bands you were wrong about

I think up until the age of 25 I was actively opposed to Abba. Now I love them so much. Think I must have 180'd on them overnight. What acts have you changed your mind about, for better or worse?

gay dad

i thought medeski martin and wood were worth listening to

all of them.

rihanna, fergie

Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan.
Dad's hatred of the former and love of the latter infiltrating my younger self.

i quite liked the Beatles when i was a kid

I suspect I was wrong about Beach House.

Same here with ABBA. Hated them, but now I love them more than I ever hated them.

More recently, I hated the Hold Steady on first listen. I just couldn't get around Craig Finn's vocals on Almost Killed Me, which sounded brash and arrogant. I thought the same thing about Separation Sunday, too. I guess it was my third listen when the band just floored me.

i used to rmde at springsteen as a youth, despite actively loving all the songs of his that i knew---it was like the ~idea~ of springsteen was offensive to me or something. i realize now that i was rong.

I suspect I was wrong about Beach House.

― chupacabra - a delicious burrito (DJP), Sunday, June 19, 2011 3:27 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

in what sense?

okay now I am second-guessing, I thought it was Beach House that I did the 180 on but apparently they don't do a song titled "Boyfriend" or "Girlfriend" or something similar?

basically there's some "dream pop" group from last year that I thought sucked that I heard a different song by and was all "woah this is actually awesome" but now I don't know who it was

Sonic Youth.

AC/DC - didn't like Bon Scott era for years, said it all 'sounded the same'. RONG
W.A.S.P. - thought they were generic hard rock at first. RONG. love em, at least the classic albums.

i remember writing about this when i first joined ILX, but Talk Talk. "Spirit of Eden" sounded like sparse easy listening mixed with Adam Duritz vocals or something to me, for maybe a few months. then one day, ilxor elan was playing them around sunset and i got it all of a sudden. for months after that was the most played thing on my itunes.

Jay-Z - just flat out hated him, thought he was a mediocre rhymer

I spent far too much time liking indie rock.

Wasted years.

I hated Judas Priest when I was younger. I think initially I didn't like The Mars Volta, I liked the other ex-At The Drive-In band.

I also remember insulting Blind Guardian and calling them a buncha dorks who read Tolkien to people on stage.

I hated Neutral Milk Hotel at first, thought Mangum's voice was horrible and the music was blah campfire folk. I listened to Into the Aeroplane, Over the Sea over and over on the last long road trip I took.

I also 180'd on Pavement.

Most shamefully, I didn't get anything out of electric Miles the first time I listened to it.

I hated The Fall until I was almost 30 at which point I listened to "Palace Of Swords Reversed" and heard it completely differently.

I couldn't stand James Brown's ubiquitous funky drummer beat in the early 90s. Ten years later I heard a singles comp and flipped for him.

I was always luke-warm to 60s garage rock and hated psych until this year.

It happens, that's why I learned never to say never about any music, and will revisit things to see if my perception has changed.

xpost to kraudive. Amen!

The Grateful Dead. Everyone I knew who tried to find a good entry point for me (knowing that my benchmarks are the Who and Miles Davis) would say the same thing: "The studio albums aren't that great; you have to hear their live stuff!" Fair enough; which ones? "Oh, ALL of them, man!" So I assumed that the aimless half-asleep noodling of the 80s/90s Dead was how they always were (and that the FM radio hits were the result of a herculean effort at cohesiveness). Thanks to one Scott Seward, I realized that the Dead have good eras and bad eras (like any band); and the Dead's good era (roughly '67-'72) is far better than I ever thought possible. Live/Dead got me hooked, and I've listened to nothing but the Dead for the last two months (haven't made it past '72, though). This is the most extreme and unexpected 180 I've done on any band, ever.

Now that I think about it, I just listened to a random ambient Eno track the other day and loved it. The last time I listened to his ambient box I was uninterested, so I'll give it another review and expect to like it much more this time.

