I had Pink Floyd. My father is a huge fan of Roger Waters's works, and that was also the first music I really was impressed by.
Oky, wall of text incoming about my childhood, so if you are interested you can skip it.
As I said, Dark Side of the Moon was playing 24/7 where I grew up, and the first time I saw The Wall, well heard it is more precise, I was 12 I think. And it left an incredible imprint on my life, to this day, I regard it as the strongest "piece of modern work", and I call it work, since I can not call it music or art, for me it is something completely above everything on its scale.
But originally the music I listened to, which I found myself, was metal. This was when I was around 14-16, and it worked great, since teenage angst, and metal is perfect for that.
Now if you are still reading this, warning, I by no means am insulting metal in the next paragraph, it is a subjective opinion. Okay? okay...anyway. When I hit 16, that music did not cut it anymore, since the teenage angst kinda went away. For me metal, to this day I think that, it is a music with an incredible amount of emotion and feeling, however I can no longer find a direction for it. That is what turned me off it now. But it was great when I was a teenage, since I did not have a direction either.
The I discovered Pink Floyd, which was the first music I have ever heard, with such a strong "boy meets idea" mentality. To this day I am amazed by it.
In the past few days, I started thinking about doing some original songs, and start messing around with lyrics, and ironically, as much as I love blues, the first thing that comes to my mind, is an attempt to write "political songs" or "social commentary" stuff, because of how much I am influenced by the persona and works of Roger Waters.
I will probably still end up, trying a blues song, but that is still more natural for me, when it comes to words, ironically enough.
On the other side, I spend a lot of time, when I was younger with my grant parents, and they listened to a lot of Russian bards artists. And that, plus I had some records when I was really young, f the under-ground rock-n-roll from Saint-Petersburg, it still is somewhere in my veins.
That is still in my system, and part of which I had such an easy time grabbing the blues into me, especially Robert Johnson works, and old 1930 acoustic blues, since it had the same impact and sound almost. Those 3 chord songs, about a broken heart.
I still regard myself incredibly connected to blues, and that is my go to place, since that is the strongest thing I can relate with now-a-days, the never ending story of "Boy meets girl".
But now-a-days, looking at what I play and what I enjoy, I can see all those things, my childhood and the household, mixed with experiences and break ups, and mental f**k ups, abuses of substance to remove the problems, all that kinda is still there under the surface.
And it is great, because I found a way to deal with it and be at piece, not by ignoring it, but actually calling on it.
With my playing the guitar, and my singing, as awful as it is, it isnt just words for me, since every time I play, I can tap into that ocean of all those things and experiences and just draw on it and use it. And that is the magical thing about it.
The other day, I was at a friends place, and he had a guitar, I started playing since I was bored and singing "Me and the Devil", in the middle of the song I forgot the words, but I just kept on playing, and singing my own stuff. And it worked, because it came from the same place as the original song.
Even though the lyrics were wrong, it was still right, since its a "boy meets girls" story, and I have so much of it, I do not need someone elses lyrics for that.
If you listen to Rambling on My Mind that I did, I can count around 10 music theory mistakes there, which should not be there, but it does not matter if its right or wrong, its the place it comes from.
-------End of my story----
So you see, all those things are there, and they are great, since you can always call on them, and they are also pure. And it is wonderful, since its part of YOUR mark, its is YOUR creation and YOUR approach and not just "here is musically correct patterns developed by a soulless machine"
Well....this reply escalated quickly......