Imaris
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For some damn reason, in no browser other than Explorer does formatting apply during copy-paste (I had highlighted some things in italics and color), and for some reason IE ate many of the spaces o.o
In the summer of 2004 (I was moving from third to fourth grade then), I was sent to a children's health resort, where at the discos I actually started listening to a lot of music all at once for the first time. Pop, electronica, and club music were playing. I liked some songs a bit, which I told my sister upon arriving home. I said that I especially liked music "like in The Matrix," because it seemed like that's exactly how The Matrix sounded. It was Benassi. My sister said that this genre of music is called electronica, and the best group in the genre is The Prodigy. She let me listen to them a bit, as well as some other club and electronic music. I liked it. Sometime during the 2004-05 school year, my sister gave me The Prodigy's discography, which I listened to, albeit exclusively at the PC, since I had neither a phone nor a player, and I listened quite rarely. I'm afraid of getting the timing wrong, but I think for New Year 2005-06 she gave me a CD player and several music discs, which I still have today. These were: an mp3 discography of The Prodigy, a disc with a random hundred songs by Benny Benassi, a disc with the discography of the group Diskoteka Avariya, a strange disc with some DJ (I don't know who he is and I don't remember the music itself, except that I have one pop song of his in my audio library that I like) Panjabi MC. A disc by Aphex Twin, whom I barely listened to, but I more or less liked them, though not as much as Prodigy; a disc titled "Dance Planet" with actual dance and popular music; the discography of Korol i Shut (which I still haven't listened to, lol) and some other strange disc called Extreme Shock—I don't even remember what was on it, probably pop, dance, and electronica. Of all this, I listened almost exclusively to The Prodigy and a bit of Benny Benassi; the rest I either didn't like right away and didn't listen to because I didn't want to, or I just never got around to it, as in the case of Korol i Shut.
I remember that back then I proudly declared to everyone: "I listen to electronica!", while 50 Cent and Eminem were in fashion; many didn't even know what electronica was at all, and therefore my classmates bullied/offended me and laughed at me. No one else in the class listened to such music. A few years later, things normalized: everyone started listening to club and electronic music themselves, but I wasn't listening to it anymore :).
In seventh grade, I started finding musical friends to whom I gave Pro-digy, and they also sent me random electronica, techno, and club music. And after the New Year (beginning of 2008), a wave of Linkin Park hit the school: everyone mostly listened to their rap. I, however, raised by my own same-training and the bad attitude of my classmates toward my music, felt sharply negative toward rap and hip-hop in any form. Therefore, at first, I wildly distanced myself from Linkin Park. But one of my friends eventually wore me down, saying that the group has very cool electronic alternative. The last word was completely unclear to me then (and hardly clear to that friend either), but the point here is that the music is electronic. He lied, of course, because the group only has a few electronic compositions, which he sent me via Bluetooth, but I took their discography from him and listened. I fiercely avoided rap compositions, while I began to feel a love for rock ones, and this feeling grew stronger and stronger. I also liked songs with recitative, but I didn't know it then and convinced myself of the opposite. Now I listen to them, enjoy them, and regret that I was such an idiot.
So, my audio library now consisted of a whole two groups! If you don't count separate compositions by some DJs, some songs from those discs my sister gave me, and other random stuff my friends threw at me. Progress. It is also worth mentioning the soundtrack to the game Painkiller sent by a friend, which I liked almost immediately. I didn't play the game itself (the computer was weak), so I heard the OST for the first time. If one tries to determine the genre, it's some kind of instrumental metal; Last.fm says it's progressive, but I can't determine the subgenre myself. Now I hardly listen to this soundtrack—I don't like it as much as I did then.