Actually, all reggae was the really big one for me. Hated literally anything I heard in the 1980s with a passion. When I went to university I got into On U Sound via the tenuous industrial connection and got into bands like African Headcharge and Dub Syndicate but it wasn't until about ten years later when I heard the 100% Dynamite compilation on Soul Jazz that I realised fully how insanely wrong I'd been. It's a great compilation but that's probably not the whole story. I was pretty uptight when I was a teenager.

tbh up until this v moment i didn't think there was a single person on the planet that actually ~hated~ reggae

Morrissey?

But yeah, I fucking loathed it. Admittedly I'd only heard mainly things like Bob Marley and the Wailers (who I still hate), UB40 and then the kind of top 40 pop cross over stuff. But I hated the sound of it.

Like I say, love it now. It was a massive lesson for me never to write a genre off.

Ask Markers is making me listen to nu-metal with fresh ears

don't.

i went to college and they made me listen to neutral milk hotel and i was like this sounds like better than ezra where are my death records but that band turned out to be pretty good

I never used to be able to feel dub, and that's changed a lot in the past year. I used to feel the way gbx did about Bruce Springsteen as well, hated the idea of him but liked all the songs. (Same with Fleetwood Mac, really, but that changed looong ago.) It took me ages to get the Fall, too. Derrick May. So much stuff... I love that about listening.

I associates reggae with hippie toering shite until I heard Horace andy and the soul jazz comps as a student. I blame a gcse music module where they made us count all the bars in an Aswad song for some stupid reason. I'd say my fondness for reggae is now on a par with my most favourite styles of music now. Can take or leave marley.

Yeah, I hated Aswad but now there are a few records by them that I'd hold up as fucking smoking, their live album being one of them.

i used to think aswad was a crust band i was wrong

I pretty much hated Led Zeppelin up until a couple of years ago.

Ask Markers is making me listen to nu-metal with fresh ears

― vmic damone (rip van wanko), Sunday, June 19, 2011 5:58 PM

*like*

I pretty much hated the grateful dead until a few years ago

ditto, for basically the same reasons i disparaged springsteen

I still haven't come around on them but I also haven't tried to either.

Tom Waits and Talking Heads were two groups I used to really loathe hearing. Then I discovered 'Closing Time' by Waits and fell in love with the song Martha. Slowly I've started to like a few songs off other records of his. When I heard 'Remain In Light' everything by the Talking Heads suddenly made sense and I felt foolish for disliking them for so long.

OTOH that PM Dawn album I "awarded" 5 stars in 1992 (& compared to Brian Wilson!) sounded pretty boring when I played it in the 21st century

the negative reaction to some of the pavement poll results makes me think i'm "wrong" about them. i mean, i'm a big fan, but for the wrong reasons i guess.

i keep trying over and over again to like a KISS album every year. no luck so far.

I loved Aesop Rock when they were new, kinda meh on it now

KISS wasn't very good outside Destroyer imo. Love Gun was mostly filler.

ZZ Top

Had no love for them since all I knew growing up was the 80s stuff. Just recently got into their first 3 LP's and have completely flipped on them. The song that did it was Brown Sugar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPVxMB6w8PU

Love how he holds that note until the drop, love the guitar throughout, love the groove. ZZ Top have swing, that elusive "it" that all bands strive for, just some cool-ass dudes imo.

If I ever change my mind about Sublime, one you ilxors come and beat me up. Deal?

deal

r.e.m. in that i couldn't stand stipe's voice, then got pretty heavily into them.

i wouldn't say that i *disliked* them, but as i've grown older i've become much fonder of springsteen and macca. paul > john.

the biggest switch will happen if i ever accept steely dan. as it is i respect them, but don't want to listen.

Your last line reminds me of Derek Zoolander on Sting:

"Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music he's created over the years, I don't really listen to it, but the fact that he's making it, I respect that"

Closest answer to this for me is the Swans who, along with Nick Cave, I was SO onboard with in my late teens-early 20s but then completely lost interest in both during the 90s. I've revisited a couple of NC albums and still think the Birthday Party are fantastic but I've never felt any desire to go back to the Swans... I was reminded of this the other day when I heard something from Filth played on the radio.

