Who Helped Define Your Music Taste?
And what does it say about you? Is it “you?”
I have listened to Led Zeppelin for as long as I could listen to music. They are one, if not the top band of all time for me. From their psychedelic sounds of “No Quarter” to the heavier “Achilles Last Stand,” the softer sounds of “Over The Hills and Far Away” and everything in between. I have loved Led Zeppelin since I was an infant, probably.
But, when I talk about the music I listened to growing up, I usually talk about my stepdad’s preference for metal. I remember too many nights doing dishes and forcibly listening to Rammstein, my stepdad bobbing his head and occasionally translating by singing along in English. He agreed to change it to something else when I guessed the band, which never happened, but I tried every night. While we were working on the CJ-5 in the garage, ’80s hair metal would play over the grunts, curses, and the “pay attention and keep the damn flashlight straight” instructions.
Sometimes I talk about car rides with my mom and blasting AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” an album I had memorized song for song by the time I was in the fifth grade. “Hells Bells” and “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” were hands down my favorites. Although, most of the time, my mom played country music, which — unpopular opinion — I am a huge fan of. A “guilty pleasure.”
Undoubtedly, they influenced my music taste, but I think it was outside forces that really helped set it in stone.
I’m the oldest of four children and was, and sometimes still am, a troublemaking, issue-instigating, antagonizing-annoyance. I landed myself in trouble even when I went out of my way to avoid it, which was rare. I have no idea why, but I loved being in trouble and rarely felt bad about whatever it was that landed me in hot water. Maybe it was the laughs or the attention; either way, I think the music I listened to made those feelings obvious. What stereotypical rebellious kid isn’t knee-deep in rock and metal?
What rock and metal band isn’t knee-deep in rebellious attitudes and debauchery?
Because of my constant hijinks and disregard for authority, which parents, teachers, and school counselors called “an issue,” my parents hired a sitter to watch my siblings and me. And we went through a bunch. I tested the patience of each and every one of them, driving them up a wall until they quit. I don’t know why; I just found it fun until my parents hired Mrs. Rosemary, one of the coolest people I’ve had the pleasure of having.
Rosemary was an elderly, short, Italian-American woman raised in Boston after her parents emigrated here in the forties, and she had no qualms about putting me (or anyone) in my place. She was the first person to slap me in the mouth after running it and saying something disrespectful to her. I can’t remember what it was. Knowing me, though, it was bad. To get that reaction from Rosemary meant it was really bad.
I may not remember what I said, but I remembered what she said.
“That slap is how your words felt,” she said. “You need to think more before you speak and how it will affect others. You can really hurt someone with words.”
Then, she sent me outside to go play Nerf war with friends with something to think about. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard; I was told to think before I spoke all the time. If I thought it, I spoke it. It was the “your words felt how that slap did” that stuck with me that day.
After that, there was no questioning her when asked to do something. It wasn’t out of fear of punishment or being popped again; it was just respect. She gave me the respect she wanted out of me. She was one of the first adults (who weren’t family) that I respected 110%. She was always patient, calm, and understanding, even when at her wit’s end. I can’t think of a single time she yelled, let alone raised her voice. She was an authority figure that I listened to without question because she treated me like a person, not a child.
But what captivated me the most about Rosemary was her taste in music. At the time, a woman in her seventies would not have enjoyed or used Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” as her ringtone. She would flip through radio stations to find rock music, always having a thing or two to say about the songs. Whenever she played or talked about the music, I was left scratching my head: Do older people like rock music? Or was she playing it because it would “appeal” to me?
The answer is yes to the first and a resounding hell no to the second.
After coming home from school one day and hearing that sick guitar riff of a ringtone, I finally asked her where it was from and followed it up with, “What kind of music do you like?”
My jaw hit the floor when she told me she loved the Unholy Trinity of Rock, how much she especially loved Led Zeppelin and almost everything that could be considered hard rock. That was the last thing I expected her to say; I prepared myself to hear jazz or the blues, which she did listen to, just not as much. It didn’t end there, though.
She continued to talk about the hair metal in the ’80s, the ’90s grunge scene, the concerts she would see, and the underground shows she attended. Rosemary told me all about her experiences in mosh pits and leaving a concert battered and bruised, ecstatic for the next one. She would talk about how music changed throughout the years and how much she enjoyed keeping up with it.
She even talked about being at Woodstock in 1969, but kept the stories way shorter than others. I imagine those were stories she could not tell an 11-year-old.
For Rosemary, metal was where it was at. Whether it was early, classic, or new, it didn’t matter; she loved hard rock and metal. And to me, that was the coolest thing about Rosemary, other than her extensive World War Two knowledge. It was with her that I was introduced to Led Zeppelin’s “Led Zeppelin IV” in its entirety.
I was already listening to, singing, and making guitar noises to two of the eight songs on the album(“Black Dog” and “When The Levee Breaks”) without knowing it. I remember Rosemary asking if I’d listened to the album in its entirety or any more than just those two songs, which I hadn’t. I was hardly aware many of the songs I sang or listened to were by Led Zeppelin until after the fact. So, she brought her vinyl over, and on my great step-grandmother’s record player, I was properly introduced to the band through their best-selling album.
