Heavenly Call said:
I know a forum similar to this existed once before, but in light of the Dragonforce discussion in another thread, I'd like to hear how all of us "elite metal fans" first got into this music we now so proudly defend!
Oh lord, I don't even know where I first heard Metal. My three brothers and I have been listening to this stuff all they back to the late 70's. As I mentioned in that "DragonForce" thread, I remember listening to Judas Priest's
British Steel on vinyl, along with Kiss
Live, and even the soundtrack for the
Heavy Metal movie. Throw in some Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, and many others. Then going into the 80's, (jr high/high-school) plenty of Dokken, Twisted Sisters, Def Leppard, and so forth, although I never really cared much for Poison myself ("Every Rose Has Its Thorn" was so overplayed on the radio, plus I did not like the song anyway). Of course, during this time, I was also listening to a lot of Styx, Rush, The Cars, Pink Floyd, Yes, Toto, Jethro Tull, ELP, and so forth. Going into the late 80's/early 90's (college), I went through the kick with Nirvana, Gun-N-Roses, Stabbing Westward, Bush, and the like, but still spinning the old Styx, Rush, Pink Floyd, etc. To this day, I still listen to my trusty old collection of Rush, Styx and Pink Floyd, along with those other "classics".
By the mid to late 90's, it was not long before I quickly grew tired of the Nirvana and thier ilk, and wanted to find something "new" and "fresh". Hell, I don't even remember the last time I've listened to my copy of Bush's
Sixteen Stones album. Enter the "mp3.com" site along with the "Music Choice" channels that I had on my then brand-new DirecTV service (before they were replaced by XM Radio feeds). That first time I've heard that Stratovarius track on there and I was instantly hooked (Yes, they used to play Stratovarious quite a bit on the Music Choice channels, and occasionally hear them on the "Boneyard" channel on XM Radio - hell even heard Hammerfall on there!). It was not long before I discovered others such as Sonata Arctica, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, and many others (and still discovering. Just this past weekend, I found out about Winterlong and Galloglass as well as Sky Cloud). After spending the last five years or so listening to many of these other bands, it dawned on me that this is very much an extension of my love for bands such as Styx, Pink Floyd, and Rush (which I still listen to).
Yes, this has been a very interesting journey musically, and it is so much fun to discover even more, obscure stuff. Incredible just how much awesome music there is out there, especially once you get away from the so-called "mainstream". Much of this is definitly helped by the internet. Before, like most everyone else, it was pretty much the radio and MTV where I went to find out about music (I remember spending many an evening, taping songs off the radio), plus the occaisonal magazine, as well as "word of mouth" from friends. Unfortunatly the radio, MTV and such has gotten too "commericial" and "generic", plus the music coming from the mainstream today just seems to suck so royally these days. Kinda sad when listening to the radio and I just had no interest in wanting to buy any albums from the bands that I've been hearing. Nowadays, I don't even listen to the local FM stations (Still pissed to this day how Clear Channel pretty much ruined XL102.1 out of Richmond - long gone are the days when Styx, Rush, The Cars, Pink Floyd, etc, were still in heavy rotation, and now it is all "alternative"), let alone, watch MTV and any of thier spin-offs.
