Everyone has a page about their musical tastes. Some people
have CD collections, some have lyrics, some have links to their
favourite bands. I used have a music page in an older collection
of web pages, but I've not had one in quite a while. Until
now.
I dink about with music from time to time, most recently of the electronic variety. I've some MP3s here. I also write lyrics occasionally, sometimes even without the need to piggyback on someone else's song. I'm a guitarist of some notes and a smattering of talent, but mostly useful as a focal point for sing-songs. My singing voice has been described variously as good, bad and indifferent, so it matches my guitar-playing. I also dink with pianos and other keyboarded instruments, and have been known to assault other people's drumkits despite my inability to hold a decent 4/4 beat together for more than 30 seconds.
I've long had the ability to play tunes by ear. I don't have perfect pitch, nor can I syncopate a bass line on a piano properly, nor can I sing and play something like "Day Tripper" where the guitar riff and the lyrics don't quite fit together. However, I can generally listen to a song and then pick up a guitar or a keyboard and reproduce enough of the tune to make it recognisable. I've always maintained this is sufficient for a party.
Or what I'd tell Rolling Stone if they asked, maybe. When I was a kid, my brothers listened to Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Meatloaf, Deep Purple, and the like. There was also a copy of Queen's Greatest Hits knocking around, and at least one of my brothers was a U2 fan pretty early on - about 1985 or so. The other source of musical exposure was from road trips with my dad, who listened to the likes of Makem & Clancy (why does Liam Clancy sing all the songs? Because Tommy Makem, boom boom) and A Feast Of Irish Folk. This gave me some pretty mixed influences right from the start. The first band I can remember being a fan of was Adam and the Ants, one of the more successful of the New Romantics in the late seventies/early eighties. Sort of Glam Rock meets Pop, retaining the gladrags of the former and the chart success of the latter.
I started learning both guitar and piano in the early eighties, doing formal lessons in piano and exams for the first two or three grades before getting tired of the rigour of practice and playing music I didn't like. Guitar lessons followed a similar style, although I never took exams. I made a start on learning classical guitar, decided it was largely a way of expanding your hand-span and gave up the lessons in favour of amusing myself.
So back to the influences. Adam and the Ants gradually slid into oblivion and I moved to secondary school where I met a wider range of people and thus musical tastes. I got into the Pet Shop Boys, laying something of a foundation for a later interest in electronica, and I also got into my first band, a haphazard affair called "Aspect". One of my friends of the time had just joined a band himself and was becoming a stunningly talented guitarist, and he introduced me to Guns'N'Roses and the concept of speed metal guitar-playing. I have to say, listening for the first time to Slash letting rip on his Gibson was pretty astounding. My own band was more focused on a completely different style of music - the other two guys in the band were into Bowie, Japan, Sakamoto, Alphaville, and a whole mess of other stuff I'd not heard of. This led to some interesting arguments on what we should play!
By the time I got to college in 1990, Aspect had broken up (we got a drummer. he couldn't play. the band pretty much disintegrated.) and I was once more in a sea of new musical influences. From the DSPs, I got Sisters Of Mercy, the Cult, Warren Zevon, and all manner of dark, depressing music (there was a running joke about DPNFM, or "Depression FM", the official DSP radio station); from my housemates, a bunch of final-year students several years my senior, I got Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young; and from my girlfriend, I got Enigma and the KLF. Now, you try mixing all those together and see what happens... I joined a new band, "The Spawny Gits", which was formed solely for a competition. We played rock, and the lead guitarist introduced me to the music of Joe Satriani, which blew me away in much the same way as Slash had in 1987 or thereabouts. Post-competition, I got into a punk band with some fellow engineers; we called ourselves "Bummer" and took to the stage with little or no practice to play Pixies, Dead Kennedys and The Clash. After two gigs, the second of which was shut down "for inciting violence and hatred in the crowd" (some guy hopped his head off a wall while moshing, and cut himself), we split up.
