Stuff you thought you'd never listen to...

[simo]

Time to get a discussion going again, have you ever had an instance where you disliked a band or genre and never would have imagined you'd be into it? Then a few years down the line your tastes change and you find yourself enjoying music you thought you'd never ever listen to

 

There's also guys that stick to what they like and listen to only that for 40 years, fair enough. For me, I've had quite a few moments where I was listening to something and all of a sudden thought ''wait a minute, XX years ago I would've NEVER listened to that! funny how things change...'' so I'll start with some experiences I've made:

 

Instrumental music: as a kid I fell in love with music and liked it for good vocals, big choruses or just cause it was catchy. The voice was always the focal point for me and instrumental music was boring. Then later in my teens I'd listen to albums that had short interludes or instrumental pieces and thinking ''hey, this ain't so bad'' then it went step by step and now I listen to all sorts of different instrumental music and it makes for about 10% of my music listening time

 

Def Leppard: I know, I know....... what was wrong with me, right?? When I started listening to 80s and hair metal music I gave Def Leppard a go a number of times cause I often saw them being mentioned alongside bands I liked such as Ratt, Cinderella, Mötley Crüe etc etc. but each time I listened to a Def Leppard song I thought it wasn't what I was looking for, didn't like Joe Elliot's voice, I didn't think it was heavy enough and the guitar solos weren't the same as they were on Scorpions or Dokken albums so I would always disregard them. After about 3 years of listening to almost every glam / 80s hard rock band imaginable a friend sent me the youtube link (early years of youtube, 2007) to Def Leppard's ''Hysteria'' music video and for some reason it just ''clicked''. Long story short, bought all their albums up until Retroactive and consider them one of THE GREAT bands to this day

 

''Soft'' music: this includes a number of bands, but Def Leppard kind of paved the way for me to softer music or more in the AOR direction. For example I heard Drive She Said's ''Think of Love'', liked it and bought the album. Just 2 or 3 years before I would have never gone for that type of music, it was too soft, too whiny, too whimpy. But now suddenly I was all over this stuff. Also discovered Atlantic's ''Power'' which is just a classic masterpiece and which to this day I recommend to every new person I meet, Michael Bolton was another example. With him I got into his early AOR albums the 1983 self titled and 1985's ''Everybody's Crazy'' and said ''that's it, I won't go further and check out his later albums'' but sure enough, I ended up buying ''The Hunger'', then ''Soul Provider'', all the albums after that even until 1997's ''All That Matters'' which I think has some really good songs on it

 

So.... what are your stories?

[DaHun72]

Talking Heads and Les Miserables. That's what happens when you tell people to turn it off and they don't!

[Fat Freddy]

Van Hagar.

I was a staunch DLR loyalist so when he split VH they were dead meat as far as I was concerned... Till about a year ago. I was in the midst of upgrading the rest of my old VH tapes to CD when I came across "5150" in a thrift shop and decided, "Awwww what the hell."

I didn't think I'd dig it but I ended up liking it so much that I've since added "OU812" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" to my collection as well.

Who knew? (shrugs)

[simo]

Van Hagar.

I was a staunch DLR loyalist so when he split VH they were dead meat as far as I was concerned... Till about a year ago. I was in the midst of upgrading the rest of my old VH tapes to CD when I came across "5150" in a thrift shop and decided, "Awwww what the hell."

I didn't think I'd dig it but I ended up liking it so much that I've since added "OU812" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" to my collection as well.

Who knew? (shrugs)

Hahaha, cool story. So after 30 years you finally gave it a chance, nice!

[Fat Freddy]

Hahaha, cool story. So after 30 years you finally gave it a chance, nice!

I must be getting mellow in my old age

The thing was, I was never a Hagar fan before he joined VH. I found him kind of irritating.

.

..so needless to say, when they announced he was the new VH singer I was like "They expect HIM to replace Dave? F*ck that guy! That band is dead to me now," haha.

 

[Gotthardline]

Some cool stories here

For me its post hardcore and metalcore music

Up until a year or two ago i never thought i could enjoy songs with half the vocals being screams/growls , there are still a lot of bands i dont like but some of them are amongst my favourites

[All Nights Reserved]

Blues. Some of my friends liked blues when we were teens and I said WTF. Now as a grown/old man blues is one of my fave genres.

[Fat Freddy]

Up until a year or two ago i never thought i could enjoy songs with half the vocals being screams/growls

 

I still can't stand that stuff, never could. My brother was a big death metal/grindcore guy so I heard lots 'n' lots of it growing up ... and those growly vox have always irritated the crap outta me.

