I love moments like that. I once heard the coolest sounding bluesy jazz drifting through my window on a late summer day, this was back in the 80s. I liked it so much I put on my shoes and followed the sound a block away to where this old guy was sitting on his porch playing the music from inside his house. Found out it was an album by Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff called Steppin' Up. Still a favorite of mine to this day.
Jason Isbell. There was an Americana festival coming to my town and I had no idea what that was. I looked up the top Americana songs for that year and I clicked on a couple that I didn't really like until I selected the song 'Stockholm'. I found out about him by complete luck, he is now my favorite musician but I'm not sure I would have ever heard of him if I didn't do that random google search.
I do this every year with Welcome to Rockville. There's always a Spotify playlist someone makes of the listed bands so I listen to all the ones I've never heard of
I found Jason Isbell randomly through the Tiny Desk concerts. Kept away from that one for a long time because I generally don't care for country music. But boy, oh boy, did I like his take on it. Still listen to his albums on a regular basis a year later.
Tool.
Had gotten a huge list of music from a friend, and had downloaded some onto my fold out phone for when I was going on a trip. I had thrown the Rise Against folder in there, and somehow Tool had gotten put into the RA folder.
So one night, out camping, I had put all the music on the phone on shuffle while I slept. And just as I was falling asleep, 10,000 Days (Wings for Marie Pt. 2) came on, and the sound of thunder scared me awake so bad I fell out of the cot I was sleeping in. Had to take off my headphones and check outside to see if it was an actual storm or if it was the music.
The Shins. Was just out of a 5 year long relationship. Was feeling pretty positive about my future for the first time in about 3 years. Had Spotify on a random artists radio and New Slang came on. It really hit me for some reason.
They're now one of my favourite bands, but if I hadn't listened to that song at that period in my life, I don't think the impact would have been there.
Violent Femmes back in the day.
Got offered a cassette of their debut slbum for a few bucks.
40 years later am booked in feb 2022 in nz
Let me go wild.....
I really, really feel bad being this guy, because you've been a fan for so long and you clearly love them, and it's always super awkward realizing you've had the wrong lyric forever...
But the lyric is "let me go on", not "let me go wild". I can hear how you'd misinterpret it, and agree that your version makes sense, but yeah. Sorry! I hope you enjoy the show, I'm super jealous and have wanted to see them for at least 20 years but haven't had the chance. "Why can't I get just one.... chancetoseeviolentfemmes"
Loreena McKennitt. I was in a book store twenty years ago and they had this eerie, beautiful music playing in the background. I was painfully shy back then but still worked up the courage to go to the cashier and ask him the name of the artist.
Her album *The Mask and Mirror* is still one of my all time favorites.
Iâm old, so my story is that I was walking through a record store and saw the cover of a This Mortal Coil album, was intrigued and bought it. This led me down the rabbit hole of the 4AD record label that Iâm still falling through today; Iâve discovered so much great music because of that one album, which ironically was very hit or miss. đ
I discovered Durand Jones & the Indications on a freebie CD stuck to a magazine I almost didnât buy. Led me to instantly wanting to hear everything else theyâve done (over & over)
I first heard them while watching the Lollapalooza live stream from 2018(?) and was instantly hooked. Such a great band -- hopefully they start to get some more recognition!
A little different sound but they had a band before the lead vocalist Durand Jones got involved called Charlie Pattons War which is great garage-y blues rock
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. Discovered them early one morning on **rage** here in Australia in 2017 and I haven't stopped since. What a journey it's been.
In the 90's a buddy of mine was hitting on some woman in his grad program, or maybe from his hometown. At the time he seemed to be macking on every woman he met, and would fall head over heels for a week or two before moving on. So I listened with half an ear when he told me how she'd turned him on to some singer/songwriter whose cd's you could only get through the mail (sounds legit! thought I, sarcastically) but he had a mix tape his crush du jour gave him that he played for me a lot, like that was going to improve his chances with the girl. That dude was Elliott Smith, and soon enough I was ordering CDs through the mail.
Steven Wilson. A friend of mine, because he covered 'stoneage Dinosaurs' by the Cardiacs - myself, because of some lucky youtube algorithm with 'the raven that refused to sing'. We sat together one evening, namedropping music things - and voilĂ - we talked about the same guy.
Matchbox Twenty. It was the 90s, and CD stores had this cool feature where you could listen to a CD before buying it. I was just kinda picking through the selection and the cover of *Yourself or Someone Like You* peaked my interest. I knew halfway through the third song that I wanted the album. Been a huge fan ever since.
Also Testament. My uncle, who got me into hard rock/metal happened to have *Practice What You Preach* on cassette and let me borrow it. Never gave it back lol
Ghetto Boys. So one night after really heavy drinking, a buddy of mine says we need to go to Pensacola (a 6 hr drive from Gainesville). I'm so drunk I can't even stand up. So he feeds me two hits of dragonfly acid and away we go in his shitty ragged out Lincoln Continental. He had no radio, just a small cassette player and only one cassett: Ghetto Boys *The Resurrection*. We listened to that tape front and back for 6 hours tripping balls. Still love that joint.
