When I was a wee lad I listened to country because that's what my dad listened to (and that's when country was really country and not just lame rock bands with fiddles). One day, we were given this huge console stereo full of records that used to belong my mom's youngest brother. She asked me to pull the "Hey Jude" 45 out so she could listen to it. Since I'm an OCD completist kind of guy, I pulled all the Beatles records out. My dad still refers to that day as the day my musical tastes were ruined.
(You can see me cross this intersection here:
)
Shortly afterward, they started playing a song on the radio that had this weird vocal part in the middle and then it got really heavy and then quiet again. The dynamics of it caught my ear. I bought the album it was on and, well, ever the completist...
The song was, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody.
I loved the Midnight Special and would stay up every Friday night religiously. One night, this weird dude with orange hair was on and, again, I couldn't take my ears off him.
If I remember correctly, he played Time and Space Oddity on that show.
My brother brought home an album with a naked man ass on the cover. I was already not wanting to hear it. Then I heard the singer and I thought it was a chick. I did not want to hear that band. A year or so later, a friend at school stuck the first Sony Walkman I'd ever seen in my hands and told me to press play. Four minutes of rocking guitar goodness filled my ears before I heard that voice again. I couldn't deny the greatness of Rush's 2112 (despite Geddy Lee's weird voice). I was hooked.
I discovered Alice Cooper on my own. Alice wasn't quite as feared by parents as he once was, after all, he'd been on Hollywood Squares. I instantly gravitated to the look and the humor that, dang it, a lot of people just couldn't see. But beneath it all was a bunch of rock solid catchy songs. Without the great songs, Alice would have been just another pathetic Marilyn Manson wannabe, only decades before wittle Brian would become the derivative wannabe that he so very much is.
These were soon followed by Pink Floyd, Adam Ant, and so many others but the foundation was laid by Alice, David, and the boys from Liverpool and the Great White North. They still are in constant rotation in my ears and are all still active musically (except for the two dead ones).