Nick Cave is a good answer for me as well

Same, i still love shivers and release the bats but when we get to " Lookey yonder... " i kinda cringe at myself for following along fir an album or two.

when we get to " Lookey yonder... "

massive lol at this... yeah sums it up.

I stopped listening to Swans around the time of the allegations about Gira. I had been a huge fan, seen them quite a few times, etc. I then softened a bit and revisited the records and they did very little for me— a few tracks aside, I don’t really see myself ever listening to them again.

I find nu-Swans' music terribly boring, so I wasn't listening to those records anyway. And I don't know if I ever need to hear Cop, Greed or Holy Money ever again, though the live albums, Feel Good Now and Public Castration Is A Good Idea, are still pretty great. If I pull anything of theirs off the shelf it's likely to be The Burning World or Children of God.

The thing with Cave is that the "lookey yonder" tropes worked as long as it was hard to tell if he was being ironic or sincere. I assumed he was trying do both, as with most of his goth-adjacent peers. There was a power in him never winking and seeming cantankerous enough that he couldn't be totally sincere, even as he relished the kitsch of it all. But once the culture appointed him Minister of Sincerity in the last ten years, the whole approach lands a different way, even retroactively.

I have been on Team LOL Fuck Nick Cave for what feels like my entire life at this point, but it's only been 35 years since I saw this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqhOVY58zIo

a while back i came across that specific video years after having not seen it and was struck by how absurd it was -- not how i remembered it at all.

Good Son was where I pretty much got off the bus, although individual songs since then have moved me, that's where it became schtick imho

I mean, I can hear hints on a Kinks record from 1968 or 1969 of what will be bad decisions on a Ray Davies record 40 years later, but I couldn't imagine tossing out the older stuff.

― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, April 12, 2025 9:34 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think what Nu is referring to is specifically debut albums though, maybe even first two. like if the first Kinks album was Lola and you went through the rest of the catalogue you'd probably think they got lucky on that one and Muswell Hilbillies.

the example that comes to mind is Futureheads, their debut made them seem like early XTC and Devo in the form of a barbershop quartet, but they still had all the cool riffs and fun jerky playing. I remember that album being pretty well received and then their follow up happened and they became a much more generic sounding power pop outfit, kinda killed a lot of people's interest in the band outright

I wouldn't say I was wrong about someone like Swans, as their gloomy violent nonsense spoke to me with a vengeance in my younger days even if I don't care about it now. But Red House Painters probably hold the record for the shortest time between thinking "this band is amazing" to "I couldn't give a shit about this". 3 years tops. Probably seeing them a couple of times when the first couple of records came out and realising what a turd Mark K is facilitated this remarkable u-turn.

I'm going to try really hard not to vent my extreme loathing for Cave on this forum. But he is one of those artists I have loathed so strongly, for so long. And I've tried multiple times, to go back and listen and try to hear what my friends hear in this singer. And I just can't. I've always just felt like this man is a complete charlatan who has somehow convinced people he is a ~great songwriter~ on personal charisma alone. And somehow being able to persuade far better musicians and songwriters to carry him. Because his work just doesn't match the adulation. But it honestly feels like in the past couple of years, the scales have finally fallen from folks' eyes. And I suspect part of that was him getting on the internet and pulling back the curtail with his blog or whatever. The charm cracks when people read his actual thoughts and realise what an odious little toad he is.

But I do feel quite vindicated at how many people have got off the bus with him.

That said, I actually think that the video for the Weeping Song is one of the best things he's ever done. It got meme-ified, and seeing the video with far better music (It's Raining Men) over the top of it did kind of make me love it.

when I listen to 90s and 00s Bowie, because people I respect praise those records highly, I think, You people are all out of your goddamned minds.

