Weirdest ways you've gotten into music

Do you have a funny story about how you got into a genre or band?

I got into EDM because of YTMND's fads involving that genre (particularly Daft Punk), but that's probably pretty tame.

I got into the Norteño singer Chalino Sanchez because the Dingees (a punk band) name-dropped him in one of their choruses.

I discovered Keita Kiriyama when Studio Pixel's personal website linked to Kiriyama's. Apparently Kiriyama used one of Pixel's programs to arrange his music.

I got into The Pillows (and, by extension, FLCL) and the Jet Set Radio series' soundtracks and games through Proton Jon's early videos, where he would often play that music in the background.

I got into Gorillaz because Todd in the Shadows name dropped them , they were a clue on Jeopardy!, and I found THREE of their albums at a thrift store all within a couple months.

I bought my first The Residents album from a used cd store because I had them confused with The Replacements. I'd heard neither, but had read a little about the latter... Naturally, it was way different than what I expected. In a weird way, this mishap made me force myself to get into them - I couldn't return it when I realized my mistake, so I was determined to try to understand this strange, inaccessible music that came into my life by accident.

Mostly I get into stuff as a result of research on Allmusic or Wikipedia, but occasionally something odd gets me into something. Or because it's on a movie soundtrack or whatnot... However, I got into Depeche Mode because of a Future Shop commercial, of all things, and I discovered several bands and even genres because a friend of mine had a long list of songs that he wanted to use in a short film project for Communications Technology back in High School...

What was the album ? Also of note, there actually is a Residents project called The Replacement. http://residents-the.bandcamp.com/album/the-replacement

I think I first stumbled upon vaporwave while on a search for information on some Sega Saturn games. Some vaporwave albums (can't remember the specific ones right now but there are a few) use Saturn cover artwork bits for their sleeves.

As far as I remember that's the most roundabout way I've found a music genre/artist.

Not only roundabout, but it's for a system that hardly anyone (in North America, at least) bought, so it's good and obscure, too! Nicely done!

Shame really, the Saturn was actually a decent system with some great games (especially JRP Gs), but I digress.

It was Not Available, which I later learned is kind of weird even for a Residents album. It was a version of the album that included bonus tracks from Title In Limbo, the collaborative album with Renaldo And The Loaf - I think I "got" those bonus tracks before the proper album because of relatively sedate, melodic songs like "Mahogany Wood".

I suppose getting into music via crushes isn't too unusual here, right? Because I feel like a lot of music I've listened to in the past eight years directly resulted from a crush talking about music they like to me. Probably a good, even third of my musical taste.

edited 12th Feb '15 10:26:49 PM by Odd1

I can trace my interest in Talking Heads (and then David Byrne's solo career) all the way back to the song "Once in a Lifetime". Specifically, Kermit the Frog performing "Once in a Lifetime" on Muppets Tonight.

[x4] Well the Saturn is my favorite game console after all. There are so many hidden gems in the Japanese exclusives.

[x3] Not Available I'd say is par for the course in terms of weirdness for them, though it's hard to really quantify the weirdness factor of a Residents project. The way they were supposedly going to release it was pretty unique in it's own right though (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the album was called Not Available because the band originally wanted to keep it locked away in a vault unheard and have it released only when the members of the band themselves all but forgot about the album's very existence ... it got released early, allegedly because of some contractual obligations, and I say allegedly because every piece of information about The Residents is better taken with a pinch of salt). Title in Limbo is actually one of my favorite albums by them, and Mahogany Wood ranks among my top 10 Residents songs. Such a beautiful, unusually straightforward and sad song for them, but still has a powerful effect (on me at least).

That exists ? I have to see that.

Edit : ok this exists. Thank you so much for even mentioning that. I had never seen it, and I think I'm about as big a fan of Talking Heads as it gets. This is glorious.

edited 13th Feb '15 6:00:44 PM by Akalabth

I discovered Camper Van Beethoven via a "100 Rock Riffs" video where I heard a catchy, psychedelic-sounding riff of a song called Pictures Of Matchstick Men. Which was a cover. The band turned out to be great nevertheless. Really elusive though.

edited 14th Mar '15 9:47:31 AM by Small_Mess

You should check out Big Daddy's version of that song too:

edited 14th Mar '15 11:08:50 AM by Odd1

To add a literal interpretation to the title of this thread, I've been indirectly introduced to many bands through the music of "Weird Al" Yankovic, who I've been a fan of since childhood. In fact, Al was the first artist (after Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC) that preteen me got interested in. Whether through his parodies, his style parodies, or his polka medleys, my attention was first brought to such artists as Nine Inch Nails ("Germs", the "Closer" segment of "The Alternative Polka"), The Rolling Stones ("The Hot Rocks Polka"), and numerous others by Al, albeit filtered through his comedy canvas. Because I'm a 90's kid, my first exposure to many "older" songs - even those I'm not a fan of - was through Al's parodies and polkas. Regardless of who I am or am not a fan of, it's a good thing Al's band is so good at playing a myriad of styles, or my taste in music probably wouldn't be as eclectic as it is today.