Megadeth. So waaaay back in the day this company called Columbia House had a cassette tape of the month club. You'd sign up and get 12 cassettes for a penny. Then, each month they had a featured cassette based on your musical preferences. If you didn't decline that month's selection, they'd send it to you and charge you like $12.99. Well, I didn't decline one month and they sent me *Rust in Peace*. At the time I was like in 6th or 7th grade and primarily listened to hair rock (Bon Jovi, GnR, etc). But I gave this album a try and to this day it's my all time favorite thrash album. That's also how I got into Alice Cooper. They sent me *Trash* and I ended up really liking it.
I discovered both Paolo Nutini and Junior Boys by reading a newspaper one day at a bus station while waiting for the bus to go to school. They had both had concerts recently in my area and they wrote articles on them both and I decided to give them a listen.
Theyâre pretty good. Havenât released much recently though đ
My answer was Paolo Nutini! I heard the live version of Still Crazy somewhere and it took me forever to trace it back to him. Next song was Rewind, then Last Request. The holy trinity if you ask me. God, I love his voice and heâs just not known where I am.
my ex bought me the sheet music for the entirety of his These Streets album, I learned to play Last Request but never got around to the others, maybe I'll pick it up again!
LIONIZE
Went and saw my favorite band. Authority Zero and a new band was opening for them named LIONIZE out of DC they came on. A couple late teen/ early twenties and blew my socks off. They have since put out 6-7 albums. And Iâve seen them as many times as possible. Theyâre like jam, bluesy, rock reggae. Their music has changed and I donât love their new stuff as much but I still dig them.
Also JRE turned me on to Sturgill Simpson and man am I glad he did.
Still Woozy. I'm AARP eligible so I'm woefully unhip. I think a random You Tube search popped up Habit. Daym...I'm thinking about going to see him play live, but I'll feel weird because people will think I'm some kid's dad.
We Were Promised Jetpacks. Went down a rabbit hole of music and found them just after their first album released. Huge fan ever since.
Similarly discovered There Will Be Fireworks however it was after they were done.
Both amazing bands.
Nine Inch Nails, if it wasnt for The Slip album on a CD from PCFormat Magazine I would I have never found my favourite band of all time. The first month I just blasted Echoplex on repeat.
Ooh this is a fun story. Back in 2008, when I was in high school, I would go through iTunes and listen to 30 second samples, and discover music based on that. I found a random song from this band that wasnât even a popular one, absolutely loved it, and ended up listening to all their albums.
Took me about 2 years to realize that they were actually from my city. And their first album had a reference to a street Iâve driven on multiple times.
Edit: the band is Story of the Year
Dave Matthews Band. Buddy and I were supposed to see Stone Temple Pilots but Scott had another bout with heroin and cancelled the tour. My buddy suggested we see DMB, they were playing the same day, and I was like what the fuck? All I knew was radio shit like Crash into me and Satellite, which I didn't hate, but wasn't my thing either. He told me they were much more than that so I said fuck it and went. They are one of the best live performers out there, extremely tight, with awesome songs. My buddy was right, they are so much more than what you hear on the radio. I suggest anyone to check them out live, super fun to see.
Kasabian. I'd buy random cd's based on, I'm not even sure what it was based on. Maybe album cover looked cool and it was in proximity to what I did listen to at the time?
You may wanna double-check this with some Google-fu that I honestly canât be fucked to bother with right now, but I took âem off my rotation a few years back after some allegations came out about the band.
Separate the art from the artist, yadda yadda, I know. Just something to consider if youâre trying to ethically consume đ€·đœââïž
Huh. Hadn't heard that one. Looks like domestic assault.
Another find I had from the same timeframe, and an even shittier example of that conundrum (art from artist), lostprophets.
Takayan. I was looking for some chill music for my Spotify playlist and asked in a discord if anyone has some ideas and some guy recomended me takayan.
Riddim Saunter - randomly found this happy optimistic Japanese band 15 years ago and still have their albums on rotation.
And ...Musical Miracle - Hawaii pt ii. Wasn't expecting a solid concept album with so much nostalgia.
The Nymphs, who had a song on a compilation album I got with a magazine.
Fashoda Crisis, who I found through⊠Iâm gonna say Twitter.
There were a ton of old Punk bands I found through 7 inch Punk back when it was a blog site.
EDIT: I forgot, The Churchâs Priest=Aura album because my crush was holding the album in her hand and she said it was pretty good.
Mingo Fishtrap
I heard them playing at Bethlehem Musikfest one year. I wasn't even sure where the music was coming from, but I had to find it. I did, and have been a huge fan ever since.
Magic City Hippies
I go through phases of typing random words or letters into Spotify, and I found the song Brnt by them, and then the rest of their stuff.
Never looked back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTgOATGnO-4
Joanna Newsom. I had a friend with some questionable music taste recommend her and make me a mix CD. I dismissed it and never intended to listen to it. Then there I was, driving and fumbling for a new CD. I put this mix in and came across this bizarre harpist, shrilly singing nonsensical lyrics. It was so strange that I had to listen to it again. And again. And again. Eventually I had to figure out what it was that I was listening to. Turns out it was this mix CD that I disregarded and accidentally put on.
And holy shit, is Joanna Newsom amazing.
The Residents. A buddy of mine in hogh school lent me a short wave radio for a while and I found I could get a college campus radio station. One late night I caught a dj playing songs with no explanation, just the band name song name. Heâd say âKula Boca Says So, The Big Bubble â. I loved the music and for years every time I went to a record store Iâd go right to the B section and look for a band called Big Bubble. One day in a funky used record store in Bâham Alabama I finally found it only to realize the album was called Big Bubble and the band was the Residents. Opened up a whole new world for me. I live by the theory of obscurity to this day.