I have no choice but to think of the Bowie from Let's Dance on as just a different guy altogether. Helps me forget about the Pepsi commercial. It's adored for a reason, but I don't see Blackstar as rising above any of those other 00s albums, sorry.

I was going to mention Futureheads as well. Saw them live in 2005, and they pulled off all the weird twists and the four part harmonies, while dancing around and seeming like it was no big deal. It's one thing to be able to piece together something like that in a studio setting, it's another to pull it off live. I thought they were going to be the ones who lasted from that wave. But then they just decided they didn't want to do that stuff anyway.

But I think that's different. I was 'wrong' about them, but it was a plausible hypothesis. It's wasn't thinking The Others would become the next Libertines, or something like that.

Nick Cave, Swans etc fall into this category of being stylistically very strong for a couple albums, they definitely had their moment, but then went on to have 40-50 years careers. The output from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds was already more than I needed in 2004 (or Swans 87-96) - I'd certainly have never imagined that their reputation would grow from here, that they'd become those masculine edgy figures for a whole new generation of kids. Subjective, yes, but I'd look at them differently if they had stopped when I discovered them. As it is, I didn't listen to their second career, didn't return to their first, I wasn't ready for them to be huge songwriter figures and grow careers comparable to Sonic Youth, or Bowie, or whoever. They weren't that good.

And be invited to the coronation of King Charles III.

he sings about murdering women but actually prefers rimming British monarchs and allegedly being a gropey creep.

An interesting reversal of the question for me: I stopped listening to Swans around the time of the allegations about Gira. I had been a huge fan, seen them quite a few times, etc. I then softened a bit and revisited the records and they did very little for me— a few tracks aside, I don’t really see myself ever listening to them again.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, 14 April 2025 20:11 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Precisely my experience. Like, exactly. I loved The Seer especially, but it just didn't hit the sides when I put it on the other day

I sometimes wonder what those artists whose "early stuff" everyone prefers actually feel about it. Maybe they were aiming for slick, professional, well-produced all along, but that spiky, edgy debut album everyone loves is to them just a manifestation of the limited resources available to them at the time.

That's often the case. Like Lou Reed hiring all sorts of hotshot session musicians once he'd quit the Velvets.

countervailing tendency: late-career realization that the early stuff really did have a special punch --- followed by attempt at quick, dirty, back to basics album. which may yield a good record or a bad record, but certainly can't sound anything like the inspiration through all the accumulated skill, patience, money and contentment. obv we have whole threads for that one.

I think I have two answers to this question:

1) Tom Waits -- was very into his output for maybe 3 years and haven't gone back to listen in at least 20, maybe more. Part of that was youthful curiosity at the time, and since then the only Tom Waits song I think about regularly is Johnsburg, IL because that is where my dog is from!

2) Rodan -- I never need to hear this band again. I don't hate their music but I certainly don't like it either. For a while though? I would drive for 3 hours each way to see them play.

ha @ Rodan, them being from Louisville and making Slint-esque music at a time when Brian and David had gone off in new directions worked in Rodan's favor. Also touring more than 20x including west of the Mississippi.

Reminds me of Lance Bang's Breadcrumb Trail which starts with Lance driving from Athens to Louisville for some noise show because Britt is supposed to be there... A lot of the post-Slint Louisville scene benefited from Slint's early demise.

I sometimes wonder what those artists whose "early stuff" everyone prefers actually feel about it. Maybe they were aiming for slick, professional, well-produced all along, but that spiky, edgy debut album everyone loves is to them just a manifestation of the limited resources available to them at the time.

― fetter, Tuesday, April 15, 2025 9:03 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

They Might be Giants are a good example of this. they got a lot of flack back in the day for hiring a full band, but they insist from the beginning that's how they always wanted it to be. they do look back pretty fondly on their early stuff though and acknowledge they had to do a lot of creative things to cobble that first album together

radiohead. i was obsessed from 15-25 then "liked them" from 25-35 or so. now the thought of listening to anything of theirs again legit makes me feel nauseous.

