It was mostly my parents to start out. Dad always had 1460 KSO on in the machine shop when he was out there working on stuff. So I heard a LOT of what was contemporary back then, starting in the late 70s. Mom listened to a lot of 60s rock and R&B from when she was in school, but also had on various pop and lite rock radio stations when not listening to records (or 8-tracks!). Once I discovered the countdown shows on Sunday mornings (Casey Kasem's American Top 40 and Bob Kingsley's American Country Countdown), I really started to pay attention to more kinds of music. It was all pretty mainstream, so whatever was making the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 is what I was exposed to. But that led to more exploration on my own, discovering new (to me, anyway) sounds that I didn't hear on central Iowa radio. Then, moving to California in 1985 opened my ears to a lot of stuff I wasn't familiar with. Freestyle was just catching on out west and I loved the sound. KMEL in San Francisco played that style of music almost exclusively for a time. Also started listening to some metal, a little prog rock, and went back and discovered a lot more new wave that I had missed when it was current. Getting a job in a music store in 1989 was really great since we had a little of everything and so many employees liked different stuff. We could play anything in the store (as long as it didn't have a bunch of swearing and generally didn't chase customers away - we'd reserve that for "Operation Clear The Store" at 10:00 pm), so I again heard a lot of stuff I wouldn't have heard otherwise. But my first love will always be country because that's what my dad played on the shop stereo when I was in elementary school.