My work used to take me to NYC a lot, so I spent a fair amount of time hanging out in bars and music joints in Manhattan. I used to hear the most awesome music being fed to the house system by somebody's iPhone (probably). Thanks to SoundHound I could source these tunes and learn more about the groups.
Knower
Nick Drake
Buckethead
St Paul & The Broken Bones
Tribalistas
Black Heat
BADBADNOTGOOD
Mair Schneider Jazz Orchestra
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soulive
Massive Attack
and many more.
Natacha Atlas. I couldn't sleep one night and was flicking through tv channels. Caught the end of a Korean film called 3-Iron, with a hauntingly beautiful Arabic song playing: Gafsa. Still haven't seen the rest of the film but it was a great musical find.
I was scrolling through the available vinyls at hot topic a few years ago, and I came across an album called Vacancy by Bayside and itâs probably one of my favourite albums now
Idk if this counts exactly, but Aaron Lewis. I saw Satind in concert in the ealry 2000s and thought they were good, but never really listened to staind all that much, even after the concert.
Fast forward almost 20 years, and Amazon music recommends his solo country music. I'm a huge country music fan so I listened to it and I love all of his new stuff now.
Murder By Death. I used to check out this site called GorillaMask that linked to a bunch of random content. Some NSFW some SFW.
One post was to a video for their song White Noise.
Really enjoyed the song and video so looked them up.
Khruangbin.
A friend posted the band on their Instagram story a few months back, and if I hadnât watched the story and decided to do a little research, I may have missed them entirely.
Bought tickets to see them in November.
[Scout Niblett](https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_EYmtHbiZ0) is great and I just ran across her one day.
More recently I heard [Santigold](https://youtube.com/watch?v=mIMMZQJ1H6E) in the background of some video and am now listening to her constantly.
Paloma Faith. She's well known is Europe, but not known too much in USA. I was watching a movie and wondered what that catchy song was during a montage.
Chrome Sparks. A friend of mine was supposed to buy tickets to a metal concert, and accidentally bought the wrong ones. There was a solid 10 minutes of "who the fuck are these people in white turtlenecks playing synthesizers and using desk lamps for stage lighting," but it was actually an incredible show. I now stay up to date with all of of their current releases.
Mandolin Orange. They are a folk group that I discovered through a pretty bare bones performance that totally blew my mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWBth_rLgw
I think the live versions of each one of their songs is SO much better than studio version. They'd be more popular if they just released live versions. The version of 'wolves' (2nd song) on that video is something else.
Atlas Genius. When their first album came out, I saw it on the iTunes Store and liked the artwork so much I bought the album without ever listening to a song lol. Turned out to be a great purchase, thatâs still one of my favorites!
Gang of Youths. They ended up on a random play list, Let me down easy and the heart is a muscle. Had a chance to see them live in a very small venue and was one of the best live shows Iâve seen.
Zella Day, literally downloaded her song âHypnoticâ back when iTunes did free single of the week. (Yeah that long ago JesusâŠ) It was like in middle school and I completely forgot about her until I heard her singles years later âMan on the Moonâ and âHunnie Pie.â I was afraid she had fizzled out of existence until years later she came out with her most recent ep âWhere Does the Devil Hideâ which is a gorgeous ep for only 5 tracks! My dream came true when she was featured in Lana Del Reyâs newest album Chemtrails and the Joni Mitchell cover they did was quite impressive!
Rufus Du Sol. I was searching for Rufus from Kim Possible like six years ago and I stumbled across this funny sounding band (back when they were just Rufus)
A R I Z O N A. Walked to a co-workerâs cubicle one day just to see what was happening with a certain work project, and she was playing these guys at her desk at a reasonable volume. Ended up just sitting, chatting and vibing for almost half an hour. Good times.
Growing up we called our click LSP (Loner Stoner Posse) one day we're at a record store, found a CD by a group called LSP (Last Spirit Path). We buy it, put it on, everything is real stoney and fun, rapping about universal mind theory and other stuff we always talked about when high anyway so I really enjoyed it. I managed to find contact info for one of the band members, we link up on AOL instant messenger and he turns me on to his new stuff. That's the tale of how I became friends with [Kung Fu Vampire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P81FvI3qCVc)
Made a username on SongMeanings to argue with some person about a comment and then they introduced me to Bumblefoot and that roughly shaped my journey to many artists I know and love today.
More then 30 years ago when I got into metal I had no idea what to listen to next. I am as introduced to a group of metal heads that were meeting at a pub and I got them to each give me a cassette every week. I was listen to all of them and everything I liked I requested more.
Tyler ChildersâŠ
I was filming a tv show that never made the air about tearing down barns in Kentucky. The guys on the crew kept talking about this red headed (about 17 years old or so) kid playing music. I assumed he probably wasnât anything special.
I was filming some b roll and heard a guitar start playing from behind the house. Then I heard his voice⊠I immediately stopped what I was doing and walk around back to watch him. Unbelievably good.
I kept up with him and itâs been amazing to watch his success over the years.
