Ever since you joined BEA...

[babyBlueSedan]

My tastes have changed quite a bit. A while back I copied my original BEA chart into this custom chart: My First Chart. As I was making it, I was shocked at how..bad it was. Well maybe not bad, but at least pretty boring. I mean, 6 Beatles albums? And a Red Hot Chili Peppers album? I definitely liked the classics, and while it didn't really feed into my rankings it definitely controlled which albums I checked out. And I listened to pretty much all rock, especially alternative and indie, at that time. I think the only hip hop album I had heard when I joined was The Low End Theory.

My current chart is pretty indistinguishable from that one, aside from a few albums at the top. Modest Mouse was and is my favorite artist. Around the time I joined BEA I was digging deeper into alternative rock's history and getting into super "obscure" artists like Guided by Voices, Slint, and The Replacement who I now consider super-canonized artists. I think the biggest thing BEA helped do for me was make me realize just how much music there is, and from so many countries. It's really only the past couple years that I've started diving into music from around the world, but even during my first year here I starting diving into new genres. Kanye and Kendrick helped me get into hip hop, Godspeed helped me get into post-rock and other instrumental music. And perhaps the biggest thing this site did was help me realize how much great new music there is coming out every year. I was never a "wrong generation" person, but I was definitely interested in primarily older music. Reading forum chats about new music and looking at user's charts really got me into new music again around 2014, and now so much of the music I listen to is new and the 10's is by far my most listened decade. I really owe a lot of my tastes, or at least my willingness to try new things, to this site, it's been a great resource over the years.
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[videoheadcleaner]

I have been a BEA member for almost 11 years now (umm, okay - that is a long time) and since having a child, time on the site has been limited.

When I started back in early days of BEA, I was an Aussie rock listener and dabbled in some genres along the way. Now, I have gone completely down the rabbit hole and made my home in the depths of experimental music.

I still love my rock roots but lately the music has swayed between soul, avant-jazz, musique concrete and doom metal. I blame BEA for this. Members from the early days like Hayden, puncture repair, purple and (should I mention Gary?)... these are only a handful of members that have influenced my taste. Not only that, I became an ambient/experimental/vaporwave/plunderphonics noise maker because of this website.

BEA has been the breeding ground for my musical taste and I love everyone for it. I might be known in the real world as 'oh that guy that listens to everything' - but that ain't a bad thing. Actually working in a store with a decent vinyl and CD section, this knowledge helps and customers are shocked when I know exactly what they are on about.

Although my time on the forums and hosting games has become miniscule, I still update my charts with the random finds and forgotten gems that need attention.

If people want to connect outside of BEA, I am on Twitter and Insta a bit.

https://twitter.com/videoheadcleanr
https://www.instagram.com/videoheadcleanr/

[RoundTheBend]

BEA has been essential to my discovery of music post 2010. I think I'm most thankful for those who have given me recommendations on new music over the past decade, most notably in 2017 when it was the first time I took the time to listen to like 200 or so releases just from that year. I was born in the CD era and so this concept of oh... I CAN afford to listen to nearly anything released this year... well let's just say I was way behind on that/didn't really have the want for it.

In 2017 though I found so much great music I never really would have had it not been for this site. When I'm done with other music projects, I plan to use this site to revisit all of the 2010s in little more detail.

BEA also expounded on earlier decades, but also really has confirmed some of my already found music to really be my favorite. Some stuff I grow out of and some stuff is so crucial to my soul/music addiction that rarely does something come join in with it.

Most importantly, conversations about music/learning others points of view is another reason BEA has been pivital in the past 9 or so years.

Also, thanks Spyglass, it appears people give a shit again.

