Poll Results- What music do you listen to?

Here is the latest poll results:

What kind of music do you listen to?

I'm a Country boy at heart = 0 votes
It's still Rock 'n' Roll to me = 3 votes
I'm a head banding bobblehead = 2 votes
It's all that Jazz for me = 0 votes
I'm an East (listening) kind of guy = 0 votes
Anything with a beat will do for me = 3 votes

I voted for Rock 'n' Roll. That's the closest to what I listen to today. Over the course of my life I've listened to a lot of things.

I think the first record I bought was the soundtrack to The Muppet Movie. And that was on vinyl. The first cassette tape I bought was Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling. I listened to that tape that I've almost worn it out. And yest I still have it to this day. When I was younger my interests were Lionel Richie, Rick Springfield, Corey Hart, Howard Jones, Genesis and especially Styx. My sister had all of the Styx albums on vinyl and I would love to go to her side of the room when she was gone and just pull the album covers out just to look at them. If I knew she would be gone for awhile I would put them on her record player and listen to them really low so I could hear if she came back down the stairs. I remember one time I barely go the record off the player and back into the jacket and everything turned off before she walked into the room. I kept waiting for her to touch her record player and realize it was still warm and then my cover would be blown.

When I was in high school and college my sister still influenced by musically tastes. She turned me on to "alternative" rock. Back in the day that meant Depeche Mode, Oingo Boingo, REM, Bare Naked Ladies, the B52s and They Might be Giants, etc. She moved out, got married and had a kid so I was over there to babysit a lot and this time I had permission to use the stereo.

My family is very musical. Both my parents were in community choirs at one time or another (my dad was in a Barbershop choir). We've all song in school or community musicals while growing up. So I've always liked musicals. The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, etc. Even the more obscure ones like Brigadoon or Pippin were ones I liked. My sister turned me onto one other musical that is my favorite to this day. Chess. For those of you who say you've never heard of that musical before, I say you've probably heard one of the songs from it. If you've heard "One Night in Bangkok" you have. That's from the musical. My sister would play the tape in the car when she was taking me to/from college and she would sing out loud while it played. Do you love a song enough to sing it out loud in the car with someone else present? I didn't think so. At about the same time I fell in love with the musical Evita. This was before the movie with Madonna came out. I saw a production at college done in the "theater in the round". I was hooked. Now I love to listen to those soundtracks and sign along while I drive to work.

Over the last couple of years my musical tastes have changed . . . and I feel guilty for it. I now love listening to Linkin Park, Evanessence, Tool and Franz Ferdinand among others. I feel guilty because the music seems like it's meant for the angst ridden late teen/early 20 something who's just realizing the cruel facts of the real world. And since I'm not an angst ridden late teen/early 20 something I feel like an old geezer pervert if I like the same music as them. I'm not a pervert, by the way. Old, yes. Pervert, no.

I've also found that a good beat or drum rhythm will get me hooked in a song more so than a good guitar riff. That's why I fell in love with Tool. There's something intoxicating about a good primal drum beat. Acoustic or electronic. Either way is good. Just listen to Closer by Nine Inch Nails and see. Of course those lyrics might have something to do with it as well.

Of all those music choices listed the only two I have problems with are Country and Jazz. I can only listen to about one or two country songs in a row before I can't take the whinning and the southern twang anymore. And I've never heard an upbeat country song in my life. I'm surprised more country singers don't blow their brains out after singing all those depressing songs.

And I don't get Jazz. I'm talking real Jazz. Jazz doesn't conform to the regular patterns that the rest of music seems to. Verse, chorus, verse chorus, etc. Or verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus. Every song you hear on the radio is going to fall into one of those patterns. It's predicable, but I like it. Jazz is sometimes all over the place and because of that I can't really get into it.

So my musical tastes have changed over the years. For better or worse. Whether my tastes have progressed and matured, or regressed and immatured, I don't know. I likes what I likes and there's no explaining what I likes. So tell me who you're favorite band is.