Someone else said they became interested in a band because a crush mentioned them. That's how I became a fan of Garbage. When we met in the 10th grade (2004), she mentioned liking them, I checked them out, and I've been a huge fan long after she went out of my life when we graduated high school nearly 8 years ago.

edited 16th Mar '15 2:13:26 AM by shrikecatcher

That reminds me. About 12 years ago, Late Show with David Letterman was my weird way of not getting into music.

Back then, he'd always have three kinds of acts:

1.) Moany whiny emo shit about wanting to kill yourself, such as Garbage's "Bleed Like Me" (what can someone possibly GET out of that song?!)

2.) Abrasive post-grunge/alt-rock screamfest shit where half the song was bleeped out, and the other half was indecipherable because everything was turned up to about 14 (can't name any acts offhand, but I remember thinking back then Green Day was total Ear Rape… pfft, there's country more abrasive than "American Idiot", silly)

3.) Other (this was by far the rarest)

Ok, I'm not really familiar with "Bleed Like Me", but I'm a fan of Garbage's first two albums, and I had a hard time imagining them writing "Moany whiny emo shit about wanting to kill yourself". So I listened to it and looked up the lyrics, and I think you rushed to judgment about the song based on a few of the words used. It clearly is not about wanting to kill yourself. It seems to be a series of vignettes about a set of people each with a different emotional issue and their method of coping. One of these IS about a person who engages in self-harm, but self-harm I believe is frequently a symptom of certain mental illnesses and it is NOT the same thing as being suicidal. The line "can you bleed like me" seems to be a metaphoric conveying that each of these people are suffering and how they wish other people could understand what they're going through.

Maybe you find the subject matter of the song too dark and off-putting (that's perfectly understandable), but dismissing it as "Moany whiny emo shit" is both ill-informed and insensitive to people with actual mental disorders.

You know, considered the connotations the word "emo" has developed in our culture, I don't think I've ever actually heard an emo song that is about either suicide or self harm. Granted, I'm not that familiar with the genre, but as an outsider looking in I don't understand how this meaning of "emo" developed.

edited 18th Mar '15 8:16:17 PM by djbj

Thanks for defending "Bleed Like Me"; I think you said all that better than I could. For what it's worth, I read that singer Shirley Manson based the verses in the song on people she knew, and glancing at Wikipedia, she mentioned in an interview that the song is about how everyone has their own emotional baggage, and their search for empathy. In any case, yeah, Garbage has been around for 20 years now and have never really had a reputation for making whiny "emo" music (which I'm not too familiar with, and certainly not a fan of either).

Anyway, the topic?

edited 18th Mar '15 11:46:49 PM by shrikecatcher

Yeah, it's really not my kind of song. I have never wanted to harm myself or known anyone who has, so to me, it might as well be whiny emo shit. Because that's just what comes to mind when I think "Song about self harm". That was far from the only example, but I do remember a lot of mumbly voiced singers whose lyrics were all "the world is a cold black hole, I wanna fucking kill myself, woe is me, moan whine bitch" on Letterman around that same time, and I seem to have thrown Garbage into that same category.

Back on topic: I have an Australian friend online who randomly brought up "Khe Sanh" in conversation and said it's about as memetically overplayed there as "Don't Stop Believin'" (barf) is here. I looked it up and rather liked it. Neither of us were talking about music but somehow the conversation veered that way.

I got into ska because of Rhythm Heaven just now.

I wouldn't ever admit this to anyone who actually follows my productions (I produce beats and shit but it's other another name and I wouldn't publicly associate my producer name with Tvtropes due to this sites..... Problematic user base) but I got into EDM/other weird beat shit production due to *sigh* My Little Pony dubstep remixes.

To be fair, that was the one thing that got me out of my blunder years (learning to make beats that is.)

edited 5th Apr '15 11:22:56 AM by RoboZombie

I made a conscious decision in ninth grade to try turning away from metal music and towards alternative rock, specifically Goth Rock. However, nobody was there to teach me which bands were the most famous and influential and which were just indie copycats, basically.

So I relied on those "this is gothic rock!" compilation albums published by groups like Cleopatra Records and Jungle Records (I wasn't hipster enough to glance at the label names then, of course). I trusted those compilations to lead me to the best artists who'd ever played goth music. Little did I know that the indie record labels could only republish music that they had published the first time (in most cases), so I wasn't listening to The Cure or Siouxsie and the Banshees—I was listening to (and becoming obsessed with) only second-wave goth rock.

I did find The Cure and Siouxsie later, and I do love their music too, but those obscure indie bands from the late '80s and early '90s kind of have a special place in my heart now, and I can't really change that. It's been three years, and they're still my real favorites.

why didn't you just look up online who was part of the genre?

Can you really trust the internet to classify things into concrete genres?

I've said it before: Is country the only semi-mainstream genre that isn't splintered into 40 billion subgenres with people endlessly arguing about what sub-sub-subgenre a song or artist may or may not fit into?