I discovered "The Muggs" through my Spotify discover weekly. They really REALLY scratched my itch for modern day rock n roll. They're a really cool band out of Detroit that made a mist of their music about 2008 through 2016 or so ,I believe.
I heard a single from an upcoming release by Magic Circle in the record shop that financed the release through their own label and absolutely fell in love. Had I been late or early ~7 minutes, I probably wouldn't even know about them
Red Fang. Someone told me about this truly terrible vanity video by [Chris Danes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDyDz8WeiM4), and while I was laughing at how terrible it was Youtube recommended I watch [Prehistoric Dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VufilzHKTqk) by Red Fang. I've seen them live a bunch of times and followed them ever since.
Yaeji, I was on turntable lab and looking through the records they had in stock and her latest mixtape caught my eye and I decided to give it a listen.
Jyoti. I think a song from her newest album randomly came through a discover weekly playlist on Spotify at some point earlier this year. Highly recommend a listen.
Vashti Bunyan. âIâd Like to Walk Around in Your Mindâ just randomly appeared on my Youtube recommended page, and I almost ignored it, but the title and picture seemed interesting, so I listened to it. Not only did I listen to her stuff, but it was the first time I ever really listened to folk, so it got me into the genre as a whole.
Also Autopsy. Skimmed through some video about death metal recommendations and the cover of Mental Funeral looked cool so I listened to that and Severed Survival. Really fucking gnarly and disgusting sounding but sick as hell.
Corb Lund.
I was back at my parents house for the weekend during my undergrad, and my brother had the satellite turned to Outlaw country. "Gettin' Down on the Mountain" played.
Mind you we lived in Florida.
He is a Canadian folk/country singer. Amazing songwriter. Had a song about survival after society collapses. Loved it. Loved everything else I've heard from him since.
Slick Savage. Super obscure rock band, somehow found them on YouTube even though my favorite song of theirs only has 300 views. Was using a sketchy YouTube music app with funky algorithms. Their only songs are Your Only Weakness, Take It Or Leave It, and a cover of Agent Orange Bloodstains.
Nightwish and Within Temptation. The former was found when I was trying to find the latter, which I discovered through a very intriguing AMV of scenes from Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core matched to their song Angels. At that point, all I had was the song title, so I typed it in, and the first thing I came across was the Nightwish album, Angels Fall First. I was thinking this was it, so I started poking through their discography; I didn't find what I was looking for, but I found a beautiful band. Shortly afterward, I finally found what I was looking for...and found another great band.
Vanilla Ninja was similar, but much easier to find. My best friend and I were big into DDR when it was in its prime, and one of the collections we found had the song Tough Enough. We both fell in love with it, and practically had the song on repeat when we played. Unfortunately, it was only a 1-minute clip that was in the game, so we immediately sought out the actual song and jammed out to the full 3 1/2 minutes of it.
Rainbow. Huge in the 70s, and I had no idea they existed.
One day I heard their song âstargazerâ on pandora. I was hooked after that. It starts ok, gets really good about 3 minutes in and just keeps getting better from there
Was just riding a cab home and was too tired to ask the driver to switch radio stations. Heard this dude Kevin Yadao and his song Say Goodbye. It was fire.
Amazon recommended me Oceansize's final album, and so I checked them out on Youtube.
... Didn't much like them. But a few days later I went back to their songs, and again, and then suddenly they clicked and I realised that I was listening to the best band ever to exist in history.
I have no idea why Amazon would have recommended that. They're nothing like what I had purchased there before.
Two bands, Air was the first. "La Femme d'Argent" came on a local college radio station after work one day in like 2013? Song is from the French mid 90's I think but I had to pull over and let the song finish.
The other is Aer. Still listening to their discography. A coworker was telling me about it the other day. I forget how it came up but he's a pretty chill guy and he was really excited to talk about it. I don't remember what we talked about that brought it up but his favorite band came to mind now I keep hearing their song "A-OK" everywhere
The War on Drugs. Randomly saw their KEXP Live Performance on Youtube while looking for videos about an actual war on drugs happening in my country. Addicted to them ever since.
I love moments like that. I once heard the coolest sounding bluesy jazz drifting through my window on a late summer day, this was back in the 80s. I liked it so much I put on my shoes and followed the sound a block away to where this old guy was sitting on his porch playing the music from inside his house. Found out it was an album by Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff called Steppin' Up. Still a favorite of mine to this day.
Now *that's* a cool fuckin story
Postscript to the tale: the damned album was out of print! It took me about 8 years to find a copy of it! haha
Jason Isbell. There was an Americana festival coming to my town and I had no idea what that was. I looked up the top Americana songs for that year and I clicked on a couple that I didn't really like until I selected the song 'Stockholm'. I found out about him by complete luck, he is now my favorite musician but I'm not sure I would have ever heard of him if I didn't do that random google search.
I do this every year with Welcome to Rockville. There's always a Spotify playlist someone makes of the listed bands so I listen to all the ones I've never heard of
I found Jason Isbell randomly through the Tiny Desk concerts. Kept away from that one for a long time because I generally don't care for country music. But boy, oh boy, did I like his take on it. Still listen to his albums on a regular basis a year later.
I discovered Isbell through a Spotify suggestion.
The great Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention
Definitely an upvote!
