what were you listening to at 15?

mighty lemon drops
echo and the bunnymen
cure
new order
chameleons
the the
forgotten rebels
clash
p/i/l
ultravox
book of love
bauhaus
love and rockets
depeche mode
violent femmes
jesus and mary chain
front 242
the cult
CFNY (toronto radio station)

fuck knows what else. 1977

The Beatles, Mega City Four, Green Day... I can't really remember I was 16/17 when i started going mad for all sorts of different things.

Pixies
The Cure
Ride
Jesus & Mary Chain
The Smiths
Wonder Stuff
Carter USM
Nirvana
Senseless Things
Slowdive
Spacemen 3
Sisters of Mercy
Ned's Atomic Dustbin
The Police
"The Sound of the Suburbs" compilation
Beatles/Stones/Animals/Monkees
The Stranglers

This was the age I really became a CIF I think!! Prior to 15 I primarily listened to house/hip hop and Queen.

Never Understand in the spring, You Trip Me Up in the summer, Just Like Honey in the autumn, then Psychocandy just before Christmas. Interspersed with these were a couple of John Peel sessions, the first Primal Scream single, the Shop Assistants ep, and several attempts to dye white school shirts black.

Beatles
B-52s
Living Colour
classic rock radio
pop radio

I didn't actually buy my first album until November of that year, so I guess I wouldn't say I was a hardcore music fan yet.

The Cult, U2, Microdisney, Duran Duran, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, The Cure, The Sugarcubes, A-ha, The The, Erasure, Prefab Sprout, Scritti Politti..

Sisters of Mercy
Joy Division
Nirvana
Bauhaus
New Order
March Violets
Alien Sex Fiend
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Fields of the Nephilim
Sex Gang Children
Throbbing Gristle

bad years.

no ZTT yet, no J&MC, had yet to discover foetus, on-u, cabaret voltaire, shriekback, devo.

subsequently my listening was pretty dire. having said that Madness/2 tone still featured, little did i realise just how big an influence that Herbie Hancocks Future Shock and Malcolm McLarens Duck Rock would have on my future life.

mbv, blur, j&mc, sonic youth, cure, smiths, joy division, rem, huskers, clash, happy mondays, daisy chainsaw...the best stuff being played on 120 minutes and WPRI

All very typical really

Cocteau Twins
Depeche Mode
Diamanda Galas
Neubauten
PTV
Current 93
Chris and Cosey
pretty much anything on 4AD
Prince
my mum raised me on disco, so that never went far away from me...
New Order
Siouxsie
Erasure
A-Ha
Nocturnal Emissions
Severed Heads
Jesus and Mary Chain
Sheila E.
other things that I can't remember as I am at work.

Sisters of Mercy
Joy Division
Nirvana
Bauhaus
New Order
March Violets
Alien Sex Fiend
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Fields of the Nephilim
Sex Gang Children
Throbbing Gristle"

Blimey, with the possible exceptions of The Nephs, that could have been '83-'84.

I remember the one and only time I heard the Dolls on WNEW. The album had just come in to the studio and they decided to play side one track one. Afterward the DJ (I forget who, Pete Fornatale or someone like that) came on and said "I can guarantee that you'll never hear that again on this station." Haha, the Dolls have outlasted WNEW.

Uh, yeah, I had a bit of a thing for the goth rock...

(forgot the X-mal Deutschland, Virgin Prunes & UK Decay, too!)

1982
I was just getting into psychedelia, so The Seeds Raw & Alive lp, Standells, Chocolate Watchband, Move, The Byrds, some Hendrix, The High Tide (80s indie folk-psych), The Playn Jayn (live, they had nothing released yet).
Misunderstood, Small Faces Darlings Of Whapping Wharf Launderette, Creation, The Who, Yardbirds, Purple Hearts (UK mod band), A Splash of Colour compi, ? & The Mysterions 96 Tears single, The Chords, The Hunger, Love (Masters the Elektra compi)
James Brown, Club Ska '67, Prince Buster,
Jumping Jacques
plus X-Ray Spex, Sex Pistols, Echo & The Bunnymen's Porcupine.
& John Peel's show.

In 1984m Van Halen was nice enough to name their album 1984:

http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/vam_halen_1984.jpg

I didn't buy my first tape until the next year so I mainly listened to the classic rock and commercial metal at the time. The usual suspects: Zep, AC/DC, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Billy Squier.