Things pretty much stagnated for a while after that, until I moved to Dublin and started going out with a girl who was into Ministry of Sound and big dj/club music. The club scene in Dublin was just starting to take off in a big way, and we went to a Ministry of Sound gig which pretty much knocked my socks off. Shortly after that, I went to see the Chemical Brothers and The Orb playing back to back in Boston, and that pretty much carved big beat electronic music into my head. As best I can put it, it's dance music for people who like rock, or rock music for people who like dance. Apollo 440 are probably the best of the crossover bunch in this respect, but it's hard to ignore the Chemicals when they're in the middle of a kicking track like "Block Rockin' Beats".
More recently, I've taken an interest in rap, at least partly due to the wild success of Eminem. I've little time for Gangsta Rap as an entity in itself; I'm more interested in the tracks with the big musical hooks and the clever lyrics. I've also taken to paying close attention to MTV's "Rated and Recommended" and "Brand New" both of which turn up an astonishing number of absolute gems despite being embedded in the mainstream marketing orgy that is Music Television.
I've left out a bunch of stuff here, but I'm sure you can read between the lines and check the disc list below to see what else is going on. The bottom line, for me, is generally interesting, gut-reaction music; the killer piano work in Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" guaranteed it a place in the collection, and the rather incredible finger-picking on "Duelling Banjos" made it a must-buy. So it looks like, for the time being, my music collection will be expanding in all directions simultaneously.
This is the CD collection bit. I had a pretty decent CD collection up to about 1997 or so, when someone liberated it from my apartment along with my TV, VCR, diskman and cassette collection. I've not gotten around to replacing it all, and some of it I can't easily replace. Funnily enough, they did leave behind the most valuable piece of music media in the apartment - a numbered copy of U2's first single.
I had started writing bits about each album I own, and then I resorted to ripping the entire collection (except the Minstry Of Sound compilations and similar mixdiscs where you can't properly separate the tracks) to MP3 so I could feed the lot to a heavily modifed version of Gronk. Here's an almost-raw dump of the artists and albums from the CDDB entries. For amusement value, I checked out the various release dates; most of my collection is comprised of albums released in the last four years, but there's a spike around 1991 where, I presume, meeting people in college had an impact on my tastes that's recent enough for me to want to buy the music. This list gets updated whenever I do an upload to the site. I've reintegrated the comments, plus some ones from a previous incarnation of the Waider Web (dating back to my Motorola days!) using some horrific javascript coupled to some CSS and DOM. If it doesn't work for you, you're probably not using Mozilla. Point, laugh.
1 Giant Leap / 1 Giant Leap
23 Skidoo / 23 Skidoo
A-Ha / Headlines And Deadlines
Air / Premiers Symptomes
Akasha / Cinématique The Remixes (Disc 1)
Akasha / Cinématique The Remixes (Disc 2)
Alanis Morissette / Jagged Little Pill Acoustic
Apollo 440 / Electro Glide In Blue
Apollo 440 / Gettin' High On Your Own Supply
Apollo 440 / Lost In Space (Theme) (single) (Disc 1)
Apollo 440 / Lost In Space (Theme) (single) (Disc 2)
Apollo 440 / Millennium Fever
Badly Drawn Boy / The Hour Of Bewilderbeast
Barenaked Ladies / Stunt
Barenaked Ladies / Stunt (Bonus Live CD)
Basement Jaxx / Remedy
Beastie Boys / Check Your Head
Beastie Boys / Hello Nasty
Beastie Boys / The Sounds Of Science (Disc 1)
