[jcmoorehead]

All of us here have one common artist that we like in Meat Loaf but when I look around the forums I see people mentioning a range of artists that they like besides the man himself, everyone from Springsteen to Micheal Jackson to Pink Floyd to Tom Jones. So I just thought it'd be a good idea for us to share how we came to get to like the music we currently like and the journeys along the way.

For me it actually begins with Meat Loaf, I was born December 1987 and I don't really remember anything musical until Bat Out Of Hell 2 was released so I would have been 5 at the time going on 6? My earliest musical memories are the video to I'd Do Anything For Love and hearing the rest of the album. I was a bit too young to really understand anything at that time but I do remember that I liked it. Alongside there two other things were the Musical Version Of War Of The Worlds and the Genesis album 'We Can't Dance.'

From there my tastes never really developed, music wasn't really a big thing for me. I remember going through the typical kid pop phase where I listened to S Club 7 and the like. Not a phase I was proud of but I found myself always returning to Meat Loaf. My pop phase was never really major and while other kids in my class would listen to that sort of music I would a bit but I'd usually opt for Meat Loaf with Bat 2 and Welcome To The Neighbourhood.

So fast forward into Secondary School when I began to understand more what music was. Again I got sucked into a phase where I explored harder rock and nu-metal. Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Korn, Slipknot that sort of thing. Again it didn't really last too long but it also taught me to explore genres beyond what I normally listened to.

It was around the back end of secondary school that I began to explore classic rock a bit more. My dad introduced me to Led Zeppelin, I started listening to Queen, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd.

Out of those it was Pink Floyd that truely captivated me. I had never heard anything like them before, they just sounded so unlike anything out there (The same way I look at Meat Loaf, there is no one out there like him). I would listen to Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall constantly. It was thanks to Pink Floyd that I decided to take up playing the guitar. (Guitar is a story for another topic)

So Pink Floyd introduced me to this genre called Progressive Rock. Of course I didn't delve into that until the past few years, instead I pretty much stuck with Meat Loaf, Floyd, Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, Zeppelin for a bit until one day a friend I played The Matrix Online with sent me a sound clip. It was from a band which I had heard the name of once or twice but didn't know anything about, the band was called Dream Theater.

The song itself was called Octavarium, it's a 24 minute song which deals with the themes of life moving in cycles and how the beginning can be the same as the end. What I heard blew my mind, technically they were fantastic but the emotion in the singing and lyrics were astounding. I immediately rushed out and got the album (Also called Octavarium) and became a huge fan.

So from there, which was quite a number of years ago now I began developing more. Dream Theater introduced me to the term 'Progressive' but it also opened my eyes a bit more to metal. Through reading about their influences and from recomendations I got into bands like Rush, Yes, Spocks Beard, Aryeon and Transatlantic on the progressive side and on the metal side I got into bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Opeth and Between The Buried And Me.

I do think though that from being brought up with Bat Out Of Hell 2 it taught me to respect music that is a bit different and goes against the grains and tries to do something new. All these bands and artists I listen to all have those qualities, they experiment, they do it for the love of music just as Meat himself does.

Sorry if that was a bit long for some people, I hope it is at least interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing what others have to say.