13 was Massive Attack but I didn't really listen to anything but Teardrop, I just saw that singing phoetus video on MTV and loved it. 3 years later or so I finally listened to the rest and was mindblown.

I guess Nirvana, Cafe Tacuba and Smashing Pumpkins were the 'cool' bands I listened to when I was 13. Either that or the Vengaboys and Aqua.

mine was probably a new kids on the block record/tape or something i don't even remember

thought i was pretty bad ass

hangin' tough

at 13...hmmm, maybe Run DMC? And I liked "Perfect Way" by Scritti Politti. Not even sure I owned any records at that point.

i was 17 in '94 = blues explosion, velvet underground, can, black sabbath, stereolab, sonic youth, nirvana, beastie boys, sebadoh

when i was 8 my favourite two bands were xtc and the cure, favourite album pornography ^_^

I was 13 in 1992, which is when I went from Gr 8 to Gr 9, i.e. elementary to high school. I don't think any of the rock music I listened to was that cool in elementary school but I distinctly remember going up a little in the estimation of the other guys in Gr 9 science class because I owned Badmotorfinger. Classic Yes and Moving Pictures were probably the least cool.

damn i when i was 17 i was obsessed with bitches brew and close to the edge and im still obsessed with them... fucking depressing :(

13 for me was the Replacements, the Clash, Husker Du, R.E.M., Velvets, MC5, Moby Grape, the Jam, U2, '60s garage (the '80s Rhino Nuggets compilations -- "The Hits," "Punk," "Pop," etc. -- had just come out), and my first foray into Who bootlegs (Philly '73).

Discovered all of the above within a 3-4 month period. Good times.

17 was Public Enemy, De La Soul, Green, and Sonic Youth, but mostly dominated by a Kinks obsession that lasted a solid 18 months.

When I was 17, I liked Spoon, Arcade Fire, and the Hold Steady--all bands that were cool then but are apparently lame now.

The Hold Steady are definitely not lame

I agree, just noting the movement of cool away from indie rock over the last decade (not that there's anything wrong with this)

13? i listened to mostly chart music from the radio, which these days i guess would make me a super-cool poptimist but in reality i just wasn't aware of the existence of anything other than chart music (and it's not like the late '80s were a golden age for chart music). i had a tape of def leppard's "hysteria", i loved that record a lot. and i was really bugging my mom to let me buy "appetite for destruction", which she did finally relent on.

i had both of those records

Hmm, coolest? Public Image Limited, and Kraftwerk.

Least cool? Ummm... oh the phone is ringing..