Critical darlings you've never heard.

I haven't heard lots of hip hip - Jay Z, NWA, Public Enemy... oh look just name them, I won't have heard them.

There's lots of new-ish American stuff that I haven't heard - No Doubt/Blink 182/Hootie/Blind Melon - but they're not exactly critical darlings are they?

I've only heard about 30 seconds of the Grateful Dead as far as I know. I've never heard Jewel, Melissa Etheridge, Ani Di Franco and loads of other birds with guitars. I'm proud of this.

I have never heard Phish, nor must I.

From the post-punk era I don't think I've ever heard PragVEC or Sudden Sway. I ought to put this right.

i'm sure if i gave a shit i'd listen to them.

Nothing I've heard/read gives me any reason to want to change this.

Up until last week, I hadn't heard Andrew WK. I also haven't heard The White Stripes, but I've seen their album.

Never knowingly heard anything at all by:

"Be My Baby," "What's Going On?", The Go-Betweens, Aztec Camera, The Feelies, Big Star, Cannibal Ox, Prefuse 73, Nas, The Beatnuts, Alicia Keys, DNA, The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, The Chameleons, Can, Cluster, Amon Duul, Heroin, Angelhair, Antioch Arrow, The Beta Band, Death, AMM, Keith Rowe, Fred Frith outside of Henry Cow, James Taylor, Barry Manilow, Serge Gainsbourg, Smog, The Clientele, "I Feel Love", Engelbert Humperdinck, Royal Trux, Run On, No New York, UGK

an entire track by:

Belle and Sebastian, The Fall pre-Shift Work, Slipknot, The Wedding Present, Suede, Morton Feldman, Spacemen 3, Ride, Neu, Jan Jelinek, Superchunk, Pussy Galore, Throwing Muses or Kirsten Hersh, Philip Jeck

More than one track in its entirety by:

Roxy Music, T Rex, The Manic Street Preachers, The MC5, Faust (except for the Tony Conrad collaboration), Spiritualized, Stereolab, Boney M, Blue Cheer, The Dandy Warhols, The X-Ray Spex, Chic, Arvo Part, The Human League, Mudhoney, Pere Ubu, Sofia Gubaidulina, Celtic Frost, Phish

More than a few tracks by:

Blur, Gorecki, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, any soul artist, any popular musician from the 50s (except I've heard a Chuck Berry greatest hits album), any country artist, The Minutemen, Black Flag post-The First Four Years, Run DMC, Slayer, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Godspeed You Black Emperor, any black metal band except Cradle of Filth, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Love

an entire track by:

Jay-Z, Broadcast, the United States of America, Talk Talk

more than a few tracks by:

any Elephant 6 band

an honest-to-goodness studio album by:

Cream

I've never heard Momus; I imagine him to sound like the guy from the Divine Comedy. Am I right?

I've never most of the electronic stuff talked about here. Since nobody shuts up about the Boards of Cananda, I bought their first one, and it's pretty good. I'm actually using ILM as a music guide more than any other media source these days.

I've heard nothing by too many other darlings to mention.

maybe some people (sundar) should say what they HAVE heard instead...

Led Zeppelin. I like the fourth album best.

(Barely heard Elvis Costello too, BTW.)

I'm sure you had your reasons, but I have this bizarre image of him forbidding you to buy music or something. Which I'm sure wasn't the case!

And just in case I missed someone's favourite band the first couple times around:

Nothing at all:

The Telescopes, Sparks, Turbonegro, Anal Babes, Gluecifer, The Divine Comedy, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Flipper, The Au Pairs, The Dead Boys, The New York Dolls, Bathory, Fad Gadget, Lotion, Eugene Chadbourne, Steps, Jessica Simpson, Aldo Nova, Del the Funky Homosapien, Kool Keith, Stereophonics, Travis, Dilated Peoples, People Under the Stairs, Robyn Hitchcock, Fairport Convention

Not an entire track:

The Raincoats, The Damned, Orff, Yngwie Malmsteem, Derek Bailey, Leonard Cohen pre-80s, John Fahey, Lil' Kim, any Dirty South other than Outkast and Goodie Mob, Mobb Deep, Mos Def

No more than one track in its entirety:

The Cramps, The Strokes, Venom, Kardinal Offishall, The Misfits (As in Glenn Danzig's band. I heard stuff by Jem's enemies.), Vanilla Fudge

No more than a few tracks in their entirety:

Jane's Addiction, Devo, Kiss, Cheap Trick (might come to 7 songs if you include 80s comeback stuff), Alice Cooper (maybe 10 songs ditto), DOA, NoMeansNo, Fleetwood Mac, ELO, Gang of Four, Germs, Fear, X pre- Under the Big Black Sun (which sucks), Slowdive, The Plasmatics, Suicide, ELP, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, probably any given synthpop artist except New Order and the Magnetic Fields, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Jurassic 5, Motorhead, Tricky, Massive Attack, The Yardbirds (maybe 6 or 7 songs tops)

Not an honest-to-goodness full-length studio album:

Husker Du, The Beach Boys, Pierre Schaeffer

must be many many many more.

Junior and III maybe, but Senior is justly rated high. Give him a listen before you decide.

Pet Sounds
The Stooges
MC5
The vast majority of Stax singles
The Nirvana (studio) LPs
Every Pulp LP
Every Jay-Z recording ever 'cept that one that samples "Annie"

and let's add:
Momus, 2Pac & Biggy, Can, Amon Duul 1&2, Black Sabbath (save for "Paranoid"), Spacemen 3 (again, save for 1 song), Johnny Cash (save for about 3 songs maybe) and Ryan Adams. I have one Hank Williams tune on a compilation CD, but that's all of him I've heard. (Country and alt. country in general I've mostly avoided thus far).

I've also never heard anything by half the people who've so far featured in DUEL! 2002. Hasn't stopped me voting tho' - tee hee.