KEXP Top 12 Spotlight: DJ El Toro

KEXP wants to know: "Who are your Favorite Artists of All Time?" Pick out a dozen musicians, bands, projects, and share them with us before Friday, September 19th at 6:00 PM PST. And then tune in during KEXP’s Fall Fundraising Drive, September 26th through October 3rd, to hear which artists your fellow members of the KEXP Community voted for! KEXP's DJs piped in with their own Top 12 lists, which we'll be unveiling all month long in anticipation of the countdown.

DJ El Toro's Top 12 Artists Who Changed His Life (In Order of Discovery)

I opted to call out the Top 12 Artists who changed my life rather than my honest-to-God favorites because … well, because if I went with the latter, I’d have to include Bananarama and that’s like throwing my vote away. So instead, here are a dozen musicians that turned my world sideways, bands and singers that I’ve stuck with through thick and thin, and in several cases (Kate Bush, Scott Walker), long intervals between releases. Oh, and my picks are listed in chronological order of discovery, hence the bias towards artists who cut their teeth in the 20th century.

DJ El Toro hosts the variety mix show on Wednesday nights from 9 PM to 1 AM on KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle and kexp.org. His occasional rant, “Weird At My School,” appears infrequently on the KEXP Blog.