Actually, I got 2 CDs at the same time. I think I was 10, I may have been 11. One was the Motion Picture Soundtrack of The Big Chill and the other was C&C Music Factory. Both came from my mom's subscription to Reader's Digest.
I had always loved music. I started music classes with viola, chorus and piano in 2nd grade, when I was 7. I stayed in chorus every year since then, quit viola completely and taught myself piano later after learning to read music through chorus.
I started off liking the classic rock and roll vinyls my father would put on as he taught me to play pool. At the time, my mom was into oldies and that sparked my love for that genre. The love for both rock and roll and oldies has stayed with me thoughout my life so far.
Then as Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, NKOTB and other poppy stuff came out on MTV I plastered my walls with the posters of the performers in teeny bopper magazines. I would hold my recorder up to my radio and make mixtapes of buttrock and early 90s pop music to rollerskate to.
Around 10, I got into my moms new age stuff briefly because I still embraced my emo side and hadn't been introduced to blues or country yet. At 11 or 12, Country sparked my interest the same time that R&B and TLC did with groups like Bel Biv Devoe, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey got big. I started sneaking into clubs with my other 7th grade girlfriends and practicing the dance moves we had learned on MTV.
About a year later I started getting into my brother's alternative and punk rock music. When I was 13, I started going to punk rock, metal and alternative concerts as often as I could. I learned how to mosh, skank and crowd surf and did so on a regular basis until the venues I frequented started holding raves. I loved music and went to the venues anyway.
I didn't really like too much techno... it was hard for me to dance to, it was too fast and it sounded like a broken record a lot of the time. I got into happy hardcore breifly for a few months delighted to hear madonna remixes. After a few months I got more into jungle, drum and bass, reggaeton and breakbeats... I liked how people danced to them better and started to pick up on it quickly. I raved pretty often for around 2 years, drugs included. This was also when I got into reggae because I was spending a lot of time with potheads.
At around 16, my best friend at the time, and favorite equally-terrorising raving buddy, introduced me to west coast gangster rap which sparked a nearly 10 year dedication off and on to nearly solely the hardest gangster rap I could find. Weirdly enough I was also singing in a Christian Rock Band at this time and was really into christian music.
After 18 I was going to clubs and mixing my early hoochie dancing with my mid-teen dnb dancing. I started getting into the lighter side of rap and hip hop around 19, having met a lot of breakdancers at the clubs, and have continued to play it often now at 24. I started downloading beat making programs and making my own beats. I had been writing rap since 17 and still do both off and on to this day. 19 is also when I got into blues, lowrider oldies and vocal jazz... downloading a lot of billie holiday, frank sinatra, bb king and muddy waters.
I started taking blues back as far as I could around 23 and decided most of the quality in it is too crappy to listen to often, but its good for that nostalgia blues when you're feeling old timey.
The last year or so I've been getting into the emo, screamo and hard metal genres more. Ive always liked hard rock and metal but neglected a lot of it in my gangster rap stage and find that I have a lot of catching up to do still. I don't care about people hating on emo and screamo... its the next generations modernized version of alternative.
I've breifly browsed through classical MP3s on the net and worldwide music as well but not enough to really get into it at any point yet, though wouldn't rule it out. I'm still into most of the music I've ever been into... not into the christian, new age or country and thats about it. I'm teaching myself how to play guitar and once I've achieved that I hope to write and peform my own songs of mixed genres at open mics.