Then, in the summer of 2008, I was again at a health resort. There were few of us because it was a reward (and for me, a "reward") for winning an All-Russian forum with some kind of scientific research papers. My roommates mostly listened to Aria and a bit of Epidemiya, although besides that they had some club music and rap. For some reason, I resisted this music (perhaps they were forcing it on me (I don't remember exactly), and at that age if someone forced something on me, I resisted it even more), but in the end, I gave in because the music was good. I sent my dad a text to find me Aria's discography by the time I returned. He found it, but I still haven't listened to it—only one album with those songs that those guys had. This album—"Generator Zla"—I still like, although I rarely feel in the mood to listen to Aria. And as for Epidemiya, I didn't know about them then, because my campmates only had one song by the group, and I thought it was Aria. Later at home, I listened to the beginnings of tracks from the whole discography searching for the song "Na Poroge Ada" (at that time I didn't even know the title), but didn't find it, grew desperate, and gave up.
I returned from camp a few days before my birthday, for which I asked for Magic: The Gathering, which I had googled on the internet. In August, I got a friend into this card game, and he got me into... Nightwish. We spent all of August playing Magic and listening to Nightwish. And then we played for another two years and listened to various metal. At the time, I was slightly surprised by the combination of female operatic vocals and heavy rock (for a very long time I called almost all metal "rock," except for those with a "raspy voice" (extreme vocals)—I categorized all such metal as death metal). By the way, I had heard Nightwish a bit (not listened to) before this—after all, my dad has the group (my parents are rockers), he played them sometimes. But I remember the song Sleeping Sun well—he showed me the clip with knights and battles many times, and I didn't like the music then.
I listened to Nightwish without a break for three months, hardly distracting myself with anything else—this divine music completely possessed me. They immediately became my favorite group, but that was not surprising at all then, given the amount of music in my audio library. Much more surprising is that they are still my favorite group.
Then I took System of a Down from a classmate and was also fascinated, although far less so than by Nightwish or even Linkin Park. My friend and I started watching the television channel A-one, which had some good songs. I downloaded and listened to some of them, but rarely. The channel gave me the group Clawfinger—rapcore, but it is significantly more rock than rap.
And for New Year, my sister came and brought me two metal discs (she is a metalhead herself, despite getting me into Prodigy, and a metalhead mainly in the heaviest genres), as well as a demo from her boyfriend's group. The group is called Pray the Martyr; of course, I liked it then (since I listened to little), but now I realize that the music is of quite a low level, and besides, I don't really like the genre—some kind of post-hardcore, only angry and brutal, not like Arandor.
And then I became a metalhead. Those discs gave me a bunch of good music. My friend and I came to my house after school to play Motyga and took one of the discs. Of course, first we were interested in names like Demons & Wizards and Diablo. I love and listen to both these groups to this day. The first is a joint project of the vocalist of the German power metal group Blind Guardian and the guitarist of the American power/thrash metal group Iced Earth. Surprisingly, I like Demons & Wizards much more than either of the components, while most fans didn't like the experiment. The second is melodic death/thrash metal from Finland.
From these discs, I picked up a few more good groups; I won't describe them all, but rather write about the next important stage of my musical—or rather, metal—exploration. In the winter-spring of 2009, I downloaded a bunch of compilations called Gothic Spirits. This was caused by the following: I had read about subcultures then and even wanted to join one of them. While everyone around fiercely hated emos and goths, I found them sympathetic. Praise Odin that I didn't actually join any subcultures then. I wanted to hear gothic music; I really hoped I would like it so that I could rightfully be a goth, to be "not-like-everyone-else." And considering that I loved listening to metal, I looked for something in gothic metal and found these compilations—parts 6 and 7. However, I later found out that there is only 5% gothic metal in them; the rest is also metal, but mostly symphonic, industrial, folk, and a bit of power. These compilations brought me many excellent or just good groups, including: Epica, Therion, Graveworm, Eluveitie. After some time, I downloaded the first parts of the compilation; they are actually gothic, but I didn't like it.