Beastie Boys / The Sounds Of Science (Disc 2)
Ben & Jason / Hello
Bentley Rhythm Ace / Bentley Rhythm Ace
Bentley Rhythm Ace / Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out (single)
Binary Finary / 1999 (single) (Disc 2)
Blackstreet / Another Level
Blackstreet / Fix (single)
Blackstreet / Fix (single) (import)
Blink 182 / Enema Of The State
Blink 182 / Enema Of The State (Live Disc)
Bloodhound Gang / Hooray For Boobies
Bloodhound Gang / One Fierce Beer Coaster
Blur / Parklife
Blur / The Best Of
Bob Dylan / Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan / Oh Mercy
Boris Dlugosch / Never Enough (single)
Bran Van 3000 / Discosis
Bran Van 3000 / Glee
Britney Spears / ...Baby One More Time (single)
Bryan Adams / When You're Gone
Buena Vista Social Club
Cassius / Cassius 1999 (single)
Chris Von Sneidern / Big White Lies
Coldplay / Parachutes
Cross My Heart / Cross My Heart
Daft Punk / Homework
David Arnold / Shaken And Stirred
David Bowie / Changesbowie
David Bowie / Earthling
David Bowie / Ziggy Stardust
Delerium / Karma (Disc 1)
Delerium / Karma (Disc 2)
Delerium / Silence (single) (Disc 1)
Delerium / Silence (single) (Disc 2)
Depeche Mode / Music For The Masses
Depeche Mode / Ultra
Dermot Byrne / The Acoustic Catalog
Dr. Dre / 2001
Dr. Dre / The Chronic
Dr. John / Mos' Scocious (Disc 1)
Dr. John / Mos' Scocious (Disc 2)
EMF / Schubert Dip
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians / Ghost Of A Dog
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians / Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars
Elevator Suite / Barefoot & Shitfaced
Eminem / The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem / The Slim Shady LP
Enigma / MCMXC a.D.
Enigma 2 / The Cross Of Changes
Eric B. & Rakim / Let The Rhythm Hit 'em
Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell / Duelling Banjos
Eurythmics / Peace Is Just A Word (single)
Faithless / No Roots
Faithless / Outrospective
Faithless / Reverence
Fatboy Slim / Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars
Fatboy Slim / You've Come A Long Way, Baby
Frantic Dogpaddle / Trush
Franz Ferdinand / Franz Ferdinand
Fun Lovin' Criminals / 100% Colombian
Fun Lovin' Criminals / Bag Of Hits (Disc 1)
Fun Lovin' Criminals / Bag Of Hits (Disc 2)
Fun Lovin' Criminals / Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals / Loco
Fun Lovin' Criminals / Mimosa
Garbage / 2.0
Garbage / Garbage
George Michael & Mary J. Blige / As (single)
George Michael / Listen Without Prejudice
Gigi D'Agostino / A Journey Into Space
Gomez / Bring It On
Gomez / Liquid Skin
Gomez / Rhythm & Blues Alibi (single)
Gorillaz / Gorillaz
Graeme Revell / The Crow Original Motion Picture Score
Green Day / American Idiot
Green Day / Dookie
Green Day / Nimrod
Green Day / Warning:
Groove Armada / Vertigo
Guns N' Roses / Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses / Lies
Guns N' Roses / The Spaghetti Incident?
Guns N' Roses / Use Your Illusion I
Guns N' Roses / Use Your Illusion II
Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard / Music From The Motion Picture Gladiator
Honest Bob And The Factory-To-Dealer Incentives / It's Not As Bad As I'm Making It Sound
Honest Bob And The Factory-To-Dealer Incentives / Second & Eighteen
JK2 / Debutante
Jack L / Universe
Jack Lukeman / Wax
Jack Lukeman / Wax
Jakatta / American Dream (single)
Jamiroquai / Synkronized
Jamiroquai / Travelling Without Moving
Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince / Greatest Hits
Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince / Homebase
Jeff Buckley / Grace
Jeff Wayne / Highlights from "The War of the Worlds"
Jim Morrison / An American Prayer
Joe Satriani / Surfing With The Alien
John Kennedy / Songs From The Spare Room
Joy Division / Substance (1977-1980)
Jungle Brothers / V.I.P.
