What song converted you?

Creamy Goodness

i've always liked alt music.

my brothers were all big metallica/nirvana/pearl jam fans when i growing up. it's all i can remember listening to was one/for whom the bell tolls/about a girl/come as you are/alive etc...

but i think the first song that really really stuck out in my head was Pearl Jam's - Jeremy.

that being said though that's what was mainstream back in the like 1993 when i started listening to music.

it was pushed on to me, and i'm very glad it was. that being said i've been known to like to ocassional pop song too

Altar_Ego_Boy

LCDeelite wrote: »

'Smells Like Teen Spirit'- Nirvana

'Black Hole Sun'- Soundgarden

That period of rock in the 90s was a golden era

Sútalún

Thats tough...
Kinda hard to define.
Maybe Radiohead - No Suprises. But that could be way off. Really hard to know when I got into the "alternative" scene.

Typewriter

Band: Mansun

Song: Being a girl.

Album: Six

keane2097

The song that got me out of listening to the radio was Minority by Green Day...

As was already stated above btw, ELO ftw imo.

Bubs101

The Economist wrote: »

"Good, catchy songs" are typically rudimentary musically.

Paranoid Android isn't catchy.

Complicated doesn't mean good. What's the Story is a better album than Paranoid Android as is the Bends. I realise your into the production so you probably admire Paranoid Android but it has a few duff tracks. Simple albums like Morning Glory and the Bends don't and to look down on them because they aren't complicated is music snobbery

miaowchi

Its hard to pick between Blurs Song 2 and Bettlebum

PaulBrewer

Xavi6 wrote: »

Most defintely.

An 11 year doesn't really give a flying fuck about how good a guitar player the guy is or how crap their lyrics might be. Oasis marketed themselves in a brilliant way, hence them still having so many fans to this day.

Plus they are Man. City fan like me!

Exactly right ! It's that 'Feck the lot of yez' thing every major band has.

PaulBrewer

Bubs101 wrote: »

A here. At their peak Noel could write the catchiest good songs around and they have two albums that are legitemite classics, one without a bad song

I'm not saying that isn't the case - just weighting up the different strands in their success.

My own feeling is that, unlike Albarn's work then and subsequently, Noel's will not age as well for future generations.

PaulBrewer

green_jesus wrote: »

Band: Mansun

Song: Being a girl.

Album: Six

I always thought Mansun was a band that, had they not their fatal flaws could have ruled the world.

I see Paul Draper got a mention recently as he was one of the artists who played at the last ever gig in the Astoria in London.

jefreywithonef

Not exactly sure if there was one particular song that converted me but downloading a load of Pixies songs about two years ago sure as hell made me love them. There was a load of mindblowing songs but I remember being blown away by Debaser after a couple of listens. Same with Break My Body. Brought me onto stuff like Husker Du (hearing Pink Turns To Blue and What's Going On was a similiar experience to the Pixies one), Leonard Cohen and of course Frank Black's excellent solo stuff.

lordgoat

Significant Albums:

REM - Monster,
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -> A Ghost is Born
Elliott Smith - Figure 8
Dexys' Midnight Runners - Too Rye Ay


These 4 stick out alot and i remmeber exactly where i was when i heard them first and i still love them decades(for some) later.

Dante

Probably
Billy Talent - Try Honesty
or any song from Ember to Inferno - Trivium
Now all I listen to is Metal/Emo/Punk/Rock

punchdrunk

Nirvana nevermind i was around 11

blinkers

I started off with My chemical romance(i know, i know)but quickly found pink floyd,air,m83,iron & wine....if i hadn't become obsessed with mcr i would never have gotten into any of those bands,random I (now) know

tech77

The Economist wrote: »

It's amazing how many people here were converted by Pixies.

Hearing the Pixies for the first time is definitely a singular experience.

It's like WTF is this amazing sound? Who are these great weirdos? It's music but it's like nothing i've ever heard before.

tech77

Pretty standard introduction to "alternative" sound for me- Nevermind around 15.

Listened to it non-stop and became addicted to the grungy sound- after hearing In Bloom on TV.

Particular remember repeatedly listening to tracks Drain You-> Lounge Act-> Stay Away-> On a Plain.

PaulBrewer

tech77 wrote: »

Pretty standard introduction to "alternative" sound for me- Nevermind around 15.

And what a start!

I was working in a studio in Wales with a band called That Petrol Emotion who had a singer from Seattle, Nirvana's hometown.

Steve gave me the album to listen to which I was very impressed with. Nirvana were playing in a tiny club in Bristol the next week. We drove to Bristol from Wales to see them. I remember being impressed and simultaneously shocked by the volume!

