1) Were you part of the in or out crowd (hip/unhip, popular/unpopular, etc)?

I was in a class totally by myself and still am. I went to a school that was probably 70% white and 30% black in the suburbs of the racist South. I was the white boy that hung strictly with the blacks. My black friends had nicknames for me such as "White Chocolate", "Black White Boy", "The White Delight", "Vanilla X" (long before Vanilla Ice), "The Male Teena Marie", etc. All these names I wore with pride. You don't want to know what the white kids used to call me because I was very much hated by them for hanging with the blacks (this was the early 1980s in the South).

2) What style of music did you listen to? (Not necessarily interested in group names)

It's interesting that you mention that people's tastes are formed in their Jr. High years because I first got heavy into music during my sixth grade year (1978-1979). Disco ruled the airwaves and I was very heavy into it. When disco died, I grasped to the next best thing which was funk. Funk during the early 1980s was very uptempo dance music just like disco. I eventually grew to love funk more than disco, but disco was my first love. Even the rap/hip hop during the early 1980s was dance floor oriented. When funk started becoming scarce in the mid to late 1980s and ballads started taking over, house music emerged. This music sounded like a more modern version of disco so I enjoyed it also. So I guess you could say that disco influenced a lot of what I listened to in later years after it's death and on up to the present.

I also listened to and liked rock/new wave in the early 1980s but I kept that to myself because of the horrible treatment I was receiving by the white kids at the time. I had developed an arrogant attitude of "If it ain't black...send it back" and boldly spoke it because of this treatment. It wasn't until the mid 1990s that I changed my attitude.

3) Did your particular social clique listen to the same style of music as you did?

Most definately. In fact, my tastes were harder, funkier, and "blacker" than the black kids tastes.....kinda like a drag queen being more feminine than a real woman....my tastes were "blacker" than the average black person's.

4) What style of music did your opposite clique(s) listen to?

Country music. We all considered it music for the racist rednecks because that's what we used to see them all listening to. Even to the preppy white kids in my area, if you listened to country music, you were white trash. It wasn't until the 1990s that the preppy white kids in my area started listening to it.

5) Are you still attracted to that style (or a similar style) of music today?

I'm attracted to it now more than ever. When rap and hip hop took over, I started listening to more rock. Then the accoustical "unplugged" trend started taking over rock and that bored the hell out of me with rock. Now I listen only to my old funk records and am rediscovering and loving a lot of the rock that I wouldn't have anything to do with back in the day.
[Edited 6/16/05 20:03pm]

sextonseven said:

I can't stand it today either...it has been so mixed up in other genres, like rap and reggae, that you can't distinguish or separate it from everything else. I remember hearing Super Blue and The Mighty Sparrow and going crazy at the family parties. Even now I love listening to Old School soca and calypso.

1) Were you part of the in or out crowd (hip/unhip, popular/unpopular, etc)?
We were in between. We knew the popular (cool and handsome) ones but also got along with the unpopular ones.

2) What style of music did you listen to? (Not necessarily interested in group names)
90's alternative rock music and britpop. A local radio station had a weekly list ('De afrekening') and that was my standard back then.

3) Did your particular social clique listen to the same style of music as you did?
Yes, in general. I was the music freak of our clique back then. I listened to the same music as them but I followed the trends and knew a lot more about new groups and artists than them.

4) What style of music did your opposite clique(s) listen to?
The popular ones listened to alternative rock, the opposite cliques either listened to chartmusic or trance and other horrible dance music.

5) Are you still attracted to that style (or a similar style) of music today?
Yes, still like it. But my musical taste has become more diverse since then. I listen to more diverse kinds of music than then. I was very much anti-electronical music back then because that was considered 'not done' Stupid me.

Actually, I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to pop-music. I studied dance and voice starting at very early age, so my earliest musical interests were classical, musical theatre, and a little bit of retro-folk artists. (I'n not even suggesting that I was GREAT dancer or singer; it's just been my personal experience. ) Then I started to attend dance conventions and take different styles of dance, so at that point I developed an interest in Prince and Janet Jackson. The funny thing is that I was an officer on our dance team coz I had been studying dance for so long and in the top choir, too, but I wasn't really popular coz my life just centered around performing in and outside of school. I had friends and boyfriends, but I was really disconnected in a way from the stuff that was actually going on or the mainstream crowd. I was even that way throughout college as well coz I was always out doing my own thing.

I've really taken more of an interest in other music styles more recently as and adult than I ever did as a teenager other than very specific artists like Prince or Janet. And yes, I'm still a fan of both Prince and Janet. I have a real sentimental thing going with both of em, plus I just enjoy their music.
[Edited 6/19/05 10:58am]

one2three said:

I don't even like the old school calypso. I went with my family once to see Sparrow live not so long ago and I admit he was entertaining, but I would never ever buy a calypso or soca CD. That type of music is just not for me.