1975/ 76

Moved to Dublin, and semi-decent record shops, had first summer and weekend job, and no friends or bad habits, so all cash went on records. Velvets 1st, Raw Power, Blood on the Tracks, Little Feat, Steely Dan, Wailers, Burning Spear, Forever Changes, Feelgoods......

1989

Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre, Pet Shop Boys, Tin Machine

Don't know why i missed the Velvets 1st, was walking around school singing bits of that when I was 14.
Also Herman's Hermits' Blaze, Lovin' Spoonful, The Nice Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack.
The Associates Sulk
Beatles Red compi & maybe Revolver
13th Floor Elevators Psychedelic Sounds.

Various bits of Motown especially Revue live in Paris '67
bits of Stax. Possibly Pretty Things too

94-95

Led Zeppelin, REM, new U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Beatles, Doors, Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Yes, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Nirvana, Tori Amos, Pink Floyd, John Cage, Rush, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau, various blues and jazz programmes on the radio, the Carleton University station

Radiohead, MBV, Slowdive, Sigur Ros, maybe Aphex's RDJ album? Can't remember.

Also the Sex Pistols. A lot of regular rock music on the radio too.

'97 was an exciting year for me. my new high school friends were getting me into a lot of older stuff by Television, A Tribe Called Quest, Fugazi, Velvet Underground, etc. my brother and I were delving into current hip hop like Jay-Z, Missy & Timbaland, etc. I was really hyped about albums released that year by Skeleton Key, the Geraldine Fibbers, Superchunk, Pavement and Spiritualized and exploring those bands' back catalogs, and I was still heavily into bands I had started listening to in the 2-3 years before that like Sonic Youth, They Might Be Giants, Soul Coughing and Ben Folds Five.

I was 15 in 1987. I think the two records I played most that year were Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and Metallica's The $5.98 EP. Also Anthrax, Motörhead, Black Flag, the Cramps, Fear, Accept and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm still listening to at 39.

David Bowie, Babybird, Belle & Sebastian, Manic Street Preachers, Blur, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Grass-Show, Beck, Joy Division, New Order, Super Furry Animals, Symposium, Silver Sun, The Fall, The Boo Radleys, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, They Might Be Giants, Frank Black. It was 1996.

oh man, Elvis Costello, pretty sure i was 15 when i started getting heavy into My Aim Is True too, that was a big one

1996

Transitioning from:

Bush, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Ash, Beck, Pixies

to:

Pavement, Guided By Voices, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Television, My Bloody Valentine, Super Furry Animals

mostly through borrowing tapes from a friend at school.

I still like everything on the second list; there's not much on the first list that I've listened to since I was 15. The next year I got my own stereo, started reading music mags and it became inevitable that I would one day turn up on ILM.

was 15 in 88... was huge into Anthrax, Metallica, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, King Diamond, S.O.D., Slayer, and then somewhat into Butthole Surfers, Beastie Boys, Dead Milkmen, 2 Live Crew, and random stuff I listened to on top 40 radio. I was way too poor for cassettes, so pretty much everything i liked was recorded from friends or off the radio.

concerts i saw in 1994 pretty much sum up my listening around then - pavement, frank black, breeders, beck, john cale, robyn hitchcock, they might be giants, grant lee buffalo. my older brother would've just gone off to college and i remember he (for some reason) got heavily into british folk rock like fairport and steeleye span, so i listened to a lot of that. could probably throw in a bunch of other stuff like guided by voices, neil young, tom waits, velvet underground, etc. haha, my listening habits have not changed all that much, really.

1976...Rocks, Machine Head, Frampton Comes Alive, Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine, Hendrix's Smash Hits, and Worst of the Jefferson Airplane; still listening to Toronto's two Top-40 stations, crazy about "Bohemian Rhapsody"; just starting to branch out into older-brother music like Neil Young, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. The Ramones don't exist, and won't for another three years. I've read about the Velvet Underground in Lillian Roxon's book, but haven't heard them yet; I do remember looking at a cutout copy of White Light/White Heat in Sam the Record Man. Disco exists, but I'm pretty sure I don't think of it as disco yet; I love "Get Down Tonight" and "Right Back Where We Started From."