Any time I hear something off it’s soundtrack, I immediately flash back to playing Thrasher Skate and Destroy on PS1. I think I would have said I liked hip hop before that came into my life but really, I probably only ever listened to Beastie Boys, Jurassic 5, Dr Dre and Eminem. This game only had 13 tracks but each one had a big impact on me. I realised that all the stuff that came before what I was listening to was equally as good, often way better. I got obsessed with Award Tour from A Tribe Called Quest, they became my favourite hip hop group and they still are to this day.
Another big one, which I’m sure is the case for many here, is Kurt Cobain. Any band he was endorsing was a band I wanted to listen to. Melvins, Mudhoney, Angry Samoans, Flipper, Fang, The Wipers. Any shirt he wore with a band logo on it, any namedrop in an interview, any list he made that I could find (before his diaries came out) had me straight to napster to check out the songs.
My friend lent me Hard Boiled and The God of Gamblers on video. They were the first foreign movies I ever saw, and a greasy 15 year old is pretty much the perfect audience for Hard Boiled so I was hooked on asian cinema instantly. Those were followed by In The Mood for Love, The Ring, Dead or Alive and a whole load of other Chow Yun Fat films.