Who were your favorite artists "back in the day?"

My tastes haven't gone through any "polarity shifts." I still love all of the stuff I loved as a young music fan. I was obsessed with music already by the time I was 5 or 6. And a lot of that stuff is still high on my list of favorite artists. My tastes expanded over the years, and of course I came to love a lot of new artists, but most of the artists who are still high on my list of favorites were pretty well-cemented by the mid to late 70s for me, when I was in my later teens.

I posted a long list of my favorite artists here:
imdb2.freeforums.net/post/6031/thread

The first music I really got into was metal and hard rock, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Black Sabbath, Bon Jovi, Dokken, Metallica, Megadeth, Whitesnake, Kiss, Iron Maiden. That was in the 80's and I remained into that music in the 90's although I did explore Grunge, Punk and Hardcore as well then. Now I listen to all types of music except Rap, Techno/Hip Hop, to me that kind of stuff just doesn't sound like it is cared about even by the people who make it.

Anyway, the metal I grew up with still interests me a lot as well as new metal but grunge I really don't revisit very often at all.

My love for music began at a very early age (around 6 or 7 yrs old), thanks in large part to my older siblings who had decent sized record collections. From my sisters' collections, I heard everything from The Beatles and John Lennon (solo) to Chicago and Billy Joel to Donna Summer and The Village People ... and yeah, Barry Manilow too.  We also had more than a few K-Tel compilation albums hanging around the house featuring the Top 20 hits of the day (this was the late 70s, mind you). But my brother's record collection was much cooler and his tastes would leave a far greater impression on me. He had albums by Kiss, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger, Steve Miller Band, The Who, AC/DC, et al. Basically, the big names of 70's rock.

At age 8, Kiss became my FIRST favorite band. I loved the band's gimmick and the catchy albeit simple rock music they played. I ended up buying all the Kiss albums that weren't already in my bro's collection. A few years later, I got tired of the clown makeup and mediocre tunes (really, Kiss's best days were already behind them by then) and I moved on to buying records by more "serious" bands (i.e., bands that didn't look like Barnum & Bailey rejects) like Aerosmith, AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Cheap Trick.

At around 11 years old, I started devouring rock magazines like Creem, Hit Parader and best of all Trouser Press. Trouser Press opened up my eyes (and ears) to the burgeoning sounds of new wave and punk. Sure, the magazine covered aging rockers like The Rolling Stones and The Who but it also featured interviews with newer bands like The Buzzcocks, Pretenders, Plasmatics, The Go-Go's and Black Flag...and best of all was the 'American Underground' record review section that reviewed hard to find independent releases by bands with names like Minor Threat, Misfits, Circle Jerks and T.S.O.L.  Who were these weird bands? Where could I find their records? I just HAD to get a hold of them. The big chain record stores I was familiar with didn't carry THAT stuff. Eventually, through arduous searching I found places that did sell that stuff....and I found out that the local college radio stations (at the far left end of the radio dial) were playing these and other obscure bands on a daily basis.   

At 13, punk (or 'hardcore punk', if you will) became my passion much to the chagrin of my parents and the local jocks. To go into all the bands I listened to and would discover over the years would take forever. Some of my favorite bands included local punk heroes SS Decontrol, Psycho, The F.U.'s, Mission of Burma and The Freeze as well as the bigger names in the national scene such as Black Flag, X, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys. But that's just scratching the surface. There were literally hundreds of great bands coming out of the underground scene in the 80s. Suffice to say, punk was the music of my adolescence and my love for it lasted well into my young adult years when I finally had to leave "the scene" behind and grow up. 

At 47, I'm no longer a "punk" and hardly collect vinyl anymore (in fact, I've sold off much of my collection) but I still love the tunes...and I still dig all the classic rock I consumed as a youngster as well. Over my adult years, I've also grown to love classical, folk, country and even some jazz and Motown.  

My big Bowie obsession started then. Of course I already loved him as a young kid after watching Labyrinth and I knew his 80's songs. But when I became a sci-fi nerd and watched The Man Who Fell to Earth and read an article about Bowies most underrated albums. I knew I needed to listen to more of his music, so I bought Low, 1. Outside and Diamond Dogs and I was hooked. Eventually I had about every album and later on searched for all these hidden gems on the internet (like The Leon Suites and Toy).

Also, I was a big Marilyn Manson fan. I bought so many bootlegs and old demo albums, I just wanted everything.

And black metal. Nuclear Blast always released these cheap double albums with songs of their singed bands, it was a great way to get to know new bands in that genre.
And there was a magazine called Metal Hammer, it always came with a cd containing new metal songs. Again, a great way to get to know new bands.

I was a teen during the whole Grunge era, so my favorites were Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains. I still like them till this day. My favorite band, however, is The Beatles. I've liked them for as long as I can remember. I'm also a huge Hendrix freak (he's the reason I play the guitar), as well as Led Zeppelin.

I've recently started getting vinyl. So far I have Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin I and II, Are You Experienced, and Axis Bold as Love.

Good question....

I was born in 1982 and its funny how I know music from the early 80s and music in my birth year. I remember as a kid I loved watching MTV, VH1, and BET and I was 4 or 5 in 1986/87 when I first started watching the music networks. I used to think Michael Jackson "thriller" came out in 1986 because I was still seeing music videos from "thriller" on the music networks.

My favorite artists in the 80s and most of them still are

Jody Watley
Janet Jackson
George Michael
Madonna
Michael Jackson
Prince
Genesis
Paula Abdul
Stevie Wonder
Luther Vandross
Anita Baker

I never considered Alice in Chains to be grunge. Sure, their music adapted well during the height of the grunge popularity and they're from Seattle but they're mostly a metal band..... with a unique sound and style like no other metal band.

Yeah, technically they were probably more metal than grunge.  They seem to get lumped into the whole grunge scene because they were popular during the grunge era and came from Seattle.  Looking back it's kinda funny how the whole scene was labeled grunge, yet none of them really shared the same sound.

The records I started buying (pre)teen were mostly 2-tone, The Jam and Toyah. In my teens I branched out to Simple Minds, The Smiths, New Order, Echo & The Bunnymen etc