Then I had a fail summer of 2009. First, I was sent to some camp, for which I took a bunch of tasty music and killed my memory card in the first few days. I had to listen to the group Dreadful Shadows (which was also on my sister's disc), recorded on a separate card. Now that was actual gothic—to be more precise, darkwave and gothic rock. I was also given some Slipknot, which I didn't like much. Then my parents and I went to a health resort, and I was again almost without music. The thing is, I'm a fool and think about everything at the last moment; as a result, I simply didn't have time to record all the music I wanted onto my phone—I only managed Nightwish (and not even all of it) and a not-very-good but normal metalcore group Your Eyes My Dreams from my sister's disc. (I had neither a laptop nor an external hard drive then, so that I could take all the music with me on vacation).
In August, I began to listen diligently to Epica. Throughout the first two months of summer, I absolutely loved the song The Obsessive Devotion from the Gothic Spirits compilation, and for both those months I was without music, including this song. I listened to Epica for quite a long time too; then a new album came out just as I finished with the main discography. What I listened to after that and until New Year—I don't remember. And roughly after New Year, I first discovered Graveworm, then Therion—2004 “Lemuria” (I listened to the rest of the discography about half a year later), and then Eluveitie. Graveworm was very timely then—I was having bad times, school problems, problems with some classmates, terrible depressions (even ХВ should remember this; I did some stupid things then and was banned twice). I wouldn't have coped without depressive heavy music. Therion fascinated me then as nothing had since Nightwish. I listened to Eluveitie sometime in the spring, and folk music goes very well in the spring. Also around this period, I listened to two Amatory albums; it really hit the spot.
Almost all of summer 2010, I listened to various power metal, especially groups Rhapsody, Alestorm, Blind Guardian, Dark Moor, Aria and Epidemiya, as well as a bit of Therion and Tristania. Additionally, I downloaded an album by the hip-hop group Yu.G. and strangely mixed it with power. Around this time, I started listening to Ensiferum, but I don't remember exactly—maybe I started before summer, maybe after.
In the autumn, I continued getting to know Therion; they became my favorite group on par with Nightwish. Also occasionally listened to the black metal group Vampiria and early Graveworm albums. Around the turn of 2010-11, Nebo got me into Slayer (although I was interested and got into it myself). Listened to one album. Can't say I liked it very much, but interesting.
I don't remember what I did after that up until the late spring of 2011, when I discovered black metal for myself. Graveworm doesn't count; they aren't like other black metal at all, despite the fact that the group is hard to categorize into any other metal genre. I mostly listened to Agathodaimon, Arcturus, Dimmu Borgir, and a bit of Cradle of Filth. I discovered black metal for myself, but didn't go further with it except for rare exceptions, even though I liked the genre very much. At the beginning of summer, I started listening to random grindcore, and in July, my sister and I went to Czechia for a grindcore festival. To be precise, she went more for the festival, while I went more for Czechia, as grindcore doesn't appeal to me that strongly. However, at the festival, I heard an excellent death metal group—Entrails; now I listen with passion. And from grindcore, I love, almost adore Distorted Impalement; pity this group wasn't at the festival.
If my memory serves me correctly, in August I started listening to the dark electro group Aesthetic Perfection. Amko had sent me a few songs of this genre a year earlier; I liked them, and I even downloaded an album by the group FGFC820 then, but hardly listened to it because the other songs didn't seem as wonderful to me then. But I listened to it in the autumn of 2011 and liked it, quite a lot.
Almost until New Year, I listened to various "kind" music: heavy, power, folk, symphonic, less often gothic and dark electro. Additionally, I began to be more interested in other genres: listened a bit to Arandor's alt-rock (Blue October), classic rock (Uriah Heep), J-rock (妖精帝國 aka Yōsei Teikoku), acoustic ambient (Buckethead), violin (David Garrett), new age (eRa). I also delved into metal genres unfamiliar to me: heavy metal (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath), classic doom metal (Candlemass), acoustic doom metal (Uaral), listened to a Metallica album, and the progressive shredding of Meshuggah. Furthermore, I returned to the source—started listening to the long-abandoned The Prodigy.
In winter-spring 2012, I listened a bit to Blackmore’s Night. I had heard this music many times before—my parents adore it; I decided to tackle it independently now. Became slightly interested in oriental metal—metal with eastern motifs (groups Aeternam, Myrath, Orphaned Land). Then I listened to old music again—Linkin Park.
