What or who influenced you the most musically?

I'm not talking about artists or genres themselves

I'm talking about people and environments

what or who influenced you the most?


the reason I thought of making this thread is that I was visiting w/ my parents earlier today who always have the national 'family radio station' playing - you know the kind of station w/ mainstream music from the seventies till now. this particulr station is huge

now you might think my biggest influence was this station but actually this was just how I got started to thinking, after hearing this song



did not recognize the song

had never heard the song

is obviously more or less winter / festivities related since 't is the season

...

but when the announcer said Aztec Camera, I was like : this is one of those many bands I know of and I always wanted to get into if there were only 10 days in one week. but how did I get to know bands like this in the first place?


it then hit me that so so so many of the bands I checked out over the years did not come to me through radio, through friends, through the internet

but through that very specific and rather short period that I visited the discotheque in my local library. yeah, I'm talking about that kind of discotheque

this was when I was age 14 to 16 when I first got really interested in music but did not yet have the means to buy an album a week. I'd go to the library and borrow 5 discs a week. mostly current artists latest album(s) because of course I was going to listen to what everybody else at school was listening to lol. but I'd always spend a good amount of time checking out the artwork of many of the other albums too. it was simply alphabetical so you'd run through all genres

that's how I got to know so many band names whose music I unconsciously checked out one by one in later years. I think all in all it was a great roundabout way of getting to know music. strange that I only just now realized this

at age 16 it was mostly a wrap for me and I got into rap heavily, leaving everything except for rap and alt rock behind for a few years. afterwards I started to check out many of the bands from that discotheque, and it looks like I'm still doing this.

my next purchases based on all of this might just be Aztec Camera and Big Country, another band I remember from this place but never ever recall having heard a song of

I wish I had an interesting story. I watched Yo Mtv Raps and Rap City to find new hip hop when I was younger. As far as other genres. It was what I heard growing up and what older members in my family would be play. Jazz, soul, funk, R&B from 70s and 80s and on was getting played the most.

I also like electronic, that was just coming across a few channels on Youtube. Sometimes you need something like that to play, its versatile, some of its good e to relax to and some of its good workout music. I needed to broaden my horizons beyond mostly black musician's I have listened to so far.