 

I can't tell you how many bands I've heard that sounded good until the singer opened his mouth and went "WOOOOOOARRRRRRRGH!!" - I'm immediately like "Check please!"

 

[DaHun72]

Van Hagar.

I was a staunch DLR loyalist so when he split VH they were dead meat as far as I was concerned... Till about a year ago. I was in the midst of upgrading the rest of my old VH tapes to CD when I came across "5150" in a thrift shop and decided, "Awwww what the hell."

I didn't think I'd dig it but I ended up liking it so much that I've since added "OU812" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" to my collection as well.

Who knew? (shrugs)

Hellloooooo Baby!

 

What a start to an album and it never lets up. Absolute corker. Yeah Hagar was not as cool, dynamic or over the top but they smacked this one way out of the park.

[Geoff]

Some cool stories here

For me its post hardcore and metalcore music

Up until a year or two ago i never thought i could enjoy songs with half the vocals being screams/growls , there are still a lot of bands i dont like but some of them are amongst my favourites

 

I can kinda relate to this. I still hate the growls and definitely prefer no screams at all, but I have learned to accept audible screams and I never ever thought I'd be there. That said, I've been this way since I first heard Funeral for a Friend and Silverstein back in 2005. So I've had a long time to digest it, but I still never thought I'd get there.

[Glen]

70s styled music (not talking the obvious journey, Boston, Kiss)

 

I never thought i would like the style but NFO and Cats in Space changed my mind.

 

Very much looking forward to new music from these 2 bands this year

[DaHun72]

70s styled music (not talking the obvious journey, Boston, Kiss)

 

I never thought i would like the style but NFO and Cats in Space changed my mind.

 

Very much looking forward to new music from these 2 bands this year

I loved the Cats in Space too, what's this NFO u speak of?

[Glen]

 

70s styled music (not talking the obvious journey, Boston, Kiss)

 

I never thought i would like the style but NFO and Cats in Space changed my mind.

 

Very much looking forward to new music from these 2 bands this year

I loved the Cats in Space too, what's this NFO u speak of?

Night Flight Orchestra.

 

Bloody great band

[DaHun72]

 

 

70s styled music (not talking the obvious journey, Boston, Kiss)

 

I never thought i would like the style but NFO and Cats in Space changed my mind.

 

Very much looking forward to new music from these 2 bands this year

I loved the Cats in Space too, what's this NFO u speak of?

Night Flight Orchestra.

 

Bloody great band

Ta, will check it out!

[Gibbo]

Ratt.

 

I hated Ratt with a passion druing the 80s and 90s ... really can't explain why, there was just something about them that irritated the hell out of me ... then my mate JamesEagle persuaded me to listen to 'Invasion Of Your Privacy' again ...

[Dead Planet]

My musical tastes are in a constant state of flux...years ago I would never have thought I would like death metal but I found myself getting into it in the late 90s....now I can't stand music with unintelligible vocals.....lately I have been losing interest in AOR and leaning towards heavy metal...bottom line if I listen to the same type of music day after day, I eventually start to lose interest as the bands start to sound the same....

[tts42572]

One out a bit in left field for me is Bowling For Soup...

 

I'm a melodic rock guy through and through and never got into any type of pop, pop punk or whatever. However, I happened across a couple of these guys songs at one point about 15 years ago and really just found myself being entertained. They're just sort of a guilty pleasure or diversion and the wife really digs their music as well. While they do have some silly songs I think they've got some great songs also.

 

Also dig seeing them live as every show is different and never know what off the wall stuff they'll do and say. Much different than say Def Leppard where if you've heard one show on a tour you've basically heard them all.

[Nightrain]

Started to listen to some jazz music back in 2005-2006, and then explore more albums as the year goes on.

I like some good ol trumpet/sax/piano stuff but not the difficult one, maybe only on the cool-jazz side, and also like some smooth jazz stuff with some R&B touch, great for driving and also background music.

 

Sometimes, classical music for a variation, soul and pop stuff maybe like Adele, Sting, etc

[Silverkin]

Was listening to compilation album+was shocked when 2 of the tracks i loved turned out to be by Kylie Minogue (A problem should be shared) + Britney Spears (Everytime) :-)

 

I'm with Gotthardline in that songs with sewage vocals were always a no no for me in the past but they've really grown on me. I still can't sit through a whole album of them (Deftones for example I love when I first start the album but after a couple of songs I have to switch to something else. I did really enjoy seeing them live though).

Pink Floyd i thought i'd never listen to and i still haven't managed to sit through the whole of 'Dark side...' so have stayed consistent with that to date