Each week we ask music lovers to share seven songs that have shaped their life. This week it's Liz Stokes from power-pop powerhouse The Beths. The band, along with their debut album, Future Me Hates Me, is nominated for five New Zealand Music Awards.
Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy - Fall Out Boy
When you're 13 or 14 you start associating music with your identity. I was listening to guitar music and within that, I was really attracted to the pop-punk and emo genres. Fall Out Boy was my favourite. This was one of the songs I looked up when I was learning how to play guitar. I was having lessons but you just learn what the teacher brings in. I'd been learning chords and could play Tears in Heaven and a Jack Johnson song. But this was the first one where I used the internet and went, "How do I play this song?" It's got all the great Fall Out Boy s***; it's really wordy and the guitar arrangements are super-tight. The content's probably questionable now but it's just great and I learnt a lot more of their songs.
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Fast Times in Tahoe - Elemeno P
I tend to think in albums rather than songs, because it was the era of CDs and I didn't have that many CDs. If I did end up with one I'd listen to it over and over and over again. This was my favourite song on their first record, Love and Disrespect. That was the first album I went into a shop and bought myself. We actually used Fast Times in Tahoe as a sound reference for our first record because it's such a great-sounding song, the guitars just sound huge. The first big show I went to was Elemeno P. I was like 12 or 13 and my sister took me. It had Che Fu, Nesian Mystik, Elemeno P, Steriogram ... it was like every New Zealand artist ever from that period was playing at that show. I couldn't believe it. My first big show. It was life-defining.