After listening to it, I couldn’t get the aforementioned songs out of my head, with the addition of the rest of the six songs. It was the best thing I had heard up until then. There was only one way I could describe the album, which resulted in a bar of soap in my mouth, but when an album fucks, it needs to be said.
I know Rosemary, despite the vulgarity, agreed. Otherwise, she would have been the one to serve me the bar of Irish Spring and not my mom, who had walked into the kitchen just as I said the “forbidden word.” I remember the next day, with a smile, Rosemary told me:
“I don’t like foul language, but I understand excitement. Remember to watch your language, and if you won’t do that, at least watch who you say ‘fuck’ around.”
She was so cool and by far one of the most influential people in my life, not just to my values. She was heavily influential in my music tastes. Sure, “Led Zeppelin IV” sometimes makes me think of her, but “Smoke on the Water” will always remind me of the elderly, short, kind but stern woman with a huge impact on my life. A seventy-year-old metalhead and by far one of the coolest people I have ever met, who undeniably played such a major role in defining my music taste by showing me one of my favorite bands of all time.
The sitter that followed Rosemary’s retirement was another woman in the short list of people I was impressed by and looked up to, although that short list of people is a long list of women. Jessica drove an hour to be at my house at 5:30 a.m. every day of the week with her year-old twins and her four-year-old, handling them, my three-year-old sister, my brother, my other sister, and me. She stuck it out for the last year or so we lived in Massachusetts.
There was never any music playing when Jessica was there, at least not until after the T.V. was turned off at 8 a.m. and she started homeschooling her daughter and my youngest sister. She balanced that with taking care of her twin daughters and killing it on the aux. Although it ranged from almost everything and never a single artist or genre, it was usually psychedelic and Vietnam-era rock.
At the time, much of it I wasn’t crazy about. It took another five or so years before I was crazy about Jefferson Airplane, CCR, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, The Animals, and, more, but of course, there was Led Zeppelin. She introduced me to “Physical Graffiti” and “Houses of the Holy.”
I fell in love with “Physical Graffiti.” It was heavier and “more rock,” whatever that meant. All I remember is that it excited me more than anything else I had heard by them up until that point. More than “Led Zeppelin IV.”
She left a lot of the discovery in my hands since my school had just given out Chromebooks, and I now had access to the internet. She gave songs, albums, artists, and even interviews from every genre of music. As a kid, I didn’t appreciate full albums, genres, or interviews; I just wanted songs I liked and sounded like what I liked. I think that’s why I loved “Physical Graffiti” as much as I did.
She definitely planted the love for slower and more psychedelic-sounding rock. 10 years later, it’s tied with fast-paced and heavier rock in my most listened-to genres.
When I moved from the land of ice and snow to South Carolina in 2013, it took me ages to find a rock station, mostly because of the endless slew of commercials I didn’t want to sit through. It took me four months to find 99.7 The Fox and another six to find 106.5 The End. Both stations played what I liked; The End played alternative rock, which was something I was starting to listen to just before moving, but The Fox played classic rock, and I was a fish on a line.
Nikki Sixx hosted an evening show on 99.7, and I loved it. A man I had never met would talk about his life, tours, and all the crazy shit he did. He talked about sobriety and addiction, made crude jokes, and captured my attention. His co-host, Jenn, always asked good questions and always helped bring a laugh. I could not tell you what they discussed verbatim; I can barely remember. I remember long drives home after work, listening to Nikki and Jenn in between bangers.
“Stairway to Heaven,” “Black Dog,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Fool in the Rain,” all of their top 10 songs and so many more. They have so many popular songs that it was and is impossible for Zeppelin not to be in the mix. And I don’t even know where to start with 99.7’s “Two for Tuesdays,” where they would play an artist back to back. I discovered so many artists and songs that I fell in love with. It really opened my pallet to more than “just what I like.”
When I do car work, there is nothing but rock and metal from the ‘70s and ‘80s playing. It goes right in hand with my cursing and questioning of what moron built and repaired the car (That would be me. Past me is the moron I am yelling at), and with my favorite Zeppelin song, “Brandy and Coke — Trampled Under Foot Rough Mix.” The song is literally about working on cars (unless you read just a little more into the lyrics), influenced by a song about a car (Robert Johnsons “Terraplane Blues,” 1936), and the unpolished, “rough” sound of the song fits the overall topic(s) better than the final version.
I actually don’t like the final version, “Trampled Under Foot.” Something about the sound of the guitars being louder than the vocals and the overall “cleaner” sound throws me off. Something about the instrumentals just doesn’t feel right, especially the little riff between verses. It’s enough of a difference that I can tell within seconds of the song starting and will skip it, substituting the rough mix in its place.
Led Zeppelin is a favorite and has been for 23 years now. They come close to being my favorite band, tied with Cage The Elephant. I would say they probably have been the most influential artists regarding my tastes in music. Their music has so much influence from many genres, and searching for similar music, I have found other great artists and bands (like Cage The Elephant). I haven’t a clue what it says, if anything, about me. I feel like it checks out that they’re a favorite. Maybe it just says that I have good music taste, or is that too cocky to say?
I feel like them being my favorite says something about me. Maybe my love and appreciation for them is obvious. My favorite professor, Dr. Terry Barr, signed my copy of his book, “The American Crisis Playlist,” with a song that made him think of me (an idea that I stole from the person who stood in front of me in line).
He signed, “‘Immigrant Song,’ for sure.”