[Spyglass]

[Anti]

Before BEA, well before this hobby, I was pretty limited to popular radio songs, YouTube, recs from classmates who had older siblings that still were limited to extremely accessible music. My parents both loved old R&B, funk, and disco, and my dad, specifically, liked Iron Maiden and Metallica. That was my taste until high school, where I forced myself to listen to more rap because I was a bit of a loner regarding music. All my football teammates listened to rap and I remember getting ripped on for not liking rap (kids ). I started with Eminem and thought his best songs were ok at best. Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was the album that got me into hip hop. I was a freshman in high school and it dropped right before my birthday, so I used some leftover iTunes giftcard and spontaneously got it based on the reviews I was seeing. I replayed the fuck out of that record. If I didn't switch laptops, like, 5 times since then, I guarantee you that album would still be my most played record on iTunes/Apple Music/whatever it's called now. It was the first time I ever listened to an album. I listened to Metallica and Iron Maiden albums before, but I still wasn't seeing their works as one big cohesive piece. Not only did MBDTF get me into hip-hop, it made me understand the art of the album.

Still haven't discovered BEA yet. Then, for basically sophomore and junior year of high school, I tried searching for more albums that gave me the same feelings MBDTF did. With me being a brainless 15, 16, 17 year old, I focused solely on hip hop. I did not have the maturity for older hip hop albums or abstract hip hop or conscious hip hop, so I never really looked backwards. And by maturity, I don't mean "Oh, you need to be an adult to enjoy these records." I mean I didn't have the patience and historical appreciation for these records. I wanted something super accessible. I wasn't trained yet for some older 80s, 90s, and early 00s hip hop records, let alone all of music history. So I turned towards popular mainstream rap albums at the time, including cringey works like Lasers by Lupe Fiasco, No Mercy by T.I., Wiz Khalifa, etc... None of those gave me the same feeling, but I enjoyed some of the singles.

Then Take Care by Drake came along. Of course high school me is going to gobble that shit up. I still love that record, but at the time I thought it was the greatest thing ever. It sounded luxurious, atmospheric, and Drake's swagger is undeniable. It was my music Bible for most of sophomore year. Then Kendrick's Good Kid, MAAD City came out and that was also the third album I came to loving as an album. MBDTF, Take Care, and GKMC were my holy trinity for most of high school.

I discovered BEA in 2013, the beginning of senior year. That was the year I said "Fuck it," and tried getting into indie music. So yeah, I started off with P4K essentials, thinking they were some objective word in music. I got into Radiohead's OK Computer & Kid A, The Stroke's Is This It?, Arcade Fire's Funeral, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, etc. I wasn't ready for Animal Collective and some other artists at the time. I really had to work my way up there. I also checked out Rolling Stone's "Greatest 500 Albums of All Time" list, thinking it was something legitimate. That's where I discovered What's Going On & Kind of Blue. Eventually, I made my first chart on BEA with all of these records, plus I think the Resistance by Muse.

I started off on BEA as such a newbie asshole. I wanted to be a P4K reviewer and Anthony Fantano because I was a 17 year old and super impressionable. I know I pissed off a lot of people on here when I would think some classic indie albums or cult favorites were not good. I worded my reviews awfully and soooooo ignorantly. I got into a lot of stupid as arguments with people on here I wish I could take back. But hey, that's the past. Can't do anything about it.

But over time I learned to shut up and be patient with some records. Thanks to BEA, my tastes have bloomed. I'd say my primary niche is shoegaze, dream pop, psych, but I've grown to love metal subgenres like black metal, doom metal, sludge metal, drone metal; genres I thought I would never enjoy. I developed a better respect for older albums. I used to only want to listen to music from the 90s forward, but now I'm very comfortable with any decade. I can digest avant-garde and experimental music better as my patience developed. And... yeah I think I'm pretty comfortable with any genre of music or any time period.

I learned to not give a damn about ratings and reviews and learned to listen to anything that peaked my interest, regardless of its reputation. I got better at describing what I do like and what I don't like. I also am aware that I always have a lot more shit to listen to and a lot more to learn. I'm far from being an expert and there's a chance I may never reach that "walking encyclopedia" level of music knowledge. But that's okay because all I wanna do is find good music.
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...and for dessert!

[RoundTheBend]

That's a nice read anti. I related and probably many can relate to a lot of what you said.

[LedZep]

Great read anti, very relatable. I was also impressionable throughout most of high school, was an ass early on BEA and had a very close minded perception of music. Most of that is gone now thankfully. Or so I hope.
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Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s