Rock ‘n’ Roll has been one of my favorite genres since I was a young child, which I believe partially stems from my parents’ influence. My top favorite rock ‘n’ roll artists are The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin, while other artists I also enjoy include The Rolling Stones, Queen, and alternative rock bands Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Oasis, and Radiohead. My parent’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll artists include The Who, Yes, U2, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Kiss, and The Police. I would say that my parents influenced me to enjoy the sound of rock ‘n’ roll, but did not directly influence my taste as my favorite rock bands differ from my parents.

The first music I can remember listening to was The Beatles in kindergarten. In elementary school, I was a young little Beatles superfan. I was first introduced to The Beatles from the song “Here Comes the Sun” in The Bee Movie. Additionally, my parents would play The Beatles here and there, but it was that song that captured my interest. From that point on I loved everything about The Beatles and my parents fully embraced it. They bought many different Beatles albums on CD and would play them for me whenever we were in the car and even got me my own CD player so I could listen to The Beatles whenever I wanted to. Additionally, as gifts, I got a metal lunchbox of The Beatles that I used every day of elementary school, paintings of The Beatles that are still up in my room today, and my favorite, The Beatles Rock Band Exclusive Set for the Wii. I would spend hours alone and with friends rocking out to The Beatles on rock band and it was some of the best memories of my childhood. For my seventh birthday, my parents took me to see The Love Beatles tribute band on Broadway, which was my first concert and broadway show, and I absolutely loved it. As I got older, my music taste expanded to many other artists and genres, but I still kept my love for The Beatles. Currently, in my dorm room, I even have a Beatles poster on my wall.

As I got older, at around 10 years old, I also grew to enjoy Led Zeppelin and Queen and bought many of their songs to play on my MP3 player. From that time period to now, as I aged and matured I also grew to greatly enjoy Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Oasis, and Radiohead. There are a multitude of other rock ‘n’ roll and Alternative Rock artists that I enjoy, but the ones I listed are simply just my favorites. 

My favorite albums of each artist with the artists and albums in order of favorites

The Beatles – Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Abbey Road

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Meddle 

Nirvana – Nevermind, Bleach, In Utero, MTV Unplugged In New York

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Californication, By the Way, Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin IV, Physical Graffiti

The Rolling Stones – Some Girls, Let It Bleed, Out of Our Heads

Queen – The Game, A Night at the Opera, Jazz

Oasis – Morning Glory, Definitely Maybe

Radiohead – OK Computer, The Bends, Pablo Honey

I believe my fondness for alternative music stems from my enjoyment of rock music and some parental influence. As a child, my parents would often have alternative rock music in the car from the radio and some of my favorites that were often on were Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Oasis, Green Day, and Nirvana. Alternative music is an extremely broad genre and some of the alternative rock bands that I mentioned in the rock ’n’ roll post could have easily been listed at the end of this post too. When I was younger I only really enjoyed alternative rock bands, mostly due to parental influence I believe, but as I got older I began to enjoy other types of alternative music too. This was also due to some influence from a close friend who enjoyed all types of music, but especially alternative music. Even when I got older, my parents continued to play alternative music in the car, but never anything specific, just the radio. I always liked it, but it wasn’t until high school that I began to listen to alternative music, besides classic alternative rock bands, on my own. There are often many new diverse alternative artists and songs, so I would, and still do, use the radio or create station features on streaming services to find new alternative music and artists. Some of my current favorite alternative artists are modern alternative rock bands, such as The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, and Cage the Elephant.

