Nope you are more normal than you think! Well normal for a music fan...maybe not so much the average joe...
When I first started getting into and making ambient music back in the early/mid 1990's whenever I met and collaborated with many of my peers of a roughly similar age (IE went to high school in the 80's) and the discussion of likes and influences came up, most of them jumped right to Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran, Kraftwerk, and the like.
I used to feel really out of place, as my influences started young with the Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin and by High School I was a total metal head starting with Maiden, Sabbath, Ozzy, Priest and then moving into Slayer, Metallica, Queensryche, Voi Vod and from there it was punk rock like 7-Seconds, Circle Jerks, DOA, Die Kruezen, Agent Orange, Naked Raygun and so on...and by the time I finished college I was back to classic rock as well as 70's jazz fusion which led to traditional jazz.
I actually by-passed most "synth bands" and did not come to appreciate them until about the last decade if I am honest. Yet I still liked and made what we call ambient or electronic music. I think that may be why though for me, the ambient and electronic music I like best to this day has a very collaborative, live played, improvised human element to it, vs many of my friends who are more into programmed, ableton loop based or generative modular type stuff. In the end I see it as two sides of the same coin and even fun to merge the two.
I also think the original post highlights the position of a true music lover, vs a person who loves and lives for just a certain genre be it metal or ambient or polka. For me one is all inclusive and expansive, while the other can become an eventual treadmill of sameness, for me anyway.
PV