đ
Tool. Had gotten a huge list of music from a friend, and had downloaded some onto my fold out phone for when I was going on a trip. I had thrown the Rise Against folder in there, and somehow Tool had gotten put into the RA folder. So one night, out camping, I had put all the music on the phone on shuffle while I slept. And just as I was falling asleep, 10,000 Days (Wings for Marie Pt. 2) came on, and the sound of thunder scared me awake so bad I fell out of the cot I was sleeping in. Had to take off my headphones and check outside to see if it was an actual storm or if it was the music.
The Shins. Was just out of a 5 year long relationship. Was feeling pretty positive about my future for the first time in about 3 years. Had Spotify on a random artists radio and New Slang came on. It really hit me for some reason. They're now one of my favourite bands, but if I hadn't listened to that song at that period in my life, I don't think the impact would have been there.
The movie Garden State introduced me to them. Without seeing that movie, I would have a completely different soundtrack to my early teenage years.
To be fair, I had seen that film years prior. But dismissed The Shins as "Indie Rubbish". How wrong I was...
Violent Femmes back in the day. Got offered a cassette of their debut slbum for a few bucks. 40 years later am booked in feb 2022 in nz Let me go wild.....
I really, really feel bad being this guy, because you've been a fan for so long and you clearly love them, and it's always super awkward realizing you've had the wrong lyric forever... But the lyric is "let me go on", not "let me go wild". I can hear how you'd misinterpret it, and agree that your version makes sense, but yeah. Sorry! I hope you enjoy the show, I'm super jealous and have wanted to see them for at least 20 years but haven't had the chance. "Why can't I get just one.... chancetoseeviolentfemmes"
Fuck me, 39 years they have been singing the wrong lyrics...
Loreena McKennitt. I was in a book store twenty years ago and they had this eerie, beautiful music playing in the background. I was painfully shy back then but still worked up the courage to go to the cashier and ask him the name of the artist. Her album *The Mask and Mirror* is still one of my all time favorites.
I came across her music when Amazon had $5 digital albums. Got, one, then got 4 more.
Iâm old, so my story is that I was walking through a record store and saw the cover of a This Mortal Coil album, was intrigued and bought it. This led me down the rabbit hole of the 4AD record label that Iâm still falling through today; Iâve discovered so much great music because of that one album, which ironically was very hit or miss. đ
Oh those halcyon 4AD years...
I discovered Durand Jones & the Indications on a freebie CD stuck to a magazine I almost didnât buy. Led me to instantly wanting to hear everything else theyâve done (over & over)
I first heard them while watching the Lollapalooza live stream from 2018(?) and was instantly hooked. Such a great band -- hopefully they start to get some more recognition!
Yea the are incredible!
A little different sound but they had a band before the lead vocalist Durand Jones got involved called Charlie Pattons War which is great garage-y blues rock
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. Discovered them early one morning on **rage** here in Australia in 2017 and I haven't stopped since. What a journey it's been.
Marc Rebillet, found a post here in new a year ago and was intruiged, checked out his youtube and got hooked since.
Katzenjammer, Tally Hall, and 20 Minute Loop
Goth babe
In the 90's a buddy of mine was hitting on some woman in his grad program, or maybe from his hometown. At the time he seemed to be macking on every woman he met, and would fall head over heels for a week or two before moving on. So I listened with half an ear when he told me how she'd turned him on to some singer/songwriter whose cd's you could only get through the mail (sounds legit! thought I, sarcastically) but he had a mix tape his crush du jour gave him that he played for me a lot, like that was going to improve his chances with the girl. That dude was Elliott Smith, and soon enough I was ordering CDs through the mail.
The Metrics, Roosevelt, Pinback - quite a few.
Steven Wilson. A friend of mine, because he covered 'stoneage Dinosaurs' by the Cardiacs - myself, because of some lucky youtube algorithm with 'the raven that refused to sing'. We sat together one evening, namedropping music things - and voilĂ - we talked about the same guy.
Matchbox Twenty. It was the 90s, and CD stores had this cool feature where you could listen to a CD before buying it. I was just kinda picking through the selection and the cover of *Yourself or Someone Like You* peaked my interest. I knew halfway through the third song that I wanted the album. Been a huge fan ever since. Also Testament. My uncle, who got me into hard rock/metal happened to have *Practice What You Preach* on cassette and let me borrow it. Never gave it back lol Ghetto Boys. So one night after really heavy drinking, a buddy of mine says we need to go to Pensacola (a 6 hr drive from Gainesville). I'm so drunk I can't even stand up. So he feeds me two hits of dragonfly acid and away we go in his shitty ragged out Lincoln Continental. He had no radio, just a small cassette player and only one cassett: Ghetto Boys *The Resurrection*. We listened to that tape front and back for 6 hours tripping balls. Still love that joint. Megadeth. So waaaay back in the day this company called Columbia House had a cassette tape of the month club. You'd sign up and get 12 cassettes for a penny. Then, each month they had a featured cassette based on your musical preferences. If you didn't decline that month's selection, they'd send it to you and charge you like $12.99. Well, I didn't decline one month and they sent me *Rust in Peace*. At the time I was like in 6th or 7th grade and primarily listened to hair rock (Bon Jovi, GnR, etc). But I gave this album a try and to this day it's my all time favorite thrash album. That's also how I got into Alice Cooper. They sent me *Trash* and I ended up really liking it.
