Oh shit this brings back some memories. 20-25 years ago. (Im 38 now)

My first casettes i ever bought with my own money were Guns and Roses Appetite for Destruction and Paula Abdul Forever Your Girl. Dont judge me, she was sexy as hell on MTV. After that was Fat Boys and Run DMC bootleg from a flea market.

Mom and dad were big on 60's-70's

I moved quite a few times so i experienced a lot of different music. I hung out with older kids a lot so i listened to whatever they wanted to. Country, rap, metal, you name it. Dont remember how i got into the 80's but thats another big one i like. A slew of heart felt music. Shit with feeling gets me.

MTV, Yo MTV Raps, and Napster were in their prime so anything with a good beat got downloaded. I stole a lot of singles, rarely ever bought a disk. License to Ill and Hello Nasty were bought, Fashion Nugget by Cake, One Fierce Beer Coaster and Hooray for Boobies were great, Beck Mellow Gold were worth buying. 

My whole hard drive looked like an autistic kid got ahold of it. 

So yeah i listened to everything.

At about 16 I was introduced to Beverly Kills, but didnt pay attention to it. I was hound dogging the dudes sister and didnt care what was on the radio. A few years later it was Fat Sweaty Betty that suckered me into ICP. $50 Bucks was another. Funny, off the wall shit grabbed my attention.

Mr spange, how old are you?

We grew up in an eclectic world. Lived in a hunting shack for my first 7 years. During that time I listened to what was being played around me first....

My dad liked country and classic rock... so The Eagles, Garth Brooks, Allman Brothers, etc

My mom was and is a bit more adventurous... she was asking to borrow my half brother's tapes so that she could put em on a Memorex. You wanna talk eclectic? One tape had Mary J Blige, Guns N Rose's, Eazy E and Onyx on it, mixed with more country and rock and hip hop and R&B. She also played Kenny G. Just everything.

Two black kids spent so much time at our shack and then our actual built home that one practically lived there. There was some influence of music from the city where we went to school with them. More rap.

My half brother must've had EVERY rap cassette tape in history at some point. Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Kurious, Kool Mo Dee, even Deion Sander's album lol.  He also introduced us to Pantera and Biohazard. And dude loved House of Pain.

So what did I seek out on my own? Besides lots of the aforementioned... I listened to the radio as kids are wont to do. So I eventually purchased tapes by Alanis Morisette, The Grateful Dead, Blues Traveller, and then Portishead, Eazy E and Ghostfsce Killah. I was very big on Aerosmith, as well. I had a blast trying to dub songs off of the radio live. You kids wouldn't know about dat hahahah

Rage Against the Machine was the first band to speak to me and completely blow my mind. They were the catalyst.

Then, these older cats started an amazing metal band in upstate NY called Shovelbarn. And for a priceless few years, upstate NY had a stellar bunch of unique metal bands. There was a culture thing happening. Eventually it burned out, as bands dissembled and people lived their lives. But it was a very important part of our growing up. It was teenagers just experiencing something unique and we owned it. Bands like 5th Man Out and Gunstrip... punk groups like Fink Squad. Just a wild time. People getting destroyed on dextromethorphan, weed and acid. I barely drank back then. Just wanted to get higher and higher and wall around downtown at night.

At some point around all of this I was introduced to ICP by way of a song called "Joker's Wild" and I haven't been right since lol

The shit grainy sounds of a generic boombox dubbing a generic tv and or radio. Always missing the first note or two and praying the announcer doesnt talk over the last notes. Good times.

Just like the Pied Piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like marionettes
Swaying to the symphony
Of destruction

Good stuff man.

I was listening to Korn & Limp Bizkit around that time :/

Greatness.