Your Nine-Steps Of Musical Progression
After the recent news that Earache are involved in litigation with Decapitated and have removed all of the band’s classic albums from streaming services and the like (thus continuing the label’s downward spiral into a chimney stack comprised solely of Blackberry Smoke), I immediately did the honourable thing and cranked Winds Of Creation. While headbanging along in solidarity, I realised it had been a few years since I had listened to the whole album. I used to regularly play albums like this. What had changed?
One of the things about my listening habits that I have noticed throughout the years is that I’m a little stubborn, not an admirable trait in this context. When this stubbornness is coupled with the fact that once I grasp hold of something I enjoy, I have a tendency to thrash it until it is more or less part of a routine, no longer evoking feeling. In short, I’ve been a music abuser. In the past few years since this realisation, I’ve consciously tried to avoid over-listening to things I like. Sounds silly, but it has helped keep some of my favourite contemporary albums feeling fresh for an extended time. This has meant I’m constantly keeping my ears open for something new to add to the vaults. I’m now listening to bands and genres I would not have given consideration in the past, in the search for the next stepping stone.
Bored at work, I retraced my steps to get to the current day. From the most recent band I had gotten into, I went through the most relevant or direct path from the first album I purchased to the present day’s listening.
For today, my lineage looked like this –
- Green Day (Dookie 1994, age 9)
- Led Zeppelin
- Metallica
- Slayer
- Pantera
- Lamb Of God
- Psycroptic
- Dissection
- Labyrinthine (present day…you do the math)
So I thought it would be interesting to hear about your 9 steps to today. Take the last album you listened to (or got into heavily) and starting with the first album you bought, work out the most direct route to the present in 9 steps.
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