1. I can't remember not appreciating popular music. For one I was raised Mountain Independent Baptist which puts a lot of focus on traditional gospel music. We're talking nothing after 1948 here. that one stuck to me for a long time through my athiest to my agnostic to my Universalism period.

Also my father had some Vinyl records of Tommy James and the Shondells (grossly underrated started glam rock a good few years before TREX thank you very much), The Beatles, Elvis, and other assorted comilation albums.

3. Arg more difficult question. Well Led Zeppelin for one. I liked Stairway to Heaven enough but couldn't get into the other stuff. As to what changed me I'm clueless. Something to do with age and taste I suppose.

And Meatloaf. "Whatever happaned to Saturday Night?" you killed it. No I just couldn't get into him for whatever reason blame the overkill of "I'll do anything for love". Now I adore his bombastic meodrama and his power on stage. He may be cheesey but there's some power behind that cheese.

1. I've always been into music. My hometown was blessed with three radio stations that played pop, soul and album radio (mid-late Sixtes and early Seventies) respectively.

I remember being sixteen in 1972 and going past the big "head shop" record store with my best friend. I heard music coming from there that made me literally stop in my tracks. My friend turned around and said, "C'mon!" but I was rooted. I drifted into the store and listened to the whole side, then made them flip it over and play the rest. I was transfixed! I couldn't believe I was hearing music like this.

It was "Tyranny and Mutation" by Blue Oyster Cult. Still a favorite to this day.

First album I bought with my own money: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," by Elton John. (Quit snickering out there!)

2. Oh yeah!

3. It's kinda the reverse for me. I grew up listening to pop and R&B (Great radio, I'm tellin' ya.) but drifted into prog-rock. When punk happened in the late Seventies, I was radicalised and changed forever. Short, fast, simple, clever, great hooks; that's me.

1) At what age? hhhmmm... As a tot in Chicago in the late '50s I remember my folks vinyl on the old Webcor record player. Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, Eugene Normandy (Philly Orchestra). Then moved to Seattle ('65) and the flood gates opened wide up with KJR radio and Pat O'Day (DJ & PD). I was really heavy into it with a transistor radio glued to my ear by the time Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, Joplin, Monkees (saw them), Tommy James (seen also), Country Joe (saw in the park!), Them, Doors, Mothers of Invention, Boxtops, Spencer Davis Group and on and on and on.

2) By the time I was 10 years old I was in the full swing of things. Music appreciation I can remember back to age 2.

3) Not then but now? It took me a while to FULLY appreciate Small Faces, Itchy Coo Park rammed down my throat kept me away. Then finally in the mid-70s I bought 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake'. Oh man, that sure turned things around quick. Same story with the Yardbirds.

anyway.....

I had always loved music (listened to jazz, classical & opera), but I really got into rock in a seriously big way when I just turned 13.

probably around 10.

when did Michael Jackson's "Rockin' Robin" come out? i remember having that as a single.

I was maybe 10, my oldest brother was on summer break from college, and brought back vinyls and a player that hadn't had lunch eaten on it. Emerson, Lake and Palmer did it. Shortly after, while coming home on winter nights after rollerskating, I came to understand how 50kW AM stations could propagate from faraway Chicago and Detroit. Disco was getting its legs. I improvised biiiig AM antennas from discarded wire in the summer, when reception would otherwise have sucked.
Then when our house got cable TV, I found out that harder drugs were available in the FM band, included free with the 12 channels of TV and immune to weather and season: WDVE from Pittsburgh. Album sides late on Sunday nights.
Oddly enough, now in my car, it's almost entirely AM talk.

1. The short answer - I loved Deep Purple, Sabbath, Grand Funk & all that heavy stuff when I was about 13, but I also liked CSN&Y & ols sixties acid rock. I was lucky enough to have friends with all sorts of tastes.

3.Wow, two embarrassing admissions here. First, at the time, I detested Fleetwood Mac and their megaselling classics, but frankly, I quite like them now, and appreciate them for the middle of the road pop they are. Number two - I always thought the Beatles were overrated until I was in my late 20's. They might be the alpha & omega of rock 'n'roll bands.