Author Topic: Weird and unusual ways in which you discovered music  (Read 428 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online MirrorMask

  • Posts: 13327
  • Gender: Male
Weird and unusual ways in which you discovered music
« on: June 09, 2018, 09:40:47 AM »
We all know the classic and most common ways to discover songs and bands one likes: friends suggesting it, YouTube / Spotify and the likes, record stores where maybe the cover intrigues us, and concerts.

But has there been situations in which it took an exceptional, or only inusual, way for you to discover a band or a song?

I'll make two examples, related to minor ilnesses. Many years ago I was on vacation on an island with the family and I developed a strong headache. It got pretty annoying, so on the backseat of the car I laid down instead of listening my music with earphones. Therefore I was subjected to whatever the radio was passing, and so I listened to Skunk Anansie's You'll Follow Me Down. Not my kind of music, but I really loved that song and I still do.

Last years also I fell ill with a kind of fever - probably an allergic reaction to whatever hellish insect bit me at a festival, thus ruining the day after which I spent trying to rest at the hotel, and so I was watching a TV game where eventually I heard the music of an italian artist, a melodic song against physical abuse, and I was hooked up wth the song instantly. Again, not my kind of music but I loved the song.

So in both situations it took me being somehow sick to be put in the condition to hear these two songs, otherwise I would have just listened to my own music, or enjoy the vacation.

And what about you? has there ever been a chain of events and coincidences never happened before or after that put you in the position to discover a band or a song that you'd have never otherwise bothered to check out?
I use my sig to pimp some bands from Italy! Check out Elvenking (Power / Folk metal), Folkstone (Rock / Medieval metal), Arcana Opera (Gothic/Noir/Heavy metal) and the beautiful voice of Elisa!

Offline Anguyen92

  • Posts: 4554
  • Gender: Male
Re: Weird and unusual ways in which you discovered music
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2018, 10:54:13 AM »
Definitely me watching WWE at around 2006-2010.  I would have never discovered bands like Alter Bridge, Skillet, Shinedown, Fozzy, Seether, Daughtry, Rise Against, etc. without that WWE connection.  I might have still heard those bands through their latest singles on the Active Rock radio format, but I probably would't care much too dig a little deeper at that time.

Anyway, I know one band that I discovered through rather unconventional means.  Owl City.  Back when I was in Cal Poly Pomona with about a year to go finishing my degree in Business with an emphasize on accounting, I took a GE course in the summer.  A music history course (emphasizing on the advancement of technology and how music was impacted by it and instruments).  Part of the midterm was that the professor gave you a list of 15 songs to listen to and that during the exam, she will play you five of them and you have to know the song and the artist.  One of those songs was Owl City's Fireflies and I don't know, something about that song gave me a sense of peace and optimism and whimsical that I didn't have with the music I was (and still am) listening to.  Decided to save that song on my non-hard rock playlist. 

That's not the end of discovering Owl City though for me.  Move forward up to 2017, a Twitch streamer/Youtuber that I follow, Cryaotic, was doing an editing stream of a brief playthrough of the game Everybody's Golf and the intro music was an Owl City song called Clap Your Hands (once again, it's another cheery and whimsical song).  At the end of the day, Cry was like "That's a good song.  I'm going to keep that intro in the video.  The video is probably going to get demonetized, but whatever. It is still content."  A couple of seconds later once the Twitch chat told him that Owl City was the band that played that intro, Cry was like "This was Owl City???  This video will absolutely get demonetized and make zero dollars."  Afterwards, I just listened to the catalog of albums that Owl City has.  Liked it enough.  Cinematics, the latest album, is an enjoyable album for me.  One of my favorites of 2018 and I'm going to see the concert at the Anaheim House of Blues this October.  Nice to see that it all works out like this.

Offline Ben_Jamin

  • Posts: 15690
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm just a man, thrown into existence by the gods
Re: Weird and unusual ways in which you discovered music
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2018, 11:13:34 AM »
Video Games...Twisted Metal Black was released and that got me into Paint It Black, Tony Hawks Pro Skater franchise got me into a lot of bands (Motorhead, Sublime, etc...), and a lot of my love of complex music relates to RPGs. Which made me realize video game music is really good. Hence led me to discover OC Remix, so much good remixes of video game songs.

I don't know how they can be so proud of winning with them odds. - Little Big Man
Follow my Spotify:BjamminD

Offline Train of Naught

  • I sympathize, with a cockroach
  • Posts: 8008
  • Gender: Male
  • .....and a cockroach
Re: Weird and unusual ways in which you discovered music
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2018, 11:32:00 AM »
In my uni we have a music academy. For a school assignment I had to be in the mixing room to practice music production (which is next to the music academy 1-2 person practice rooms) and I overheard someone practice guitar in a room across the hall. Me and my friend went over there to check it out, had a talk with the dude and we booked his band the very same week for the mini-festival that we are organizing, they also just released an EP and I'm really getting around to it. Modern take on thrash metal mixed with hardcore. The guitarwork is not incredibly technical but the tone just sounds amazing. This was the song he was practicing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X_setuLyJA
people on this board are actual music fans who developed taste in music and not casual listeners who are following current fashion trends and listening to only current commercial hits.