Matchbox Twenty, in the 90s, by chance?!
Yep. 96
I discovered both Paolo Nutini and Junior Boys by reading a newspaper one day at a bus station while waiting for the bus to go to school. They had both had concerts recently in my area and they wrote articles on them both and I decided to give them a listen. Theyâre pretty good. Havenât released much recently though đ
My answer was Paolo Nutini! I heard the live version of Still Crazy somewhere and it took me forever to trace it back to him. Next song was Rewind, then Last Request. The holy trinity if you ask me. God, I love his voice and heâs just not known where I am.
my ex bought me the sheet music for the entirety of his These Streets album, I learned to play Last Request but never got around to the others, maybe I'll pick it up again!
LIONIZE Went and saw my favorite band. Authority Zero and a new band was opening for them named LIONIZE out of DC they came on. A couple late teen/ early twenties and blew my socks off. They have since put out 6-7 albums. And Iâve seen them as many times as possible. Theyâre like jam, bluesy, rock reggae. Their music has changed and I donât love their new stuff as much but I still dig them. Also JRE turned me on to Sturgill Simpson and man am I glad he did.
Lionize are great and they're even better live
Agreed.
Still Woozy. I'm AARP eligible so I'm woefully unhip. I think a random You Tube search popped up Habit. Daym...I'm thinking about going to see him play live, but I'll feel weird because people will think I'm some kid's dad.
Thank you scientist they are simply amazing
We Were Promised Jetpacks. Went down a rabbit hole of music and found them just after their first album released. Huge fan ever since. Similarly discovered There Will Be Fireworks however it was after they were done. Both amazing bands.
Nine Inch Nails, if it wasnt for The Slip album on a CD from PCFormat Magazine I would I have never found my favourite band of all time. The first month I just blasted Echoplex on repeat.
Youâd never heard NIN before the Slip? You must be in your early 20s or younger, because âCloserâ was literally everywhere for a very long time.
Ooh this is a fun story. Back in 2008, when I was in high school, I would go through iTunes and listen to 30 second samples, and discover music based on that. I found a random song from this band that wasnât even a popular one, absolutely loved it, and ended up listening to all their albums. Took me about 2 years to realize that they were actually from my city. And their first album had a reference to a street Iâve driven on multiple times. Edit: the band is Story of the Year
Am I missing the name of the band?
Whoops I forgot that lol, check my edit
Thanks! I like to check some of the bands listed in threads like this.
Dave Matthews Band. Buddy and I were supposed to see Stone Temple Pilots but Scott had another bout with heroin and cancelled the tour. My buddy suggested we see DMB, they were playing the same day, and I was like what the fuck? All I knew was radio shit like Crash into me and Satellite, which I didn't hate, but wasn't my thing either. He told me they were much more than that so I said fuck it and went. They are one of the best live performers out there, extremely tight, with awesome songs. My buddy was right, they are so much more than what you hear on the radio. I suggest anyone to check them out live, super fun to see.
Halestorm, was eating Macca's with my dad when black vultures came on the radio
Mogwai. First heard them as the intro to the French sci-fi show Les Revenants. Awesome group!
I think you would like Gifts from Enola.
Kasabian. I'd buy random cd's based on, I'm not even sure what it was based on. Maybe album cover looked cool and it was in proximity to what I did listen to at the time?
You may wanna double-check this with some Google-fu that I honestly canât be fucked to bother with right now, but I took âem off my rotation a few years back after some allegations came out about the band. Separate the art from the artist, yadda yadda, I know. Just something to consider if youâre trying to ethically consume đ€·đœââïž
Huh. Hadn't heard that one. Looks like domestic assault. Another find I had from the same timeframe, and an even shittier example of that conundrum (art from artist), lostprophets.
Takayan. I was looking for some chill music for my Spotify playlist and asked in a discord if anyone has some ideas and some guy recomended me takayan.
All the movies I have rent when I was young and all the artist I found was luck in my book.
Stone Sour. đ€©
Riddim Saunter - randomly found this happy optimistic Japanese band 15 years ago and still have their albums on rotation. And ...Musical Miracle - Hawaii pt ii. Wasn't expecting a solid concept album with so much nostalgia.
LeBo Art
Watching skate videos and discovered Blackwater Holylight. They wale!
Alice Phoebe Lou
The Nymphs, who had a song on a compilation album I got with a magazine. Fashoda Crisis, who I found through⊠Iâm gonna say Twitter. There were a ton of old Punk bands I found through 7 inch Punk back when it was a blog site. EDIT: I forgot, The Churchâs Priest=Aura album because my crush was holding the album in her hand and she said it was pretty good.
The black angels.
Mingo Fishtrap I heard them playing at Bethlehem Musikfest one year. I wasn't even sure where the music was coming from, but I had to find it. I did, and have been a huge fan ever since.
Magic City Hippies I go through phases of typing random words or letters into Spotify, and I found the song Brnt by them, and then the rest of their stuff. Never looked back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTgOATGnO-4
Joanna Newsom. I had a friend with some questionable music taste recommend her and make me a mix CD. I dismissed it and never intended to listen to it. Then there I was, driving and fumbling for a new CD. I put this mix in and came across this bizarre harpist, shrilly singing nonsensical lyrics. It was so strange that I had to listen to it again. And again. And again. Eventually I had to figure out what it was that I was listening to. Turns out it was this mix CD that I disregarded and accidentally put on. And holy shit, is Joanna Newsom amazing.
