I mean bands or artists you may not have liked or you didn't really care for their sound, but a record they did or song really surprised you by how good it was, because it was different from their other stuff or just hit your ears in a certain way.

I will go first:

I am not that big on progressive rock. Most of those artists take themselves way too seriously. "I am a real musician," they say, "not like those scraggly rock or rap dudes, so Sir." That elitism usually bores me. But one band did surprise me--Yes.

Yes always did music that put me to sleep. You hear them on classic rock radio all the time and they tend to bore, even school marms. But they did do one album that really surprised me. The album with Owner of a Lonely Heart, their big hit of the 80s. The Album was more poppy, more mainstream. They still had that Yes sound, but they were catchy and the songs were actual songs, not drawn out psychodramas, badly drawn. Then they put out Changes, another great single. Damn, for one shining moment, I was a huge Yes fan.lol

You shouldn't make generalizatons, dude. Not all progressive rock musicians are elitist snobs who turn their noses up at hack musicians who make a living playing rap or rock.

I grabbed Weezer's Pinkerton on a whim once (well, it wasn't a whim - I knew that Pinkerton was a character from Puccini's Madama Butterfly so that was what caught my eye) but nevertheless, I was floored - the album literally helped me through one of the worst heartaches I've ever experienced. Subsequent Weezer albums have sucked tremendously but man...Pinkerton in 2003...great album by a band that surprised me.

I need to start an opera thread....

chuckaducci said:

Yea, you do that...lol

Amy Winehouse. never thought Back To Black would be so good

2freaky4church1 said:

I will not let the fact that this forum is dominated by musical philistines deter me - I'll get around to it one of these days. Opera is the shit - there is more musical sophistication in one bar in any one of Mozart's operas than there are in entire catalogs of today's pop stars.


As my friend Carl would say, "Now get into that!"

Remember, I'm the one who posted the Nessum Dorma thread..lol

Damn, I thought this thread would be more popular..lol

Eminem

I have hated him for ages but recently I discovered The Slim Shady Lp and The Marshall Mathers LP and they're great.

Been a lot of hatin on Eminem as of late.

InsatiableCream said:

I definitely wasn't prepared either

Jessica Simpson.

InsatiableCream said:

So true. When I first laid eyes on her I thought OMG, but after hearing her cd just once, I was hooked. Her first cd is fantastic too. Can't wait to hear the next one.