acts that happened to release their WORST material just as you started listening to them

When the Thompson Twins became a trio, I picked up the cassette of "Quick Step and Side Kick" (remixes on side 2) after having bought the double 7" of "Love on your side". Played them a lot, all great.

I was aware of their more studenty band origins but never dug into the previous albums.

And then they went into irritation mode.

I did get the deluxe reissue of "Quick Step" and it's still a great album. But, whoa! That was close....

Wild Mood Swings was the most recent Cure album at the time.

=/

Started to listen to Pink Floyd in 1979, just as the classic quartet was disintegrating

Got into the Who in 1982, but didn't actually hear It's Hard in its entirety until a few years later. I've maybe played it five times since.

When I got into the Kinks, The Road was their latest.

Started listening to Bowie in the Tin Machine years. I have never listened to a Tin Machine record all the way through, and don't plan on doing so.

I started listening to Miles Davis in 1985. The first thing I bought was Kind of Blue, but I bought You're Under Arrest a few weeks later. Which isn't one of his worst albums by any means, but his work of that era continues to get critical short shrift.

I'm gonna guess a lot of people first heard Alex Chilton around the time of High Priest

My first Julian Cope album was My Nation Underground (which I quite liked!)

This phenomenon isn't so unusual for those of us who were interested in investigating older music when we were young. What's strange is when this newer, inferior music is the stuff that pulls in an audience, like hearing about young people with no exposure to Pink Floyd becoming fans when they heard The Division Bell.
The first record I heard by Sparks was Interior Design, which I don't consider their worst, but was certainly a low in terms of critical and commercial success (followed by seven years with no records). Even there, though, I was prompted to check them out by a career retrospective I read, maybe in Trouser Press.

Oh yeah also my first Wire album was Manscape!

What's strange is when this newer, inferior music is the stuff that pulls in an audience, like hearing about young people with no exposure to Pink Floyd becoming fans when they heard The Division Bell.

I talked about this in a Stereogum piece years ago: Load was millions of people's first Metallica album.

My dad was a long-time Dylan fan, so I got exposure to his work early on, but I started actually listening to him on my own in the mid-80s, which I think we can all agree was the nadir of his career. I did get to see him tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which was cool, but even so it felt as though I had come in after the good times had ended permanently.

This happened to me a lot as a kid as I explored older music through other people's old record collections. One that comes to mind is Devo's Oh No! It's Devo which was my gateway to songs-other-than-"Whip It!"

AC/DC's Who Made Who, obtained as a hand-me-down from an older cousin was my first real exposure to them.

This one doesn't count as it's not their worst by any metric, but I bought Iron Maiden's Somewhere In Time, their newest at the time, mostly based on its cover, and it is still my favorite of theirs. Seventh Son was the next I bought, and I still love it, too - though I remember having a hard time getting into it at the time. I think this era of Maiden is generally thought poorly of especially by older fans who hated the 80s synths and new age lyrics.

xp exactly the same for me (w/Dylan), except more toward late '80s (the first "new" Dylan LP I bought with my own $$ was Under the Red Sky; and the first time I saw him on tour was the GE Smith / back to audience era).

I did get to see him tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which was cool, but even so it felt as though I had come in after the good times had ended permanently.

Yep, I saw that tour too, thought I only really knew the big three mid-'60s Dylan records at the time. It's weird, I have vivid and somewhat detailed memories of shows I saw years before that one, but my only memories of the Petty/Dylan show are that they were far away (I was on the lawn at an outdoor shed, and the stage may as well have been in a different zip code) and that I didn't recognize a single song Dylan sang. I do remember thinking, "Welp, at least I can say I saw Dylan; I don't imagine he'll keep touring or recording for much longer."

Setlist was pretty solid, actually. I can't remember which night I went to, but they were substantially the same.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-dylan-and-tom-petty/1986/red-rocks-amphitheatre-morrison-co-3bd758a0.html

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-dylan-and-tom-petty/1986/red-rocks-amphitheatre-morrison-co-23d758a7.html

When I was growing up, my parents only owned the Gospel-period Dylan albums, so that was pretty much my only knowledge of Dylan. Then when I got older and started reading record reviews and checking out CDs from the library, it was right around the time that "Under the Red Sky" came out, so that was the first Dylan album I sought out on my own and listened to.

Also, I know its some people's favorite, but the first Pixies album I heard (which was the newest one at the time) was "Bossanova", which ended up being my least favorite.

Setlist was pretty solid, actually. I can't remember which night I went to, but they were substantially the same.

Seems like he mixed things up a bit as the tour went along. I only knew six of these songs (and didn't recognize them anyway).

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-dylan-and-tom-petty/1986/alpine-valley-music-theatre-east-troy-wi-33d758bd.html

I do remember liking "Band Of The Hand" when hearing it on the radio, but passed on buying Knocked Out Loaded when I found out "Band" wasn't on it. Bullet dodged, I guess.

That's also a really good setlist. I just remember thinking that his heart really wasn't in it. Of course, I wasn't all that close in, so maybe I was the one missing something.

I lot of Low fans seemed to dislike Great Destroyer but I loved it and still think it's great

That was my favorite of theirs but maybe I’m not a real fan.

California is one of their best songs

Does The Beatles’ Anthology and all its associated ridiculous marketing overhype count?

I got into Peter Gabriel just after the Secret World Tour (which I missed). Next time he turned up, he looked 100 and the album was a snooze.

Baldness ages a man.

for like my entire generation the answer is Modest Mouse

Baldness ages a man.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, April 26, 2022 4:23 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

As do white goatees and dressing like a Jedi

(xposts) The actual answer for me could well be the Beatles, when they were still releasing records. My awareness of them--and of pop music in general--took a big step forward in 1970, when "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" both placed high on a Toronto station's All-Time Top 300. So while I wasn't hearing them for the first time in 1970 (I turned 9 later in the year), I was hearing them in a new way, as a Really Important Artist.

After getting a grounding in the boomer classic rock canon, the first band I discovered and loved for myself was Public Image - and while it is a bit tricky to exactly pinpoint their cutoff, I don’t think anyone would argue that 1989 was their very best year.

I saw them live on the ‘9’ tour and loved it (actually pretty cool band in retrospect with Bruce Smith and John McGeoch). Still retain a sneaking fondness for the best tracks of their “college rock” era - although it isn’t much to do with PIL proper.

The first Who album I bought, and about the fourth album I bought ever, was Face Dances. probably early 1982. I was like, here’s this record with two songs I hear on the radio all the time, and it only costs two dollars new and has this sawblade mark in the corner.

I listened to it a lot. I hung the poster, which had the cutout nick in it too. I thought it would be as good as those three Beatles albums, and in a way I convinced myself it was.

I first started listening to the Beatles circa the White Album. Certainly not their worst material, but like coming in to a movie three quarters of the way over.

First song heard and purchase for Guided By Voices was 'Teenage FBI' and Do The Collapse respectively

I loved “The Joshua Tree” and was excited for “Rattle and Hum” :\

I got into Echo and the Bunnymen just as they released Ocean Rain; they immediately took a three-year break and were never the same again.