We all have music from all eras but I think everyone's got this period of time where they like about 75% to 90% of what they hear on the radio, usually when they first start discovering their own music and building their own collection.

I started really listening to rock music around 1992 or so and my purchases of new music starting waning around 2004 or so (ages 12-24). For a while, it felt like there were almost too many new bands and singles to check out and now it feels like there's almost nothing out there for me except going back in time and discovering bands from the mid-60s through the early 90s that weren't big for young people during my golden age.

So what about you?

1965-1974

I like some music from most periods since the 1920's though. Re: current music I mostly prefer prog & singer-songwriter.

Pretty coincided with the launching of music videos. Born partially deaf, I never made much effort to try to
listen seriously to music as it just wasn't paying back enough dividends for me. Mind you, I never did this
consciously that I know of. I just didn't listen to music until I started to be able to see the bands put together
some type of visual aid to help draw me in. So, my musical tastes formed (and are stuck) pretty much in the
late 1970s early 1980s.

I would say 1972-1982 was my favorite because I began collecting music in 72.

1974 - 1984 There was a lot going on during this period and the place I revisit a lot.

Can I say 1953 thru 1974...early rock, r&b, Sun, Chess, rockabilly, British Invasion, folk, album rock, west coast music, country (not like today's modern stuff), C Parkway, jazz, is there anything else?

1967-1974

Remember when the music
Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire
And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire,
For we believed in things, and so we'd sing.
— Harry Chapin

64 - disco

that was the beginning of the end for my impulse buying and when most of my heroes began making less music, then came the 00's and it was basically over save for a couple of albums a month.

I would say mine was about from 1968 through 1982. My favorites are the singer - songwriters of the 70's era.

Personally, I'd probably go with 1987 to 1994, give or take. Great Metal, the popular break out of thrash, grunge, and the socal punk scene. PLus unique bands like NIN and Rage.

From an industry perspective, I'd probably go with 1980 to 1984. which seems to me the last time popular music was brought back together into a single chart. After that, it fractured into a bunch of pieces that haven't yet been put back together.

I find myself buying either freshly released vault material of stuff my more obscure artists from the past or re-re-re-released material of stuff that I already have.
There are some interesting first time on cd releases like the Yoko cds or the upcoming Johnny Rivers release or the Popeye sound track.
Recently both cds by long forgotten 50's bands such. As the Six Teens (their claim to far was Casual Look) or the Fiestas (So Fine).
Been thinking about the Roy Acuff bear family box but. It. I'd very expensive.
As for nee material...i guess Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Neil Young, LWIII, Ringo and George Thorogood...can't think of many others...David Bromberg.

Other than Jimbo, I must own some sort of record for buying most "upgrades" of the same thousand or 2 titles dating back to vinyl.

Funny, I was thinking of starting a thread just like this today. My "coming of age" years were filled with top 40 dreck that all my friends listened to. None of it really did anything for me, but it's what everyone listened to, so that's what I heard. Then one day a friend of mine put in a cassette mix of "different" music. I'd never heard anything like it and it all sparked for me and drew me in. This was around 1988 or late 87. New Order, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and finally, the Sex Pistols. I immediately went out and bought all the available stuff from all these people, couldn't get enough. I trawled record stores weekly for bootlegs and imports. I went to clubs and got to know the DJs, who gave me exclusive 12" mixes. I got into an entire new group of friends, and we all wore black all the time. I'm friends with many of them to this day. Basically, 80s and 90s alternative music was my golden age.

I had a brief early 90s dalliance with techno and going to raves all the time, but then came Nirvana and grunge, and I got drawn into that. My tastes today are all over the map, from pre-war Blues to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. But without that mix tape I may never have gotten to be a big music fan at all, and I owe that era everything.

1975-85. Punk/new wave/synthpop/power pop.

Not if that person is a fan of metal and prog because that stuff didn't exist on radio back in the day. At least metal got played on MTV but my beginnings in buying music happened before the start of MTV. Many of my record purchases happened because I read an interview with a band member in a magazine or the album artwork looked cool or word of mouth from classmates. Even with new acts today, I'll rarely go to youtube and preview the stuff....if talk on metal/prog message boards is raving about an album I'll generally just go ahead and get a copy.

Just to expand a bit on my comment, a few key developments:

Heading to college in 1975.
Seeing the play live Ramones in 1976.
Getting hooked on Creem magazine.
1981: started working in lower Manhattan. Disposable income and many record stores
1979-80 or thereabouts: WPIX-FM moves to a new wave format for a short time
1982: MTV premieres
Early 80s: WLIR-FM (later WDRE) moves to new wave format

Perfect confluence of circumstances.

Great idea for a thread Hanzo the Razor. Thanks!

First was the awakening to music when the British Invasion hit. I was too young to buy stuff but the girl next door who was 4 years older DID buy all those great British Invasion records as they came out.
And she got them all. Of course I had to play all those silly board games and stuff when I went over but I got play her records. Thank you Barbara.

My first purchased 45, 'Mr. Tambourine Man' by The Byrds. The woman cashier of all of 16 said, "Wow, for a young kid you are pretty cool". I knew I was on to something.
My first albums were the Beach Boys 'Surf'in USA' and the Four Seasons 'Rag Doll'. Wow, albums are cool.

As I got older and worked summer jobs and weekends during the school year I started buying my own albums therefore from 1970 thru 1977 years were big album purchases. It was about Korvettes great label album sales and my first discoveries of used record stores.

Picked up again in 1980 and got into the New Wave, New Romantics period and then right into the 90's with Brit-Pop. Then came the reissue programs and off course the CD bug caught me in the late 80's and well, the rest is history.

My first 45 was DC5 Catch Us If You Can.

First 2 LP's bought together were one of the Vee Jay spin offs of Beatles Please Please Me & Rolling Stones December's Children.

I guess I'm one of the older guys here. I know I've said before that I think our musical golden age is pretty closely aligned with our teen years. I've always been a top 40 guy and in many ways I guess I still am. I guess I would narrow my golden age to maybe 1961-1966, my junior high and high school period. Before I went off to college I had the opportunity to do a few years as a record hop engineer for deejays at THE top 40 station in Cleveland. Nothing made me happier than playing the hits for appreciative teens for three or four hours on a Friday or Saturday night. To be a teen at the time when you had the Wall of Sound, dozens of hits backed by the Wrecking Crew, the British Invasion, and of course, Motown, was really, really something.

Don't those Vee-Jay records go for big bucks now Geff?

Good question. There were a TON of boots of these around 65-70 in cutout bins (pirates that looked like the real thing), which lowered the value somewhat.

As late as the late 80's one cutout wholesaler (Scorpio) was still selling the pirates of the brown Vee Jay.

I sold mine years ago. I owned the black one with the 1/2 gatefold cover. I believe the gatefold was the key on that one to knowing if you had a real one. I don't remember if their was any way to tell on the Brown one without playing it.

I remember other pirated albums from a later period that often showed up in the batches of pirates along with the Vee Jay Beatles (at large stores):
Beatles - Let it Be
Todd Rundgren - album with We got To Get You A Woman
Bowie - Man Who Sold The World (cartoon cover)
Quicksilver - Shady Grove

The sound of most of these was the obvious way to tell they were pirated; even to my 10 year old ears they siunded awful.

I'm also one of the older guys (68) and grew up in Cleveland. Which Top 40 station did you work for; WHK, KYW, WIXY?