Fave new ...old ish ...bands and why did you avoid them in the first place!

[Barking Spiders]

Recently I was in my local music shop (Head in Leamington as it happens) and a CD track they were playing  grabbed my attention, as did the next three tunes. The album is a new one, Life is Yours, by Foals. I knew of the band but was always under the impression they were just one of those dull, identikit indie rock guitar strummers you see all over the place. Far, far from it. So I bought the album and played it several times back to back. The next day I went and got the other six albums and they've been on constant rotation. They've been going since 2005 so I've been kicking myself (not liderally) for having avoided them because of an assumption.  Have you written off any band on a whim only to find out much later you were not only wrong but that they've since become a fave.

[MacDaddy]

Bauhaus

Passed me by at the time, even though they are my best buds fave band.

Saw them the first time they reformed and toured, one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Awesome band 😎

[Nail Soup]

3 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

Bauhaus

Passed me by at the time, even though they are my best buds fave band.

Saw them the first time they reformed and toured, one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Awesome band 😎

Same here... because I didn't like goth in general, I dismissed all bands who could be considered goth - including Bauhaus.

But now, I see that Bauhaus were a really good band. I'm not gonna be a born-agin goth, but some good stuff did come from it.

[BassTractor]

3 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Recently I was in my local music shop (Head in Leamington as it happens)
[...]
Have you written off any band on a whim only to find out much later you were not only wrong but that they've since become a fave.

You're kidding me. Thread title made me think of the Cardiacs, whom I finally came to grips with in  ...
Royal Leamington Spa (which I think is pretty well done for a tuliphead living in Norway).
A shop called Fopps or something?

I avoided them as I wasn't capable of hearing the fun and the humour, and, being lyrics-deaf, initially experienced them as aggressive and harsh in a peculiar society-hating way.
Then their sampler on offer in that shop, and a Leamington friend urging me to give it a listen. 

Lurve them these days.

Edited August 15, 2022 by BassTractor

[Norris]

I'd somehow missed RATM and Audioslave. Definitely get a lot of play now

[miles'tone]

Kate Bush.

I knew her famous singles from when I was a nipper but it's only very recently I listened through all her albums and was pleasantly amazed. 

She's properly brilliant. 

[Geek99]

2 hours ago, BassTractor said:

You're kidding me. Thread title made me think of the Cardiacs, whom I finally came to grips with in  ...
Royal Leamington Spa (which I think is pretty well done for a tuliphead living in Norway).
A shop called Fopps or something?

I avoided them as I wasn't capable of hearing the fun and the humour, and, being lyrics-deaf, initially experienced them as aggressive and harsh in a peculiar society-hating way.
Then their sampler on offer in that shop, and a Leamington friend urging me to give it a listen. 

Lurve them these days.

Fopp. Now defunct sadly 

[Thunderpaws]

Big Wreck. Amazing musical skills and song writing. They’ve been around so long that they split up, Ian Thornley went solo, then they reformed again. 
 

Only reason I didn’t listen to them previously though is that I hadn’t heard of them😂

 

 

[Drax]

The Smiths - actively hated and refused to listen to them at the time. Pre internet it was quite easy to never hear a band you thought you didn’t like - truculent teenage me couldn’t get past Morrissey with his gladioli and their bedwetting fans.

Have since realised their brilliance, and even seen Morrissey live a few times..

[musicbassman]

1 hour ago, Thunderpaws said:

Big Wreck. Amazing musical skills and song writing. They’ve been around so long that they split up, Ian Thornley went solo, then they reformed again. 
 

Only reason I didn’t listen to them previously though is that I hadn’t heard of them😂

 

 

Wow!  - bass players opening licks..... 😊 .....he's been listening to Doug Johns - and that's no bad thing :

 

 

 

[Crusoe]

Joy Division. Someone loaned my next door neighbour Substance when I was about 14. I was into Iron Maiden, Guns 'n' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, that sort of thing, so JD just did not appeal to me. I got into them about 3 or 4 years later and now they are one of my favourite bands.

[petebassist]

3 hours ago, Thunderpaws said:

Big Wreck. Amazing musical skills and song writing. They’ve been around so long that they split up, Ian Thornley went solo, then they reformed again. 
 

Only reason I didn’t listen to them previously though is that I hadn’t heard of them😂

 

 

Very tasty bit bass playing there, great tone as well from that Jazz. 

[Barking Spiders]

This'll sound sacrilegious on BC, but I'm a Coldplay convert. For a long time I thought they were another bluddy Travis or Snow Patrol. Then, a couple of years ago I gave all their albums a fair listen and there are only two I'm not keen on. I do wonder if all diehard Coldplay haters out there have actually given them a fair hearing. It's like with all the Nickelback hate. IMO it's loads of people jumping on the bandwagon without actually having given them a fair listen. I'm not a particular fan of this kind of rock but I've heard many worse bands who never get the same level of hate.