I sometimes wonder what those artists whose "early stuff" everyone prefers actually feel about it.

I have no comment

LL I appreciate that your dog is from Johnsburg, I think my first family dog was from a farm there as well. It’s also a town which was namechecked another time in a Handsome Family tune.

I never want to say I was wrong about a band just because I think that does discredit to the person I was at the time, but I don’t know what to think about the copious amount of swing revival CDs I used to own. acts like Royal Crown Revue really cashed in pretty nicely for a minute on people just like myself I think.

I do feel like a band might ascend to the heights of hyperbole in my heart, then sink for years without a trace in my listening, but one record will remain full of charm whenever I do get around to revisiting. Like, when I was 14, Jethro Tull was my favorite thing in the world and I find almost of all of it tedious, but Stand Up still pleases me as much as anything.

I sometimes wonder what those artists whose "early stuff" everyone prefers actually feel about it.

I don't think any artist still earnestly making records thinks their old stuff is best.

Nine Inch Nails. Never thought that shit was for me, but I watched them in Twin Peaks and while that was the worst moment of the show (half way through on my first viewing) I thought to give them a go and The Fragile is p good (specially the first 'left' side).

There are a lot of bands that I once enjoyed but my taste has changed since the advent of streaming— something about mass availability and constant immersion has changed my “needs” for this band or that.

That said, my canon list of “favourite recent bands” remains, if anything, more relevant to my interests than ever: US Maple, Xiu Xiu, Electrelane, Ruins, Deerhoof

when I was a kid (about 13) I hated the Cure because a frenemy I had loved them. I changed my mind as soon as I moved away and didn't have to see that guy anymore.

hated UB40 when i was a young'un cos of 'red red wine'.
yeah, i was wrong.
i have even come around to that song, albeit the full version as opposed to the radio edit.

The Swans comments from tabes up above, yeah, that tracks. I haven't even been tempted to relisten. Remarkably easy to let go, but then, lots of things I used to more actively like I happily shrug off now with relatively little angst, and others are so inculcated I kinda feel like I don't need a relisten. You become a different person, you listen for different things.

OK I'm going to need to be educated on what's good about ub40 pls

I think I'd prefer to stay wrong about UB40

you guys are in for a treat if you choose to accept it

also i b 42 haha

ha.
as expected.
present arms/signing off/labour of love/rat in the kitchen.
all of them are excellent pop/reggae.
it has been an emotional journey coming to terms with this realisation.

Nothing wrong with early UB40.

phew.
i am not alone.
trust me, this realisation re their excellence came as a massive shock to me.
i genuinely hated them due to an excess of 'red red wine' that dominated the uk airwaves for months on end.
but the fact is, their early albums are really good re the whole uk vs reggae thing.

heir early albums are really good re the whole uk vs reggae thing

yep this

I thought of one! In 2004 I saw this band Coco Rosie open for the Mountain Goats, I thought their set was so beautiful and special and immediately bumped their forthcoming album to the top of my wishlist. Album turned out to be ‘La maison de mon reve’

When I was in high school my faves were Sparks and Roxy Music, so I thought arena blues rock was boring. In my recent listening ZZ Top >>> Sparks.

Everything from UB40 is good up to and maybe including the self-titled album.

early UB40 is some of the best music of its era, full stop. incredible records

I like UB40 into the 2000s!

Not consistently, I must admit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgEzcG3GCbU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf_5LX-bcSc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X4e67USJgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaapJe3G8g

Wouldn't pretend there's anything unique going on here - except in UB40 terms, because this is that period where Earl Falconer and Jimmy Brown seemingly turned the whole band into their electronic vaguely dnb/dubwise dancehall project - but I'm pretty easy to please with pop reggae.

When I was in high school my faves were Sparks and Roxy Music, so I thought arena blues rock was boring. In my recent listening ZZ Top >>> Sparks.

ZZ Top even bragged that they were "Master of Sparks" (it's presumably a facial hair superiority thing)