Juno Reactor / Transmissions
Kaiser Chiefs / Employment
Lenny Kravitz / Are You Gonna Go My Way
Lightning Seeds / Jollification
Lights On The Highway / Lights On The Highway
Lou Bega / Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of ...) (single)
Lucy Pearl
MC*Solaar / Paradisiaque
MC*Solaar / Prose Combat
MC*Solaar / Qui Sème Le Vent Récolte Le Tempo
Madonna / Ray Of Light
Marillion / A Singles Collection
Marillion / Clutching At Straws
Marillion / Fugazi
Massive Attack / Blue Lines
Massive Attack / Mezzanine
Matchbox 20 / Yourself Or Someone Like You
Melanie C / Northern Star
Mike Oldfield / Tubular Bells
Mr. Oizo / Flat Beat (single)
Muse / Absolution
Muse / Hullabaloo
Muse / Hullabaloo (Disc 2)
Muse / Showbiz
My Chemical Romance / Life On The Murder Scene
My Chemical Romance / Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult / The Beast Of TKK
Natalie Imbruglia / Left Of The Middle
Nick Glennie-Smith, Hans Zimmer And Harry Gregson-Williams / The Rock
Nickelback / Silver Side Up
Nine Days / The Madding Crowd
Nine Inch Nails / Broken
Nine Inch Nails / Further Down The Spiral
Nine Inch Nails / The Downward Spiral
Nirvana / MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana / Nevermind
Orb / U.F. Orb
Organic Noise / Vacuum Tube
P. J. Harvey / Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Papa Roach / Infest
Passengers / Original Soundtracks 1
Pet Shop Boys / Fundamental
Pink Floyd / The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd / The Division Bell
Pink Floyd / Wish You Were Here
Placebo / Black Market Music
Placebo / Placebo
Placebo / Without You I'm Nothing
Planet Funk / Chase The Sun (single)
Prodigy / The Fat Of The Land
Progress Presents The Boy Wunda / Everybody (single)
Propellerheads / Decksandrumsandrockandroll
Puff Daddy / Come With Me (single)
R.E.M. / Green
Radio Free Vestibule / Sketches Songs And Shoes
Rage / Incoming Soundtrack
Rage Against The Machine / Evil Empire
Rage Against The Machine / Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine / The Battle Of Los Angeles
Red Delicious / Acoustical Blur
Red Delicious / Emotional Blur
Red Hot Chili Peppers / Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Red Hot Chili Peppers / By The Way
Red Hot Chili Peppers / Californication
Republica / Republica
Richard Cheese / Lounge Against The Machine
Richard Cheese / Tuxicity
Richard Wagner / The Ride Of The Valkyries
Robbie Williams / I've Been Expecting You
Robbie Williams / Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams / Sing When You're Winning
Santana / Supernatural
Seal / Seal
Shamen / Collection (Disc 1)
Shamen / Collection (Disc 2)
Shamen / En-Tact
Shamen / Hempton Manor
Shamen / In Gorbachev We Trust
Shamen / On Air
Shawn Mullins / Soul's Core
Shea Seger / Last Time (single)
Sheryl Crow / Special Edition (Disc 1)
Sheryl Crow / Special Edition (Disc 2)
Sheryl Crow / Tuesday Night Music Club
Skunk Anansie / Stoosh
Something Happens / Stuck Together With God's Glue
Something Happens! / Bedlam A Go Go!
Soul Coughing / El Oso
Sting & The Police / The Very Best Of ...