[Lozz196]

Guns N Roses and AC/DC, in my youth they were far too bluesy for my tastes. I kick myself for my stupidity.

[SumOne]

I was a teenager in the 90's and have mostly followed the Jungle > DnB > Dubstep > Dub & Reggae sort of musical journey (tempo slowing down with age!) so a whole genre of Doom/Stoner metal completely passed me by on a sort of parallel timeline until I saw Orange Goblin play at a festival a few years ago and that also got got me into Kyuss, Sleep, Bongripper, Electric Wizard, Lowrider etc. 

[Nicko]

This may be a bit heretical but I never really enjoyed David Bowie's stuff that much - perhaps it was the theatre of it all that put me off.  I'm now appreciating some of the nuance a bit more and appreciating how brilliantly written (at least some) of his songs were.

[Barking Spiders]

2 hours ago, Nicko said:

This may be a bit heretical but I never really enjoyed David Bowie's stuff that much - perhaps it was the theatre of it all that put me off.  I'm now appreciating some of the nuance a bit more and appreciating how brilliantly written (at least some) of his songs were.

 I've gone the reverse. When I was a teen /early 20s I was well into his stuff right up to Let's Dance. I now think he wasn't that ground-breaking but was canny enough to spot a good thing going -i.e. glam, krautrock, soul & funk -  and tapped into it. Station to Station and Scary Monsters still stand up well but as for the rest..👎

[BassTractor]

5 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

This'll sound sacrilegious on BC, but I'm a Coldplay convert. For a long time I thought they were another bluddy Travis or Snow Patrol. Then, a couple of years ago I gave all their albums a fair listen and there are only two I'm not keen on. I do wonder if all diehard Coldplay haters out there have actually given them a fair hearing. It's like with all the Nickelback hate. IMO it's loads of people jumping on the bandwagon without actually having given them a fair listen. I'm not a particular fan of this kind of rock but I've heard many worse bands who never get the same level of hate.

Yeah, I only knew about Coldplay and Nickelback from those negative remarks.
Then, driven by curiosity, I saw a Coldplay gig on tv, and was positively surprised. Watched it several times even and found it quite agreeable.
Similarly, a buddy made me a sampler with a.o. Nickelback, and I was like: why all the negativity?
Maybe people have good reasons, Idunno, but without any further knowledge or delving, I wasn't able to see one from just listening to their music.

[Ricky 4000]

Steely Dan, due to confusing them at the time with Steeleye Span.

 

The filthy hippies. ::spits on floor::

[Nail Soup]

2 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

Steely Dan, due to confusing them at the time with Steeleye Span.

 

The filthy hippies. ::spits on floor::

I also a) used to get them mixed up and b) hated both.

 

But I’ve gone the other way…. Still hate Dan, love a bit of Span.

[Ricky 4000]

1 minute ago, Nail Soup said:

But I’ve gone the other way…. Still hate Dan, love a bit of Span.

 

I happened to watch a documentary / interviews about the making of Aja. Unlimited* production budget, Chuck Rainey, Bernard Purdie! Neat songs with clever chords... what's not to like?

 

Don't think I've heard any of their other albums. Or anything by The Span. 🤷‍♂️

[SteveXFR]

For many years I didn't like Arcade Fire. Always thought they were pop folk toss. I was given one of their songs (Good God Damn) to learn by my bass teacher and loved it, really enjoyed playing it so I checked out their other music and quite like them now.

[Richard R]

19 hours ago, Geek99 said:

Fopp. Now defunct sadly 

Great shop. I used to work in Leamington and spent a fortune there. I would find new music on Pandora Radio (precursor to Spotify), then buy the CDs in Fopp.

 

As for bands I got into too late: Grateful Dead.

I assumed they were for hippie stoners, and never listened to them as nobody I knew had their records. Bought "American Beauty " over a decade ago and thought it was OK ish but didn't understand all the fuss.

 

After being on this forum for a while I found that @FinnDave  played for The Grateful Dudes so I asked him what I should listen to. The answer is the live recordings, which the band actively encouraged and which are now available online or in many cases on CD as well. Totally different, completely mesmerising, I just love them. 

 

I wish someone had introduced me to them when I was at Uni and could have seen them live.

[Raslee]

A recent new band to me is an all female USA pop art, dare i say slightly psychedelic, band called 'Warpaint', never heard of them until about 6 weeks ago and been listening to them ever since. Not sure what it is i like about them as it's not the usual stuff i'd listen to - perhaps just some well crafted tunes, nice vocals etc.

 

[Franticsmurf]

When I was a teenager trying to be cool, it was frowned upon to like anything in the charts. So I missed out on the likes of The Police, Gary Numan, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, REM etc. I have been introduced to them through the power of the set list. Learning new songs is a great way to find some great tracks overlooked first time around.