best music you discovered entirely by accident

I once bought Wet Wet Wet's The Memphis Sessions on tape and although the cassette itself said that's what it was, the music inside turned out to be The Best Of Bananarama.

Thus I discovered that I had no fuckin' taste whatsoever, cos I took it back and demanded it be immediately replaced with Marty & Co's grinning cod-soul dribbling.

That didn't answer the question at all did it. OK, does buying things you've never heard of cos the label's one you trust count? In which case, I bought Gorodisch's Thurn And Taxis on spec cos it's on Leaf...wasn't disappointed.

Zounds - The Curse Of Zounds

Zounds are amazing! Klezmer punk on Crass Records!
i bought Scientist vs King Jammy: The big Showdown just because of the picture on the cover when i was 14. its still one of my favorites.

I guess i discovered ILM by accident and would never have heard of "Aeroplane over the sea" if i hadn't.

Gayle McCormick from A group called Smith
Genya Ravan and Ten Wheel Drive

Thrift shop finds both awesome singers

A friend picked up a Tripmaster Monkey album, "Goodbye Race", in a charity shop because the cover looked interesting. It became one of my favourite albums for a while.

Lynksey! Do you have "Shutters Closed"? Does it still sound good?

I think I've mentioned this before on ILM, but it deserves mention again--especially on this thread. When I was a wee one (probably near 12), I asked my mom for a Depeche Mode tape for Christmas. She dutifully went to the local record store, asked for Depeche Mode, and the folks working there convinced her to buy me Dead Milkmen instead. Apparently they said that anyone who likes Depeche Mode would be sure to love the Dead Milkmen.

My mom's mistake--and those michievious record store rats--changed my life, gosh darn it!

Meat Puppets - "Up On the Sun"
Dogbowl - "Cyclops Nuclear Submarine Captain"

Many others I am sure.

the phrase 'the dead milkmen changed my life' has sent me into peals of laughter.

erm...i heard tom waits for the first time at the end of that movie Smoke, and thought he had the most awful voice i had ever heard in my life. so much so that i remembered the song for about five years, and when i once did a p2p search for the title ('innocent when you dream') on a whim, i d/led bone machine and have been in love with his voice ever since.

I was flipping through the channels one day and came across Corey Harris playing on some PBS. What can I say, I'm a sucker for steel lap guitar. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of his, but I almost never just stumble onto an artist that I've never heard anything about.