songs that sound way ahead of their time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_NVl8sdkDo

^ 1971

that's a cool song but it sounds very much of its time

that's how ahead of its time it sounds

Heard this Stones song on a tv show recently and the piano intro had a very sampled/programmed quality to my ears -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOf-0Mur7t4

(I tried to see if it had been sampled for a piano house track and unbelievably it has not, to my knowledge)

agree with Moodles, that track rules but it def screams early 70s to me

maybe an obvious pick but this, which was apparently recorded in 1981, sounds like it should've come out a decade later. I mean clearly this is what AFX was going for with "Analogue Bubblebath"...?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq-kovIr2BE

The Makers - Don't Challenge Me

It's funny if you look at comments for the 70s rework of 'Thousand Finger Man' on YouTube with many people thinking it's the
original version.

I know 'ahead of their time' as a concept can be seen negatively re:insulting to the times records actually come from. But it's definitely an easy way to quickly and effectively talk about common ground between a track and its (usually distant, and usually unintentional) descendants.

Dean Blunt, virtually, in 1982 (vocals aside)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bq7Rb_11s8

Probably most nick nicely songs but this one is *mad* for 1983

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzwVrl1TkLY

Extreme, inexplicable slapback for 1956, but really this startles because on the final, delay-heavy line we might as well be hearing Arthur Russell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqnhsGpjjkY

Skittering stop-start amen breaks, whirly synth nebula and random dub bass fills? It's atmospheric drum and bass!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL63ToGuTLk

To name four that randomly come to mind right now

Jon Anderson invents Animal Collective in 1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0NUZVdIVQ

"Invented Anco" is my favourite genre (cf. Satanic Majesties, Smiley Smile, Beta Band s/t, L Voag's Bedroom, Sagittarius' Hotel Discreet, Perry Farrell's To Me - I added the last two)

A few more

Because no one has ever been able to discuss this without going, oh hi 1989 industrial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8jOhqOsouM

A similar thing here with heavy breakbeat/jungle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrjFtbGKqFk

The last 20 seconds sound like Aphex Twin playing underwater

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTp_qgh-i4g

The Makers - Don't Challenge Me

It's funny if you look at comments for the 70s rework of 'Thousand Finger Man' on YouTube with many people thinking it's the
original version.

Hard not to cite this klassic whenever the topic comes up (Mayo & co. flirt with punk rock in 1967):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqVkY-H3aQY

just by chance I happened to listen to Olias of Sunhillow and Person Pitch one after the other and definitely realized they were very similar sorts of albums. always felt Yes were an underrealized influence on them

however the prog tune that really does sound like it could be an AnCo song wholesale is this one, from 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVy4_rf8TYc

xp (sorry, '68)

I don't know what exactly when this sounds like it's from but it's not 1967.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiloWOFuY08

According to the title of the video, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-n6GWFAvI

I felt like nothing sounded like Euphoria by Insides in 1993 to the point to where I heard The XX in 2009 I thought they were a cross between Young Marble Giants and Insides.

Just dropped this into another thread but “I’m So Green” by Can sounds like it’s from 1991/2. And it struck me that way even in 1992.

Ambient from 1967:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHakxUVEceU

Ambient pop in 1966. Nothing difficult for Delia, but Newley sounds like Ian Dury. It's an odd and very enjoyable contrast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9M0OQaOXGo

Ofc Newley's own 1962 hit That Noise is basically Madness' Driving In My Car

Just dropped this into another thread but “I’m So Green” by Can sounds like it’s from 1991/2. And it struck me that way even in 1992.

― Josefa, Wednesday, September 13, 2023 5:27 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

to say nothing of the entire Future Days LP. comes down to the way those were produced I guess.

speaking of this track from the "lost" Faust LP definitely sounds like Chiastic Slide Autechre, or maybe even some of their recent stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtHitYrulHo

The future Crazy Horse +3 invent Roxy Music in 1968:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JANozVIcm4

^ That’s insane.

But then Roxy Music invent The Cars with “Virginia Plain”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4atQSktICE

"This is Sid Vicious, from Bristol" (1974)

I've actually got an ongoing list of songs, or parts of songs, I have seen described as 'proto-dub' or in some way pre-dub.

Other than Jimmy Young's Chain Gang (1956), I have:
Parts of Tommy Steele - Build Up (1957)
The Beatles - P.S. I Love You (1962)
Jean-Pierre Massiera - Ivresse des profondeurs, un bateau s'en va (1967)
The Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today (1967)
Ray Conniff - Volare (1968)
Hendrix - 1983.../Moon, Turn the Tides (1968)
Dragonfly - Miles Away (1968)
Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love (1969)
Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (1969/71)
Individually, the first three Funkadelic albums
Comus - First Utterance (1971)
The end of Paul McCartney's Long Haired Lady (1971)
Lennon - I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier/How Do You Sleep/Give Me Some Truth (1971)
Ono - Don't Count the Waves/The Path (1971)
There's a Riot Goin' On (1971)
Black Sabbath - FX (1972)
David Essex - Rock On (1973)
Faust - Jennifer (1973)

You see why this could become a fun list.

There’s that Doors song where they break into a mod-‘70s disco rhythm in 1969. Sloppily but unmistakably.

This track from 1972 seems to predict both Liquid Liquid (1982) and the Madchester sound of 1992:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkae9hHijWI

Oh that's brilliant. Sort of reminds me of Four Tet's A Joy

Dang! There must have been something in the air in 1972 that was pushing forward to 1992

"Fa La Fa Lee" by Sparks aka Halfnelson from 1971 predicts New Wave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jWKaRcraE

The Beatles - P.S. I Love You (1962)

Is this "proto-dub" because the harmony vocals only come in for a syllable or two?

Another early synthesizer record with a quasi-dance beat (in 3/4 time, though) is side 2 of Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick.

The music on PE's Fear of a Black Planet sounds like a future we haven't reached yet, and maybe never will.

Herbie Hancock's Sextant sounds like proto techno

Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 32, which had portions that some have compared to sounding like boogie woogie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYr0y9qGHM

"Herbie Hancock's Sextant sounds like proto techno"

This one gets pretty close too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpN2snjHw4Y

The first 10 seconds of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Save the Life of My Child” (plus the bit in the middle where they sample themselves)

Is this "proto-dub" because the harmony vocals only come in for a syllable or two?

With this one the "in some way pre-dub" is doing all the work. Marcello: "White does better on “P.S.” since all he really has to do is add some echoing rimshots to Ringo’s patient maracas – and thereby, with the aid of George Martin, help pave the way for dub."

It can be as simple as comments like that for it to get into the list

Get a real Wire/Adverts vibe from this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEnqtL3HB-o

My immediate answer is Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop), which to me sounds like it could easily have come out on Warp in the early 90s, not 1982

"Invented Anco" is my favourite genre (cf. Satanic Majesties, Smiley Smile, Beta Band s/t, L Voag's Bedroom, Sagittarius' Hotel Discreet, Perry Farrell's To Me - I added the last two)

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Wednesday, September 13, 2023 11:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Don't forget Holy Modal Rounders and (of course) Vashti Bunyan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9rIjjGmJhM

Joni Mitchell's "The Jungle Line" sounds like an experimental track you'd hear on a 90s Matador Records release.

This track from 1972 seems to predict both Liquid Liquid (1982) and the Madchester sound of 1992:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkae9hHijWI

― henry s, Wednesday, September 13, 2023 8:25 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

damn this is cool, the vocals do clearly sound like the early 70s (maybe just the microphone used) but nothing else does, so right now it seems like a remix

"Fa La Fa Lee" by Sparks aka Halfnelson from 1971 predicts New Wave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jWKaRcraE

a lotta 70s Sparks sounds ahead of its time to me, even Big Beat which sounds like The Cars. "In the Future" in particular is wild, it's like glamprog in one sense and technopop in another

Chris & Cosey inventing techno in 1984:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSr1q5bh6Yo

also, weirdly, I pulled out Olias yesterday as well!

Another Spiritualized b-side, this one from 1973:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjzRf90dhqI

Xp fantastic stuff. May I nominate Lou Reed's The Bells as 1979 post-rock.

“Decadence” could also be an A-side from The Church. Eventually they did record a terrific cover of it for A Box Of Birds

This has that mid 2000s feel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk9d3K383RA

Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop" is almost singular in its execution or in someone else trying to mimic it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO58rj6hOqM

This is very proto Wire

Just learning about Ernest Hood from the latest Trilogy Tapes NTS show, ambient music (using lots of zithers etc) from the '70s with electronic touches that sounds incredibly modern, wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvFdJqbV8a4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUdSrNAgr2Y

(xp) are we quite sure Robert Pollard didn't write that one?

All this thread and no mention of Arthur Russell whose entire career feels out of time and space

All this thread and no mention of Arthur Russell whose entire career feels out of time and space

When I worked at a shelter for teens in Portland in the mid-2000s, I'd play them this Wipers track to give them some pride in their city that it actually invented the "Seattle sound" i.e. Nirvana's whole thing (which I'm sure Kurt would've credited them for):

― Soundslike, Monday, September 18, 2023 3:14 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right noticed that on getting the cd of that lp in the early 90s. Did Nirvana actually cover it somewhere.

Also just saw that Angelo & Eighteen were produced by Mickie Most.

Kurt most definitely gave Wipers credit as an influence. He enlisted 3 of their albums on his 50 favorite albums of all time. In his journal notes for the list he wrote:

“They’re one of the bands I tried to assimilate. Their songs were so good. Greg Sage was pretty much the romantic, quiet, visionary kind of guy. What more can I say about them? They started Seattle grunge rock in Portland, 1977.”

OK, seeing they played the song live and on Peel Session.
Thought I was remembering them or someone related having done it somewhere.

Plus, "Return of the Rat" on here...

https://www.discogs.com/release/1971330-Various-Eight-Songs-For-Greg-Sage-And-The-Wipers

haven't had time to check out the unfamiliar tracks itt but westbury, it's funny i had the complete opposite reaction to nick nicely on hearing the 2010 edition of psychotropia- i assumed the y2k era tracks like on the beach and a hundred years later (his best stuff imo) were also recorded in the 80s.

i love his perfectly unbalanced mixes, the way he lets one thick texture totally engulf a track

So this is maybe just me, but in the napster era I downloaded Can - Mushroom without knowing anything about the band and not investigating more about them…I used to burn copies of cd mixes that I gave out to friends and I would pair that one with late 80’s, early 90’s alt rock like idk Pixies, Mudhoney, Blonde Redhead, Throwing Muses… it didn’t occur to me at the time that it was a song from the 70’s… the only sign giving it away for me was the organ sound at the break, but I assumed they were just throwing a vintage sound in there.

I’d still entertain the thought that Damo Suzuki as a vocalist was very odd and miles ahead for the era.

His weird dadaist lyrics and sort of off beat, half mumbling/half shouting delivery is something I relate more to slacker indie, early alt rock sort of vocalists from the 90’s.

Again maybe that’s just me but I can’t think atm of vocalists that sounded like that in the 70’s.

A lot of Can albums are produced surprisingly well, given they were apparently recorded onto a 4-track. could definitely buy that Future Days was something from the 90s

And boring answer but Black Sabbath are widely credited as the first popular Heavy Metal band but also as one of the first (maybe not the first… Blue Cheer were perhaps it?) to make Doom and Stoner Metal a decade before it was formerly established as a genre.

I guess Flower Travellin Band should also get a credit there, but I think Black Sabbath are the main ones that actually influenced most of those early metal bands.

A lot of Can albums are produced surprisingly well, given they were apparently recorded onto a 4-track.

Or even 2-track? Anyway, all of their best albums were recorded on 4-track... or 2-track.

Pink Floyd 1972 invent 1980s movie soundtrack and the Moody Midtempo AOR we all Praise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16V-wNwlTw0

It's been mentioned in this bump but Sextant is maybe the most I've ever felt 'this isn't from when it was made, my god' about anything at all

Kuzikhon Madrahimov invented epic metal in 1954 with Qosh Tar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UliXZ6qmDMY

That performance is a bit antiseptic, I prefer Guzal Muminova's mom-swagger here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgJKDtdTEA

^^great stuff and I agree, just put a pickup in that thing and distort, once brought a three string stick dulcimer to work to play at lunch and my Iranian friend heard it and turned me onto some dutar, very similar instruments, asked him how much a decent dutar runs and I guess I need to keep saving haha

sometimes I feel like Alan Parsons invented vaporwave, chillwave? y'know music for driving around at night in a cyberpunk dystopia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB8dweYCLes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trxfwH-Vlmo

This always sounded ahead of its time to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC6MUec5cLg

The reminds me of early 80s industrial just because of how strict the rhythm is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5Wn2CKcdw

xpost every time I think of that very long Flaming Lips "I found a star on the ground" it kinda drifts into "A Pox On You"

XTC in 1967, like a reversal of the Dukes of Stratosphear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzfpMEMKObA

All this thread and no mention of Arthur Russell whose entire career feels out of time and space

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, September 20, 2023 9:08 AM (yesterday)

'World of Echo' is probably my favorite album of all time, and I guess he wouldn't come to mind for me as "sounding like the future" because at least as far as anything I've heard, the future(s) he sounded like haven't arrived for him to sound like? Or to put it another way, he remains timeless, and (joyously) lots of people love him, bit perhaps he's so sui generis that nobody really sounds like him, and can't?

This is a pretty well known one to people here, with Jan Hammer basically sounding like Air or Zero 7 in 1977:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWOsFwC8iIs

The Temptations - Papa Was a Rolling Stone (proto-disco and dub)

That Jan Hammer track is great, sounds like a touchstone for Thundercat, also a bit for Louis Cole, or even Dirty Projectors in bits of the melody?

Also I like the links between the Jan Hammer/John McLaughlin bands and Lou Reed's band (Fernando Saunders, Tony "Thunder" Smith).

he also anticipates oneohtrix's retro jan hammer-isms here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV178eVyHo0

xp The dj edits of Don't You Know are fun. There's a couple out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7sBGBGDvhg

he also anticipates oneohtrix's retro jan hammer-isms here

this suggests something of the way that i'm hearing a lot of these - not so much as ahead of their time, as clarifying how certain aspects of a particular moment's sounds and forms could be picked up decades later and taken in different directions.

That there the Brit Pop in 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3aTXMwKGKY

1977. The main synth pulse, particularly at the start, sounds not only like the sort of acid house throbs thrown into a few early 90s indie tracks - e.g. Paris Angels' Perfume (Loved Up), Spacemen 3's Big City, the Hypnotone mix of Sheer Taft's Cascades - but also like the trance-y throbs thrown into a few turn-of-the-millennium pop tracks - e.g. Andreas Johnson' Glorious, Sonique's It Feels So Good, A1's Take on Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqyQKdN6JtI

1986 but very 90s, sort of Saint Etienne?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXQiK56n1-E

This one from 1979/1980 definitely sounded futuristic to my ears when I first heard it in 2003. Though in reality, it's mainly that some of the drum flourishes sound a bit Jungle-ish from the 90s, and the overall sound is kore agressive than most "new wave" or "minimal synth" or whatever stuff from '79-'82:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJtvFWc7FDE

too obvious?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXRV4MezEw
cher - believe

Precursor to rock and roll that sounds like rock and roll to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpgTzDpW-Q
Rosetta Tharpe - That's All, 1938

Were there any other blatant uses of auto-tune before Believe? I usually bring up this Kid Rock one as the album was released several months before Believe was released as single, though it didn't really gain much traction till a year later, and this song wasn't released a single till the end of 1999/early 2000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDshdJK9Rwg

Cher is a good one tbh, a decade later it would be used in virtually all popular music.

I guess "songs that sound ahead of their time in a bad way" could be a side topic.

re autotune here is (as far as I know) the first record to take from Cher & apply it to popular music the way generations of rappers & dancehall acts would after

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SX60IQQJBo

pre t-pain, future, etc

It isn't autotune but I get an autotune-y feel from the hit version of Rosie Gaines' Closer than Close (1997). All it really is the effects of a sped up vocal track afaict

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZvGW01BDQ

Sonido Lasser Drakar - visions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfXIcZCGu1U

Predicts crystal castles in 2003.