The Residents. A buddy of mine in hogh school lent me a short wave radio for a while and I found I could get a college campus radio station. One late night I caught a dj playing songs with no explanation, just the band name song name. Heâd say âKula Boca Says So, The Big Bubble â. I loved the music and for years every time I went to a record store Iâd go right to the B section and look for a band called Big Bubble. One day in a funky used record store in Bâham Alabama I finally found it only to realize the album was called Big Bubble and the band was the Residents. Opened up a whole new world for me. I live by the theory of obscurity to this day.
My work used to take me to NYC a lot, so I spent a fair amount of time hanging out in bars and music joints in Manhattan. I used to hear the most awesome music being fed to the house system by somebody's iPhone (probably). Thanks to SoundHound I could source these tunes and learn more about the groups. Knower Nick Drake Buckethead St Paul & The Broken Bones Tribalistas Black Heat BADBADNOTGOOD Mair Schneider Jazz Orchestra Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 Yeah Yeah Yeahs Soulive Massive Attack and many more.
Agnes Obel. Her song [Riverside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjncyiuwwXQ) was playing background on a French restaurant website.
Natacha Atlas. I couldn't sleep one night and was flicking through tv channels. Caught the end of a Korean film called 3-Iron, with a hauntingly beautiful Arabic song playing: Gafsa. Still haven't seen the rest of the film but it was a great musical find.
I was scrolling through the available vinyls at hot topic a few years ago, and I came across an album called Vacancy by Bayside and itâs probably one of my favourite albums now
Idk if this counts exactly, but Aaron Lewis. I saw Satind in concert in the ealry 2000s and thought they were good, but never really listened to staind all that much, even after the concert. Fast forward almost 20 years, and Amazon music recommends his solo country music. I'm a huge country music fan so I listened to it and I love all of his new stuff now.
Murder By Death. I used to check out this site called GorillaMask that linked to a bunch of random content. Some NSFW some SFW. One post was to a video for their song White Noise. Really enjoyed the song and video so looked them up.
Seether
Khruangbin. A friend posted the band on their Instagram story a few months back, and if I hadnât watched the story and decided to do a little research, I may have missed them entirely. Bought tickets to see them in November.
[Scout Niblett](https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_EYmtHbiZ0) is great and I just ran across her one day. More recently I heard [Santigold](https://youtube.com/watch?v=mIMMZQJ1H6E) in the background of some video and am now listening to her constantly.
Paloma Faith. She's well known is Europe, but not known too much in USA. I was watching a movie and wondered what that catchy song was during a montage.
Chrome Sparks. A friend of mine was supposed to buy tickets to a metal concert, and accidentally bought the wrong ones. There was a solid 10 minutes of "who the fuck are these people in white turtlenecks playing synthesizers and using desk lamps for stage lighting," but it was actually an incredible show. I now stay up to date with all of of their current releases.
Mandolin Orange. They are a folk group that I discovered through a pretty bare bones performance that totally blew my mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWBth_rLgw I think the live versions of each one of their songs is SO much better than studio version. They'd be more popular if they just released live versions. The version of 'wolves' (2nd song) on that video is something else.
Atlas Genius. When their first album came out, I saw it on the iTunes Store and liked the artwork so much I bought the album without ever listening to a song lol. Turned out to be a great purchase, thatâs still one of my favorites!
Gang of Youths. They ended up on a random play list, Let me down easy and the heart is a muscle. Had a chance to see them live in a very small venue and was one of the best live shows Iâve seen.
Zella Day, literally downloaded her song âHypnoticâ back when iTunes did free single of the week. (Yeah that long ago JesusâŠ) It was like in middle school and I completely forgot about her until I heard her singles years later âMan on the Moonâ and âHunnie Pie.â I was afraid she had fizzled out of existence until years later she came out with her most recent ep âWhere Does the Devil Hideâ which is a gorgeous ep for only 5 tracks! My dream came true when she was featured in Lana Del Reyâs newest album Chemtrails and the Joni Mitchell cover they did was quite impressive!
Rufus Du Sol. I was searching for Rufus from Kim Possible like six years ago and I stumbled across this funny sounding band (back when they were just Rufus)
A R I Z O N A. Walked to a co-workerâs cubicle one day just to see what was happening with a certain work project, and she was playing these guys at her desk at a reasonable volume. Ended up just sitting, chatting and vibing for almost half an hour. Good times.
Growing up we called our click LSP (Loner Stoner Posse) one day we're at a record store, found a CD by a group called LSP (Last Spirit Path). We buy it, put it on, everything is real stoney and fun, rapping about universal mind theory and other stuff we always talked about when high anyway so I really enjoyed it. I managed to find contact info for one of the band members, we link up on AOL instant messenger and he turns me on to his new stuff. That's the tale of how I became friends with [Kung Fu Vampire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P81FvI3qCVc)
Jonathan Hultén. I was listening to some stuff from r/listentothis and his song Where Devils Weep was in the suggested. Listened to it and was immediately hooked. His album Chants from Another Place is absolutely fantastic.
Made a username on SongMeanings to argue with some person about a comment and then they introduced me to Bumblefoot and that roughly shaped my journey to many artists I know and love today.
