Freitag, 9. Feb 2007, 10:56

I've got a few minutes spare at work so I thought I'd write a bit about the bands that shaped my youth (I'm feeling all nostalgic for my school days today).

I can remember the first time I actively watched Top of the Pops. I was about 9 years old. LoadsaMoney was on and I seem to remember them having a clip of The Race on there too. It struck a chord with me (as did any song with lots of samples in it at the time) and I ended up being a hardcore Yello fan with most of their back catalogue in my collection before I was 11. I particularly recommend Solid Pleasure.

From there, my taste developed a little like this…

Age 10: Happy Mondays and LFO (the Warp Records techno act, not the boy band!).

Age 11: Pop Will Eat Itself. I listened back to one of their albums this week. At their peak they were amazing at creating hip-hop/rock hybrid tracks peppered with an almost endless supply of samples. The Pop Will Eat Itself Cure For Sanity is excellent. Listen to the previews on this site!

Age 12: A trip to Germany and the resultant moshpit at a North Sea ferry disco led me to fall in love with Nirvana. Any band that can write amazing pop songs that make you want to mosh yourself to a heart attack are good by me.

At age 13 I discovered the twin wonders of the Sega Megadrive and the Super Nintendo which led to me taking a two year break from music. By the time I started listening actively to music again it was 1994, I was 15, my parents had (finally) got a CD player and it was time to get into New Order and Britpop and I haven't looked back.

I may continue this at some point if I get suitably bored one day… I hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane!