Talkin' bout YOUR generation...


Hello.

A lightweight thread here, folks. Just want to see where we are all coming from - YOUR generation, that is.

We all had a defining band growing up. In your formative years, who was that band??? The only rules are that you have to pick a band from the time when you were somewhere between the ages of 11 and 17, and they have had to be current at the time - still together and vibrant. For example, at age 34, I can't pick The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, or The Who, even though I may have listened to them a great deal. As such, I doubt any of us will be able to choose Haydn or Vivaldi...

It would be that if CDs were in cars at the time, that would be blaring when you picked up your friends. It doesn't mean you have to still be listening to them today. Heck, you may even hate them now.

I think it will provide a little insight into our backgrounds and a special time of our lives. OK, so let's have some fun with this!

MY choice in my time period(1980 - 1986) would have to be Van Halen, and I don't even listen to them anymore
trelja
I was 17 in 1984. It was Jazz. The big thing about the 80s for me was not the hair bands or Eruo-pop. It was Jazz, which experienced a HUGE renaissance. I'm thinking Wynton Marsalis, but my mates and I (we were all musicians) probably gravitated more to Branford. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers probably had the best iteration of that group (Terrance Blanchard, Mulgrew Miller, Lonnie Plaxico, Donald Harrison). Weather Report was also big for my crew.
In 1969 I was eleven years old. The albums I bought that year with money from shoveling my Grandmothers driveway were:

Abbey Road
Led Zepplin 2
Best of Cream

These albums greatly influenced my tastes in music, and I still listen to them today
My time period would be the mid-70's--from 74 through 77. Prior to 74 I was into classical and big band jazz, because I was a trumpet player. Then I discovered sex, drugs and rock and roll (not necessarily in that order, actually it was the reverse). The defining band for me was Queen, specifically Queen 2, the black side. Some of my friends had a tree house--yes a tree house, but it had electricity from a salvaged gasoline generator, two stories with bunk beds upstairs, a fireplace (really!), and a stereo. That's where I first heard Queen 2. We all had motorcycles, and would spend weekends there. I'm rambling, but say what you will about Queen's later material, their first 3 albums ROCKED, but also were unique enough to appeal to someone brought up on the type of music I was.
I was 11 in 1980. As far as I am concerned there are no defining bands from the 80s, and most albums recorded during that decade make my ears bleed.
But growing up in England in the 1970s for me Queen was the defining band.

Sometimes I wish I had been born 10 years earlier and lived through the 70s as a teenager.
I'm just going to have to propose a new "The Three B's":
Buddy Holly
The Byrds
Buffalo Springfield

and 3a: Bimi Hendrix