My favorite albums of each artist with the artists and albums in order of favorites

Tame Impala – Currents, The Slow Rush,  Lonerism

The Strokes – Is This It, The New Abnormal, Room On Fire

Cage the Elephant – Melophobia, Social Cues, Tell Me I’m Pretty

Arctic Monkeys – AM, Favorite Worst Nightmare, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

Beach House – Teen Dream, Depression Cherry, Bloom, Once Twice Melody

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular, Little Dark Age

Coldplay – Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head

Crumb – Jinx, Locket

The first rap music I remember hearing that truly captured my interest was “Stronger” by Kanye West at around the age of 10. The futuristic dystopian setting of the music video mixed with the poppy vibe of the song was something that I had never seen or heard before. I continued to explore many Kanye songs and became a big fan of his. As I aged I also started to explore other rappers and became a fan of Eminem and Lil Wayne. I would casually listen to rap here and there, but it was not until I was around 13 that I got very into hip-hop. Around this time I found the rappers Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, and The Notorious B.I.G. and I became obsessed. Not only did I become obsessed with Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, and The Notorious B.I.G, but the rap genre in general. After discovering this new genre, I went down the rabbit hole of discovering the seemingly endless amount of rappers. At this time SoundCloud was also starting to become popular, which expanded the number of new rappers I could find significantly due to the rise of SoundCloud rappers. From this time period up until my senior year of high school, I would listen to rap regularly, with my favorite rappers changing as my music taste changed with age. For example, there are many rappers, such as G-Eazy, Logic, Big Sean, and Fetty Wap, that I would listen to regularly when I was younger, but almost never listen to now, while there are also many rappers, such as Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, and The Notorious B.I.G. that I still listen to regularly. After my senior year of high school, I still continued to listen to rap, but it became more balanced out with other genres of music. 

My favorite albums of each artist with the artists and albums in order of favorites

A$AP Rocky – AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP, LONG.LIVE.A$AP, TESTING, LIVE.LOVE.A$AP

Playboi Carti – Die Lit. Whole Lotta Red, Playboy Carti

Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city, Section.80, DAMN.

Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon, KIDS SEE GHOSTS, Man On the Moon III

Mac Miller – GO:OD AM, Circles, Swimming

Juice Wrld – Goodbye and Good Riddance, Death Race for Love

Travis Scott – Rodeo, Astroworld, Days Before Rodeo

Kanye West – The College Dropout, Watch the Throne, Graduation

Lil Uzi Vert – Luv Is Rage 2, The Perfect Luv Tape, Eternal Atake

Notorious B.I.G. – Life After Death, Ready to Die

The Underachievers – Indigoism, Beast Coast, Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium

I was never fully intrigued by EDM music up until around 6th grade when my friends and I got into a big EDM phase. This was around the time Skrillex and dubstep were extremely popular, and my friends and I loved it. I am not sure exactly what it was, but it was probably the fast tempo and fun sounds of the music that intrigued my young self. My friends and I would spend hours finding and listening to new EDM music on YouTube and SoundCloud. I eventually even started a SoundCloud account where I would upload EDM songs I found on YouTube to SoundCloud, in which I developed a somewhat large following. I ended up at one point having over 10 thousand followers and hundreds of thousands of plays on my posted songs. After a while, my friends and I grew out of the EDM phase, but would still listen to it occasionally. It wasn’t until around the time I graduated high school and started college that I got back into EDM. I first got back into EDM by listening to LO-FI beats for studying. I always listen to music when doing homework, but some music, such as rap, is very distracting to me when trying to do some work like reading, but LO-FI beats solve this. It is nice and relaxing music, and it came from listening to this for hours and hearing songs I like that got me back into EDM. I came to eventually enjoy different types of EDM, but I enjoy house and bass music the most. The EDM music I listen to certainly depends on my mood, as house and bass music can be very different. EDM artists like Louis the Child and Odesza are very soothing music and good for relaxing, while artists like Subtronics and Griz are very uptempo and good music for the gym. EDM is a broad genre as there are many different types of EDM and many many more different artists. 

My favorite albums of each artist with the artists and albums in order of favorites

Subtronics – Fractals, Scream Saver, String Theory

Louis the Child – Love Is Alive, Kids At Play, Euphoria

Odesza – In Return, A Moment Apart

Griz – Rainbow Brain, Mad Liberation

Zeds Dead – We Are Deadbeats(Vol. 4), Catching Z’s, Somewhere Else

Ganja White Knight – The One, The Origins, Dark Wobble

Illenium – Ashes, Ascend

LO-FI Beats

Boogie T – Soul’d Out, 2KFO

Liquid Stranger – Infinity, Mechanoid Meltdown