How has your interest in music changed over the years? I'll begin with a chronology.

When I was four, I listened to Stevie Ray & Jimmy Vaughan. My favorite was "Tick Tock."

https://youtu.be/VU7b65SmZ_s

I became interested in Jim Brickman. My favorite song of his is "Angel Eyes."

https://youtu.be/3jcN20Efpq0

As I got older, I began listing to my dad's old records, such as The Doors.

Then I became a teenager.

Disclaimer: I was a teenager when boy bands were all the rage.

The Backstreet Boys was my favorite boy band.

Any new song that was good after that was a rarity but still existed, such as "Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood and "Anchor" by Novo Amor.

https://youtu.be/LraOiHUltak
https://youtu.be/OmKAn8rNbKg

Jeanette Isabelle

I suppose the evolution of our musical tastes is a measure of our ability to evolve as individuals. As a young kid I never had a ton of interest in music, just listened to whatever mom and dad played (a mixture of country and some 70's rock). About junior high I got very much into heavy metal, as well as classical. Through my 20's I was mostly into those genres but branched out a bit into various kinds of music, particularly jazz. It was about that time that my appreciation for classical widened to include opera, a format that I couldn't warm up to in my teens. In my 30's I began to discover alt-rock, -country, etc.

In my mind we live in a Golden Era for music! The business side may be suffering from excessive corporate control and consolidation but technology has democratized music to a degree that wasn't seen before. In the 50s-2010s what we heard was mostly decided by a cadre of old white men. But now you can use inexpensive software and electronics to create your own stuff and publish to various online platforms without the middleman. This no only gives musicians but also the fans access to a lot more options. I grew up in a little town in South Dakota in the 70s and 80s. There was no internet so I only knew about new music from the radio and a few music magazines (yes, printed mags!) like Hit Parader, Circus, Kerrang, etc. But now I can go to youtube and see bands like Babymetal in Japan, Opeth in Norway, Viva Vox in Belgrade, etc. Much as we on the forums can learn from folks all over the nation and the world, music lovers can do the same thing.

On a personal level I do still like some of the hair metal of my youth, although I'm sure a lot of it is nostalgia. Many of my favorites though are primarily dating from the last decade or two.

I haven't explored new music.

I'm working on recording myself singing and playing guitar doing the songs I've loved forever. Working the songs up to the level of accuracy for recording is a challenge.

I've produced a CD 7 years ago and took such a beating with the music processing software that it took me this long to getting back to recording some more.

I have 3 fans!

Well, I was really into the Romantic Era as a kid -- Tchaikovsky, Chopin, etc. Decades later, with a bit more training in music history & theory, I became more appreciative of the Baroque & Classical Era. In the meanwhile, I kept trying with atonal music or with contemporary music, with relatively little success. I won't bother with that again. But I never stopped loving bel canto.

After meeting enough jazz musicians and seeing them in live performance, I also started to admire jazz. But it really is the product of a particular context. Listening to jazz from a recording kinda misses out something crucial. One can say the same about certain kinds of Latin dance music that I listen to -- without responding to the mood of the dancers in the room, the music just seems a bit... lonely as a recording.

Recently I've been renewing my acquaintanceship with folksongs from around the world -- Scottish, Italian, Kazakh, American...

Initially I didn't really "get" minimalist composers and hated atonalism (eg. Schoenberg). It was fairly easy to grasp modern composers like Walter Piston or Aaron Copeland so that music I really liked. After taking a music appreciation course in college and further listening my palette got broader but to this day I really don't care for atonal music. However, I became a serious fan of Phillip Glass! I think it was probably either Glassworks or Koyaanisqatsi that first captivated me.

Phaedrus, do you know William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony? You probably do, but I recently heard it. Very deserving of a larger audience!

An underrated piece! It's honestly his only work that I can name. So much great stuff out there, many centuries of fine music.

Phaedrus, I just discovered this piece: Fuga con pajarillo by the Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero. It's fairly recent and pretty good -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyWgbkxHeKA

Two words: Patsy Cline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKTOvHw8qFM

George Clooney´s aunt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mriXncI96lw