Discovering a band/artist late.

It's too late to go into details, so I'll just list people I discovered far later than I should have:

Gram Parsons
Fairport Convention/Sandy Denny/Richard Thompson
Big Star
The Dictators
Moby Grape (indeed)

None of the above acts were played on the radio when I was HS/college age, and I couldn't afford to buy records, so perhaps I have a semi-excuse. I never heard The Velvet Underground until I was in college, but their albums were virtually impossible to find even if you had the money, so I count that as a draw.

I was several years behind on alt.country, not hearing most of the "big names" until they were well established, some (Uncle Tupelo) until they were long kaput.

There are entire genres I've missed... I still haven't heard much Grunge. I think I've heard one Oasis track (though I did like it)

I was late on classic country/honky tonk/Bakersfield but I suppose many people are.

Sounds odd but... for me it's the Rolling Stones.

Obviously I don't live under a rock, I had their greatest hits album and knew their songs, however on vacation over the summer I decided to read Keith Richard's autobiography. That led me to start at their first album and listen to their entire discography in it's entirety and in order. Finding albums like Between the Buttons, songs like Shine a Light, Silver Train, Sister Morphine along with all their other stuff I have heard all my life has really been eye opening.

That led me to Gram Parsons, Jimmy Reed, Aretha Franklin, back to Robert Johnson again it's been a really fun and enjoyable listen.

Through high school and into my 30s I was into hard rock and metal. Anything from AC/DC, Van Halen, Molly Hatchet, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Dio, Maiden, etc. I liked what had a powerful vocal delivery and screaming guitars. At the time I despised all the new wave, over processed synth / keyboard music.

Fast forward to a few years ago I was seeking out something new to listen to on Spotify and came across Tears for Fears and Simple Minds. I already knew those songs but never really appreciated them or the bands until I truly took it in and listened closely. It lead me down a rabbit hole of other new wave bands of that era. What I passed off as lame back in the day was actually well written music performed by actual musicians. Even the stuff from Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls and many of the other UK new wave bands is really good.

It's far, far superior to today's pop music which includes auto tuned vocals, dumbed down lyrics, lifted samples and is basically built on a repetitive hook. Most modern day pop "performers" are all about glitz with no substance with dance troops, zero musicianship and rarely are actually singing live. It's a horrible product made for "performers" that have no musical talent.

Anyway, sorry for long winded rant. I now have several 80s pop playlists of those new wave style bands that I listen to.

Pixies.

quote:

---

Who are your late discoveries?

---

I only recently started listening more seriously to bands like Coheed & Cambria, Escape the Fate, Falling in Reverse, Saosin, Mayday Parade, and My Chemical Romance. The latter half of the 2000’s, I was listening to more post grunge, and by 2009 was into singer/songwriters, jazz, funk, and jam bands. I pretty much missed a big chunk of rock music that was pretty damn popular in its time.

As for classic rock acts that I didn’t dive much into until I was nearly 30:
Dokken
Queensryche
Dio
Judas Priest
UFO
Montrose
White Lion
Tesla

I was a teen when Blind Melons albums came out and saw videos on MTV, but never bought or listened to the 1st two albums. Thankfully it's easy with streaming now, because I was missing out for sure.

Takanaka
Death Cab for Cutie
Mutemath
Blind Melon

I think I was late to the government mule party but I enjoy them a lot. I think I was lucky to hear Ben Harper before a lot of my friends

i feel like i got in on Halestorm a little late