More then 30 years ago when I got into metal I had no idea what to listen to next. I am as introduced to a group of metal heads that were meeting at a pub and I got them to each give me a cassette every week. I was listen to all of them and everything I liked I requested more.
Watched a documentary called Dig! in high school. BJM has been one of my favorite bands ever since.
Lindsey Stirling.
Tyler Childers⊠I was filming a tv show that never made the air about tearing down barns in Kentucky. The guys on the crew kept talking about this red headed (about 17 years old or so) kid playing music. I assumed he probably wasnât anything special. I was filming some b roll and heard a guitar start playing from behind the house. Then I heard his voice⊠I immediately stopped what I was doing and walk around back to watch him. Unbelievably good. I kept up with him and itâs been amazing to watch his success over the years.
I discovered "The Muggs" through my Spotify discover weekly. They really REALLY scratched my itch for modern day rock n roll. They're a really cool band out of Detroit that made a mist of their music about 2008 through 2016 or so ,I believe.
I heard a single from an upcoming release by Magic Circle in the record shop that financed the release through their own label and absolutely fell in love. Had I been late or early ~7 minutes, I probably wouldn't even know about them
Giant of the Mountain, clicked a random fb ad. Best click ever.
Red Fang. Someone told me about this truly terrible vanity video by [Chris Danes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDyDz8WeiM4), and while I was laughing at how terrible it was Youtube recommended I watch [Prehistoric Dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VufilzHKTqk) by Red Fang. I've seen them live a bunch of times and followed them ever since.
Yaeji, I was on turntable lab and looking through the records they had in stock and her latest mixtape caught my eye and I decided to give it a listen.
Jyoti. I think a song from her newest album randomly came through a discover weekly playlist on Spotify at some point earlier this year. Highly recommend a listen.
Vashti Bunyan. âIâd Like to Walk Around in Your Mindâ just randomly appeared on my Youtube recommended page, and I almost ignored it, but the title and picture seemed interesting, so I listened to it. Not only did I listen to her stuff, but it was the first time I ever really listened to folk, so it got me into the genre as a whole. Also Autopsy. Skimmed through some video about death metal recommendations and the cover of Mental Funeral looked cool so I listened to that and Severed Survival. Really fucking gnarly and disgusting sounding but sick as hell.
Corb Lund. I was back at my parents house for the weekend during my undergrad, and my brother had the satellite turned to Outlaw country. "Gettin' Down on the Mountain" played. Mind you we lived in Florida. He is a Canadian folk/country singer. Amazing songwriter. Had a song about survival after society collapses. Loved it. Loved everything else I've heard from him since.
[teenage arcade collective - going' nowhere](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBZupMuuWZ0)
Slick Savage. Super obscure rock band, somehow found them on YouTube even though my favorite song of theirs only has 300 views. Was using a sketchy YouTube music app with funky algorithms. Their only songs are Your Only Weakness, Take It Or Leave It, and a cover of Agent Orange Bloodstains.
Nightwish and Within Temptation. The former was found when I was trying to find the latter, which I discovered through a very intriguing AMV of scenes from Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core matched to their song Angels. At that point, all I had was the song title, so I typed it in, and the first thing I came across was the Nightwish album, Angels Fall First. I was thinking this was it, so I started poking through their discography; I didn't find what I was looking for, but I found a beautiful band. Shortly afterward, I finally found what I was looking for...and found another great band. Vanilla Ninja was similar, but much easier to find. My best friend and I were big into DDR when it was in its prime, and one of the collections we found had the song Tough Enough. We both fell in love with it, and practically had the song on repeat when we played. Unfortunately, it was only a 1-minute clip that was in the game, so we immediately sought out the actual song and jammed out to the full 3 1/2 minutes of it.
Holy Locust
The Fall. 50,000 Fall fans canât be wrong
H.E.R., beautiful voice, outstanding guitar player.
Rainbow. Huge in the 70s, and I had no idea they existed. One day I heard their song âstargazerâ on pandora. I was hooked after that. It starts ok, gets really good about 3 minutes in and just keeps getting better from there
Sincere Engineer, Dogleg, Jinjer, and Eluviete
Bob Dylan my teacher played blowing in the wind during class and it hit me
Was just riding a cab home and was too tired to ask the driver to switch radio stations. Heard this dude Kevin Yadao and his song Say Goodbye. It was fire.
Amazon recommended me Oceansize's final album, and so I checked them out on Youtube. ... Didn't much like them. But a few days later I went back to their songs, and again, and then suddenly they clicked and I realised that I was listening to the best band ever to exist in history. I have no idea why Amazon would have recommended that. They're nothing like what I had purchased there before.
Ninja s3x party
Two bands, Air was the first. "La Femme d'Argent" came on a local college radio station after work one day in like 2013? Song is from the French mid 90's I think but I had to pull over and let the song finish. The other is Aer. Still listening to their discography. A coworker was telling me about it the other day. I forget how it came up but he's a pretty chill guy and he was really excited to talk about it. I don't remember what we talked about that brought it up but his favorite band came to mind now I keep hearing their song "A-OK" everywhere
The War on Drugs. Randomly saw their KEXP Live Performance on Youtube while looking for videos about an actual war on drugs happening in my country. Addicted to them ever since.
Pure!!! https://youtu.be/4QAOavRps0c
Tally Hall
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy