2000 - probably still Manic Street Preachers or Radiohead, although my first year of uni and the looming spectre of nu-metal also hang over this period like a particularly nasty stench…
2005 - Mastodon. Young friendofthenight had emerged (relatively) unscathed from the dark nu-metal years and Leviathan sounded like the greatest record ever written. It’s still one of my absolute favourites to this day.
2010 - Flying Lotus. Cosmogramma felt unlike anything else I’d ever heard up to this point. I came to his stuff from a hip hop/beats perspective but my interest in jazz starts here and with his full band Infinity show at the ICA this summer.
2015 - Nils Frahm. I don’t recall why I got so drawn to his music around this time but I was all the way in. His show at the Roundhouse this year was another all-time favourite of mine partly because it was absolutely captivating and also because it was the first gig my wife and I went to together. She walked down the aisle to one of his songs the next year.
2020 - probably Wilco. I’d always been a bit late on them, convinced they were too “dad” for me. I never did become a dad but they fully clicked for me somewhere around age 35-36 and I’ve been buyiong expensive vinyl reissues ever since. Still need a copy of Summerteeth!
2025 - Heavy post rock/post metal /drone seems to be what really does it for me these days. Bands like Sumac, Big|Brave, Thou, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, etc.
A special shout out for Mogwai, who were apparently never my favourite band at any of these points but have been a constant presence and cornerstone of my taste for the whole period.
I think I was 29 when I got into King Creosote - recently been revisiting him a lot at 35 after a bit of a gap though as he’s playing here soon
Didn’t get Wilco until I was 34 - again they were playing here, was doing a lot of research to make sure I wouldn’t regret skipping them but then they finally clicked
2000 - not at secondary school quite yet so probably The Beatles cos of parents.
2005 - fairly sure this would’ve been System of A Down, looking sulky on the bus and drawing skeletons during lessons.
2010 - very good memories of listening to and going to see Wild Beasts with my friend group who were all well into them around this time.
2015 - got completely absorbed in b’lieve I’m goin down by Kurt Vile, listened to not much else but the extended version of that album for months. Still one of my all time favourites.
2020 - either Waxahatchee or Nap Eyes, those were my two main lockdown grooves.
2025 - I’m gonna put White Denim here cos I love their recent album, plus they were my favourite band intermittently on quite a lot of years that just didn’t fall on the multiples of five. Saw them in December and going again this Sunday, they still rule!
2025 shoddily recorded guitar music of the 90s ie. Supreme Dicks, Cul de Sac 2020 2-step for lockdown drives with the missus ie. Oxide & Neutrino 2015 goth pop for older brothers ie. John Maus 2010 space disco ie. Beats in Space mixes and attempting to DJ 2005 exclusively avant rock, the less musical the better ie. XBXRX, Pit er Pat 2000 post-rock and not just the crescendoing stuff ie. GYBE, Salaryman 1995 80s gay commie music ie. Erasure, PSB, Communards 1990 taping the top 40 and noting the songs down in a jotter
Really good question this. Taking bands as all musicians.
2000 - not much for this one as I was 8. Probably John Williams
2005 - Height of my metal phase. I think probably Guns N Roses but a case could be made for Metallica .
2010 - Midway through 2010, my first year of uni, I discovered The Monitor by Titus Andronicus and it blew my mind so 100% them.
2015 - The War on Drugs, slightly lost in my early 20s. Great soundtrack for this.
2020 - Wild Pink - soundtracked some great travel years. Good records to have on immediately before or after climbing mountains.
2025 - Bob Dylan - he’s always been around my 5th favourite artist until recently but the last couple of years have seen him go up a level.
I did this too - on A4 pages in a wee binder. I got slagged off rotten for it when my mates found out, but I was just interested in being able to remember what was in the charts - and it saved you waiting til the NME or whatever was out.
2000 - I was 14, it was blink 182, I regret nothing.
2005 - probably gets a bit depressing here because it will be Brand New, and honestly that’s probably the case right up until 2017. Everything they did meant everything to me and it felt very much like they moved and grew in the same direction I had each time they released something new. No other lyricist has resonated with me so much so it broke my interest in music for a bit to know my own Catholic guilt, my own self-loathing … They were not for similar things. At all. So then …
2020 - toss up between Converge (I’d gotten massively back into heavy, generally pretty angry music in the few years before), Charli XCX and Phoebe Bridgers. Like others have said, their records were pretty helpful in managing lockdown.
2025 - easy, Chat Pile are the best band on Earth.
2000 - Neil Young
2005 - Acid Mothers Temple
2010 - Guided By Voices
2015 - [no idea…Sun Araw?]
2020 - Bill Callahan
2025 - Otomo Yoshihide
obviously really difficult to pick just one each time…
‘interestingly’ what comes out is not at all representative of the range of genres etc. I was listening to at various times/listen to now. But is pretty representative of the kinds of things that I’ve always liked (even if I discovered the particular artist later on)
Ditto, I understand why some people feel they can listen to Brand New but this is the reason I can’t. Knowing that the girls involved would’ve been my age makes me feel a bit sick thinking about it. Having something resonate so strongly when you’re a teenager can be so great but thinking about how I felt like I could relate to what this person was singing about makes my skin crawl.
Nothing to add other than I am in the exact same place (they only weren’t included in this for me because they fell between intervals). It’s a horrible feeling.
I feel I kinda searched for ages but then found my favourites and kept them.
2000 - Finch
2005 - Björk
2010 - Joanna Newsom
2015 - Joanna Newsom, Grouper + Broadcast
2020 - Joanna Newsom, Grouper + Broadcast
2025 - Joanna Newsom, Grouper + Broadcast
Richard Dawson and Jenny Hval are probably the closest in recent times to troubling The Big Three. And maybe Boards of Canada and The Knife around the late 2000s/early 2010s.
some big ones that have fallen through the cracks for me too here, like various different years of Guided by Voices addiction, or the peak Oh Sees years (about 2017 to 19)
