"Ahead of their time"

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What do people mean when they say this? What do you mean when you say it? Sorry to be so vague.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:21 (twenty-two years ago)

"They won't be fully appreciated until some indefineable point in the future"

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:28 (twenty-two years ago)

i use the term when i talk about musicians and/or groups who really weren't appreciated as being "innovative" or original when they were originally doing their thing (though they might have been popular). for instance, i think that the Kinks, Black Sabbath, Kraftwerk and Gary Numan were ahead of their times because in the case of all three i don't think that their originality was really appreciated until 20 years or so after the recordings were so considered. or maybe it's just me in their instances. but it has to do with getting a better picture of what they were doing years after the fact (and after other musicians who they influenced have come to the fore).

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:33 (twenty-two years ago)

can you say a current band is ahead of it's time? or is it just used for looking back on bands that did something first?

― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Jim's take is interesting cuz I usually associate it with looking back and saying "they weren't fully appreciated but anticipated [x]"

The thing I've been struggling with is maybe this thread's analogue, "dated". How the heck can something ever not, in some manner, be dated (i.e. of it's particular time and place)? These both seem like totally lazy words/concepts.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Any application to a current band is i would think hopeful only: if in the future lots of bands sound like Radiohead circa Kid A then they will presumably have been ahead of their time, if not then they will have been very much of their time.

I think this sense of "ahead of their time" is used too interchangably with a concept of progression, innovation, ambition, futurism etc - like the album of the nineties the phrase probably most applies to is Jeff Buckley's Grace, but i wouldn't equate that with any of the subsequent adjectives.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yeah get rid of that stupid apostrophe in 'its'

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 29 May 2003 04:41 (twenty-two years ago)

i can't listen to Jeff Buckley because he sounds so dated

― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 29 May 2003 05:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, and I can't listen to Son House, Lester Young, and Chuck Berry because they sound so dated.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 29 May 2003 05:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't listen to J Lo cuz she sounds so dated. get it? dated? i crack myself up.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 May 2003 05:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Charley Patton, Thelonious Monk, and Little Richard were totally ahead of their time.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 29 May 2003 05:17 (twenty-two years ago)

i think there's an issue of closeness as to why J.Buckley sounds way more dated than any of those other artists you mention. remember 5 years ago (before all this post-punk / electroclash resurgence came about) when we were still in the 90s and anything from the 80s sounded like poo. well it did to me. but now after time has passed, we can listen to the 80s with fresh ears. i can barely listen to anything from the 90s. it's just has this sound that i can't get into.

― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 29 May 2003 05:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I just threw out all those examples to point out how ultimately subjective the terms are. (I wasn't trying to mock your Buckley example). But they don't mean anything without some further explication - which you provided.

The funny thing is, I couldn't get into the Buckley record when it first came out, because I was all into indie stuff and jazz at the time. I actually just rediscovered it about a year ago, and I totally love it! Maybe because originally I didn't spend enough time with it - or really any other contemporaneous rock - it doesn't carry any associations of time or place.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 29 May 2003 06:22 (twenty-two years ago)

ping pong bitches - mocked then - electro clash cool now ...

― robotman (Jam), Thursday, 29 May 2003 08:39 (twenty-two years ago)

if you look up the phrase "ahead of their time" in any discerning dictionary it'll say the words "Pop Will Eat Itself".

FACT!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 29 May 2003 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

"Ahead of ther time" means "First on the Bandwagon" - and probably implies some significant lag time until anyone else gets on. If there isn't a bandwagon, then they aren't ahead of their time - they're just http://graphics.theonion.com/pics_3920/cat.jpg "Shitting outside the box."

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 29 May 2003 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahead of their time?

― the pinefox, Thursday, 29 May 2003 13:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I use it to mean that you've gotta sit at the bus stop for 10 minutes.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate that phrase and "influential". Can a band be described as influential if no-one actually bought their records until 20 years after they split up?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

"Ahead of their time" is a dumb phrase. It means nothing. You mean to say that band X has taken a course that their contemporaries and followers may borrow from, and thus the "future" sounds like band X. They weren't AHEAD of their time; They were well within it. They were just doing something that maybe a lot of other guys weren't doing, and that caught on later.

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Howev, some bands do something to public indifference and then somebody else does pretty much the same thing a few years earlier and gets on the cover of Spin for resurrecting rock/roll. whaddaya call that?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

>>I can't listen to J Lo cuz she sounds so dated. get it? dated?<<

And I can't listen to the Ramones 'cause they sound sedated!

(Jeff Buckley's music, on the other hand, was completely useless in the first place. Being "dated" has nothing whatsoever to do with it.)

― chuck, Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I asked this because I was thinking of 20-year-old records that are more popular now that at any point in their history, like "Contort Yourself" by James Chance. I'm sure people can think of others. My hunch is that we are in fact BEHIND the times?

The pinefox's answer on that other thread is classic.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

When (if ?) I've used it I've meant 'proto-bandwagon', yes, that's how I interpret it.

Those making the "how can someone be ahead of their time? THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" argument make me really sad. It's a figure of speech, guys.

― Adam A. (Keiko), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Although, I think if you spend enought time at either the South or North Pole (or both) time will slow down for you or speed up. One or the other. What do I like, Isaac Newton? Isaac Hanson, maybe.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Considering the folk explosion of the 1950s and 1960s, was Leadbelly "ahead of his time"?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Took the words outta my mouth, Adam.

Fuckin' pedantic physicists!

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

What do I like, Isaac Newton? Isaac Hanson, maybe.

should be "What do I LOOK like..." once again proving I am NOT ahead of my time.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 29 May 2003 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Adam A it may "just" be a figure of speech but it haunts the "who started the new disco punk genre" thread to the point where no one can quite answer the question there.

I have no idea what "proto-bandwagon" means. Is it like this?

http://www.gabbf.com/images/bandwagon.jpg

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 May 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

yeh, that has to be the definitive prototype of proto-bandwagon -- the shape, ppl! the shape!
no wonder there ain't too many volunteers to jump on that thingy. it sure takes (off, very likely) balls to jump on it...

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 29 May 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Always thought that paradoxically one way of being ahead of your time it to be behind it, i.e. working in an area that is considered passe and so isn't being exhausted by your contemporaries. eg Scott Walker wanting to sound like Jack Jones.

― ArfArf, Friday, 30 May 2003 08:16 (twenty-two years ago)

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