And then today happened.
In the summer of 2004 (I was moving from third to fourth grade then), I was sent to a children's health resort, where at the discos I actually started listening to a lot of music all at once for the first time. Pop, electronica, and club music were playing. I liked some songs a bit, which I told my sister upon arriving home. I said that I especially liked music "like in The Matrix," because it seemed like that's exactly how The Matrix sounded. It was Benassi. My sister said that this genre of music is called electronica, and the best group in the genre is The Prodigy. She let me listen to them a bit, as well as some other club and electronic music. I liked it. Sometime during the 2004-05 school year, my sister gave me The Prodigy's discography, which I listened to, albeit exclusively at the PC, since I had neither a phone nor a player, and I listened quite rarely. I'm afraid of getting the timing wrong, but I think for New Year 2005-06 she gave me a CD player and several music discs, which I still have today. These were: an mp3 discography of The Prodigy, a disc with a random hundred songs by Benny Benassi, a disc with the discography of the group Diskoteka Avariya, a strange disc with some DJ (I don't know who he is and I don't remember the music itself, except that I have one pop song of his in my audio library that I like) Panjabi MC. A disc by Aphex Twin, whom I barely listened to, but I more or less liked them, though not as much as Prodigy; a disc titled "Dance Planet" with actual dance and popular music; the discography of Korol i Shut (which I still haven't listened to, lol) and some other strange disc called Extreme Shock—I don't even remember what was on it, probably pop, dance, and electronica. Of all this, I listened almost exclusively to The Prodigy and a bit of Benny Benassi; the rest I either didn't like right away and didn't listen to because I didn't want to, or I just never got around to it, as in the case of Korol i Shut.
I remember that back then I proudly declared to everyone: "I listen to electronica!", while 50 Cent and Eminem were in fashion; many didn't even know what electronica was at all, and therefore my classmates bullied/offended me and laughed at me. No one else in the class listened to such music. A few years later, things normalized: everyone started listening to club and electronic music themselves, but I wasn't listening to it anymore :).
In seventh grade, I started finding musical friends to whom I gave Pro-digy, and they also sent me random electronica, techno, and club music. And after the New Year (beginning of 2008), a wave of Linkin Park hit the school: everyone mostly listened to their rap. I, however, raised by my own same-training and the bad attitude of my classmates toward my music, felt sharply negative toward rap and hip-hop in any form. Therefore, at first, I wildly distanced myself from Linkin Park. But one of my friends eventually wore me down, saying that the group has very cool electronic alternative. The last word was completely unclear to me then (and hardly clear to that friend either), but the point here is that the music is electronic. He lied, of course, because the group only has a few electronic compositions, which he sent me via Bluetooth, but I took their discography from him and listened. I fiercely avoided rap compositions, while I began to feel a love for rock ones, and this feeling grew stronger and stronger. I also liked songs with recitative, but I didn't know it then and convinced myself of the opposite. Now I listen to them, enjoy them, and regret that I was such an idiot.
So, my audio library now consisted of a whole two groups! If you don't count separate compositions by some DJs, some songs from those discs my sister gave me, and other random stuff my friends threw at me. Progress. It is also worth mentioning the soundtrack to the game Painkiller sent by a friend, which I liked almost immediately. I didn't play the game itself (the computer was weak), so I heard the OST for the first time. If one tries to determine the genre, it's some kind of instrumental metal; Last.fm says it's progressive, but I can't determine the subgenre myself. Now I hardly listen to this soundtrack—I don't like it as much as I did then.
Then, in the summer of 2008, I was again at a health resort. There were few of us because it was a reward (and for me, a "reward") for winning an All-Russian forum with some kind of scientific research papers. My roommates mostly listened to Aria and a bit of Epidemiya, although besides that they had some club music and rap. For some reason, I resisted this music (perhaps they were forcing it on me (I don't remember exactly), and at that age if someone forced something on me, I resisted it even more), but in the end, I gave in because the music was good. I sent my dad a text to find me Aria's discography by the time I returned. He found it, but I still haven't listened to it—only one album with those songs that those guys had. This album—"Generator Zla"—I still like, although I rarely feel in the mood to listen to Aria. And as for Epidemiya, I didn't know about them then, because my campmates only had one song by the group, and I thought it was Aria. Later at home, I listened to the beginnings of tracks from the whole discography searching for the song "Na Poroge Ada" (at that time I didn't even know the title), but didn't find it, grew desperate, and gave up.
I returned from camp a few days before my birthday, for which I asked for Magic: The Gathering, which I had googled on the internet. In August, I got a friend into this card game, and he got me into... Nightwish. We spent all of August playing Magic and listening to Nightwish. And then we played for another two years and listened to various metal. At the time, I was slightly surprised by the combination of female operatic vocals and heavy rock (for a very long time I called almost all metal "rock," except for those with a "raspy voice" (extreme vocals)—I categorized all such metal as death metal). By the way, I had heard Nightwish a bit (not listened to) before this—after all, my dad has the group (my parents are rockers), he played them sometimes. But I remember the song Sleeping Sun well—he showed me the clip with knights and battles many times, and I didn't like the music then.
I listened to Nightwish without a break for three months, hardly distracting myself with anything else—this divine music completely possessed me. They immediately became my favorite group, but that was not surprising at all then, given the amount of music in my audio library. Much more surprising is that they are still my favorite group.
Then I took System of a Down from a classmate and was also fascinated, although far less so than by Nightwish or even Linkin Park. My friend and I started watching the television channel A-one, which had some good songs. I downloaded and listened to some of them, but rarely. The channel gave me the group Clawfinger—rapcore, but it is significantly more rock than rap.
And for New Year, my sister came and brought me two metal discs (she is a metalhead herself, despite getting me into Prodigy, and a metalhead mainly in the heaviest genres), as well as a demo from her boyfriend's group. The group is called Pray the Martyr; of course, I liked it then (since I listened to little), but now I realize that the music is of quite a low level, and besides, I don't really like the genre—some kind of post-hardcore, only angry and brutal, not like Arandor.
And then I became a metalhead. Those discs gave me a bunch of good music. My friend and I came to my house after school to play Motyga and took one of the discs. Of course, first we were interested in names like Demons & Wizards and Diablo. I love and listen to both these groups to this day. The first is a joint project of the vocalist of the German power metal group Blind Guardian and the guitarist of the American power/thrash metal group Iced Earth. Surprisingly, I like Demons & Wizards much more than either of the components, while most fans didn't like the experiment. The second is melodic death/thrash metal from Finland.
From these discs, I picked up a few more good groups; I won't describe them all, but rather write about the next important stage of my musical—or rather, metal—exploration. In the winter-spring of 2009, I downloaded a bunch of compilations called Gothic Spirits. This was caused by the following: I had read about subcultures then and even wanted to join one of them. While everyone around fiercely hated emos and goths, I found them sympathetic. Praise Odin that I didn't actually join any subcultures then. I wanted to hear gothic music; I really hoped I would like it so that I could rightfully be a goth, to be "not-like-everyone-else." And considering that I loved listening to metal, I looked for something in gothic metal and found these compilations—parts 6 and 7. However, I later found out that there is only 5% gothic metal in them; the rest is also metal, but mostly symphonic, industrial, folk, and a bit of power. These compilations brought me many excellent or just good groups, including: Epica, Therion, Graveworm, Eluveitie. After some time, I downloaded the first parts of the compilation; they are actually gothic, but I didn't like it.
Then I had a fail summer of 2009. First, I was sent to some camp, for which I took a bunch of tasty music and killed my memory card in the first few days. I had to listen to the group Dreadful Shadows (which was also on my sister's disc), recorded on a separate card. Now that was actual gothic—to be more precise, darkwave and gothic rock. I was also given some Slipknot, which I didn't like much. Then my parents and I went to a health resort, and I was again almost without music. The thing is, I'm a fool and think about everything at the last moment; as a result, I simply didn't have time to record all the music I wanted onto my phone—I only managed Nightwish (and not even all of it) and a not-very-good but normal metalcore group Your Eyes My Dreams from my sister's disc. (I had neither a laptop nor an external hard drive then, so that I could take all the music with me on vacation).
In August, I began to listen diligently to Epica. Throughout the first two months of summer, I absolutely loved the song The Obsessive Devotion from the Gothic Spirits compilation, and for both those months I was without music, including this song. I listened to Epica for quite a long time too; then a new album came out just as I finished with the main discography. What I listened to after that and until New Year—I don't remember. And roughly after New Year, I first discovered Graveworm, then Therion—2004 “Lemuria” (I listened to the rest of the discography about half a year later), and then Eluveitie. Graveworm was very timely then—I was having bad times, school problems, problems with some classmates, terrible depressions (even ХВ should remember this; I did some stupid things then and was banned twice). I wouldn't have coped without depressive heavy music. Therion fascinated me then as nothing had since Nightwish. I listened to Eluveitie sometime in the spring, and folk music goes very well in the spring. Also around this period, I listened to two Amatory albums; it really hit the spot.
Almost all of summer 2010, I listened to various power metal, especially groups Rhapsody, Alestorm, Blind Guardian, Dark Moor, Aria and Epidemiya, as well as a bit of Therion and Tristania. Additionally, I downloaded an album by the hip-hop group Yu.G. and strangely mixed it with power. Around this time, I started listening to Ensiferum, but I don't remember exactly—maybe I started before summer, maybe after.
In the autumn, I continued getting to know Therion; they became my favorite group on par with Nightwish. Also occasionally listened to the black metal group Vampiria and early Graveworm albums. Around the turn of 2010-11, Nebo got me into Slayer (although I was interested and got into it myself). Listened to one album. Can't say I liked it very much, but interesting.
I don't remember what I did after that up until the late spring of 2011, when I discovered black metal for myself. Graveworm doesn't count; they aren't like other black metal at all, despite the fact that the group is hard to categorize into any other metal genre. I mostly listened to Agathodaimon, Arcturus, Dimmu Borgir, and a bit of Cradle of Filth. I discovered black metal for myself, but didn't go further with it except for rare exceptions, even though I liked the genre very much. At the beginning of summer, I started listening to random grindcore, and in July, my sister and I went to Czechia for a grindcore festival. To be precise, she went more for the festival, while I went more for Czechia, as grindcore doesn't appeal to me that strongly. However, at the festival, I heard an excellent death metal group—Entrails; now I listen with passion. And from grindcore, I love, almost adore Distorted Impalement; pity this group wasn't at the festival.
If my memory serves me correctly, in August I started listening to the dark electro group Aesthetic Perfection. Amko had sent me a few songs of this genre a year earlier; I liked them, and I even downloaded an album by the group FGFC820 then, but hardly listened to it because the other songs didn't seem as wonderful to me then. But I listened to it in the autumn of 2011 and liked it, quite a lot.
Almost until New Year, I listened to various "kind" music: heavy, power, folk, symphonic, less often gothic and dark electro. Additionally, I began to be more interested in other genres: listened a bit to Arandor's alt-rock (Blue October), classic rock (Uriah Heep), J-rock (妖精帝國 aka Yōsei Teikoku), acoustic ambient (Buckethead), violin (David Garrett), new age (eRa). I also delved into metal genres unfamiliar to me: heavy metal (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath), classic doom metal (Candlemass), acoustic doom metal (Uaral), listened to a Metallica album, and the progressive shredding of Meshuggah. Furthermore, I returned to the source—started listening to the long-abandoned The Prodigy.
In winter-spring 2012, I listened a bit to Blackmore’s Night. I had heard this music many times before—my parents adore it; I decided to tackle it independently now. Became slightly interested in oriental metal—metal with eastern motifs (groups Aeternam, Myrath, Orphaned Land). Then I listened to old music again—Linkin Park.
And then today happened.