Stone Roses / Second Coming
Stone Roses / The Stone Roses
Sugababes / Freak Like Me (single)
Sum 41 / All Killer No Filler
Supergrass / I Should Coco
Supergrass / In It For The Money
Susan Enan / Moonlight / Skin, Bone & Silicone
Suzanne Vega / Suzanne Vega
The Avalanches / Since I Left You
The Beautiful South / Quench
The Beta Band / Hot Shots II
The Blizzards / A Public Display Of Affection
The Cars / Greatest Hits
The Chemical Brothers / Brother's Gonna Work It Out
The Chemical Brothers / Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers / Exit Planet Dust
The Chemical Brothers / Leave Home (single)
The Chemical Brothers / Surrender
The Crystal Method / Vegas
The Cult / Pure Cult
The Cure / Bloodflowers
The Cure / Disintegration
The Cure / Galore
The Cure / Mixed Up
The Cure / Staring At The Sea
The Cure / Wild Mood Swings
The Dandy Warhols / Come Down
The Doors / The Best Of
The Georgia Satellites / Let It Rock
The Goo Goo Dolls / Dizzy Up The Girl
The Hopefuls / Prypee
The Housemartins / Now That's What I Call Quite Good
The KLF / Chill Out
The KLF / The White Room
The Killers / Hot Fuss
The Killers / Sam's Town
The La's / The La's
The Offspring / Americana
The Orb / The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (Orbit Disc)
The Orb / The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (Ultraworld Disc)
The Pixies / Death To The Pixies
The Sisters Of Mercy / A Slight Case Of Overbombing
The Stranglers / All Twelve Inches
The Tycho Brahe / Life
The Tycho Brahe / Love
The Tycho Brahe / This Is
The Verve / Urban Hymns
The Wannadies / Be A Girl
The Williams Fairey Band / Jeremy Deller Presents Acid Brass
The Wiseguys / The Antidote
Thursday / Full Collapse
Tom Jones / Reload
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers / Greatest Hits
Tom Waits / Bounced Checks
Tom Waits / Small Change
Travis / The Invisible Band
Treekillaz" / Indiva
Treekillaz" / Oxygently
Tricky / Maxinquaye
Tricky / Pre-Millennium Tension
U2 / Achtung Baby
U2 / All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2 / Beautiful Day EP
U2 / Even Better Than The Real Thing - Remixes (single)
U2 / How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
U2 / October
U2 / Please (Popheart Live EP)
U2 / Pop
U2 / Rattle And Hum
U2 / The Best Of 1980-1990 & B-Sides (Disc 1)
U2 / The Best Of 1980-1990 & B-Sides (Disc 2)
U2 / Under A Blood Red Sky
U2 / Zooropa
Utah Saints / Two
Utah Saints / Utah Saints
Various / 'Pure' Euphoria (Disc 1)
Various / 'Pure' Euphoria (Disc 2)
Various / Apocalypse Now Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Various / Dave Fanning's Fab 50 (Disc 1)
Various / Dave Fanning's Fab 50 (Disc 2)
Various / Dave Fanning's Fab 50 (Disc 3)
Various / Electric Reels
Various / Even Better Than The Real Thing Vol. 1
Various / Fused (Disc 1)
Various / Fused (Disc 2)
Various / High Fidelity Original Soundtrack
Various / Lost In Space Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Various / Lost Property - Side A
Various / Lost Property - Side B
Various / Music For The Motion Picture PI
Various / Music From The Motion Picture Almost Famous
Various / Music From The Motion Picture Boyz N The Hood
Various / Music From The Motion Picture Ocean's Eleven
Various / Music From The Motion Picture Stealing Beauty
Various / Music From The Motion Picture The Matrix
Various / Music From The Original Motion Picture "The Crow"
Various / Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Reservoir Dogs
Various / Roots Of Led Zeppelin
Various / Trainspotting #2
Various / William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (Volume 2)
Various / Wipeout 2097: The Soundtrack
Various / X-Files (single)
Various / Y Tu Mamá También
Veracocha / Carte Blanche (single)
Wildchild / Renegade Master 98 (single)
Will Smith / Big Willie Style
Will Smith / Wild Wild West (single)
William S. Burroughs / Spare Ass Annie And Other Tales
Wyclef Jean / The Ecleftic (2 Sides II A Book)
322 CDs in the jukebox.