After the gig we decided to go backstage and have a chat with the lads, who Steve knew. The placed was wedged and as it was an icy night we changed our minds .... we didn't bother! Ah well!

I saw them again the next night in The Astoria in London too!

stovelid

Definitely something by the Smiths, Lloyd Cole or Billy Bragg in the 80s.

Black NG-60-90

Like a lot of people i started off with Nirvana, when i heard Smells Like Teenspirit first i thought it was incredible (although not really anymore). They opened up a huge gateway to bands like the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney etc.

smackbunnybaby

early 90s really was a golden era, you had songs like Smells Like, Today, Black Hole, Creep, La Tristessa.

I had always been a big Queen and REM(Still the greatest band ever in my eyes) faN.

I wouldnt really class them as alternative so it was when i was given Nevermind at 11 by a friend that was a little older than me.
It was 1993 and Nirvana were very much in the news so it was like living the experience when he was found unconscious in Rome and died the next year.

cherryghost

just remembered from the voting thread, Gomez's Bring it On album just before they got the Merc nomination, found it by pure luck, and I've been digging under the commercially successful bands since

JC 2K3

Bubs101 wrote: »

Complicated doesn't mean good. What's the Story is a better album than Paranoid Android as is the Bends. I realise your into the production so you probably admire Paranoid Android but it has a few duff tracks. Simple albums like Morning Glory and the Bends don't and to look down on them because they aren't complicated is music snobbery

You mean OK Computer? Paranoid Android was a song on that album.

I strongly disagree with you that it is a worse album than the Bends or Morning Glory. Do you not think that it's equally snobbery to look down on people who appreciate more "complicated"(complicated isn't the word, nothing on OK Computer is overtly complicated, I'd describe it as more innovative and creative) music?


Anyway, I wasn't really into any music whatsoever until I was 14. I'd played guitar since I was 12 (dragged to the lessons by a friend), learning simple songs by Nirvana, RHCP, Foo Fighters, Greenday etc. On my 14th birthday I got a HMV voucher which I used to buy Nirvana's greatest hits, and that was the first album I really got into. Shortly after I discovered how to rip albums to my PC, and started borrowing friends' albums, which lead to me building up a collection of albums by similar bands to the ones mentioned above. Started teaching myself to play the songs on guitar(I'd stopped lessons after a year) and started to develop a love for guitar and guitar driven music. However, what got me into the real alternative side of things was when I had gotten more HMV vouchers for Christmas or something, and bought two Meat Puppets albums (I had learned Lake of Fire on guitar and knew about Nirvana's association with them) - Huevos and Mirage, and being so different to anything I'd heard before, they changed my perception of music forever and lead to me seeking out more and more bands with different sounds. I had a 128MB MP3 player at the time and would always have something new, and fairly obscure for a 14/15 year old, I had downloaded by the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Minutemen etc. on it.

I'm not into it as much these days, not really enjoying the general sound of modern indie music (although, I'm sure there's some out there I'd enjoy if I actually went looking for it), and being more into electronic music (which I wouldn't have dreamed I'd ever be into at 14/15, but I suppose that was the result of an immature mindset and believing that electronic music took little skill to create, and was all just "shítty techno that skangers listen to").

The Hustler

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I always thought Mansun was a band that, had they not their fatal flaws could have ruled the world.

I see Paul Draper got a mention recently as he was one of the artists who played at the last ever gig in the Astoria in London.

Mansun played their last ever gig in this country.

Carroller

Kings Of Leon - Red Morning Light which i heard on fifa 04 i think or
Kings Of Leon - Four Kicks

Ooooh

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars and Spitting Games too

Enzo Scifo

I'm pushing on but evey 2 or 3 years there is always something that makes you go f u c k, down through the years it has been

70's

Hazel O Connor 8th day

80's

The Smiths How soon is now

Billy Bragg Levi Stubbs Tears

They Might Be Giants Dont Lets Start

Stone Roses She bangs the drums

Pulp Babies

90's

Coldplay Shiver

JJ72 Dreams

Frank & Walters Happy Busman

Arttic Monkeys Scumbag

Lately:

Ida Meria O My God

cautioner

I was raised on a heady brew of hip-hop, rock and alternative music (3 older brothers) so I never really had a defining moment in which I "discovered" my musical calling.
The most significant moment in the development of my taste in music was probably when I first heard Jimmy Eat World's "Futures". I was immediately hooked on the song, got hooked on the album, got into the band in a major way, and from there over the next few years it gradually led on to bands like The National, Modest Mouse, Death Cab, Explosions in the Sky, Elbow...

syngindub

Breaking into Heaven - Stone Roses converted me all those years ago

Mr. Razzcocks

Was always into alternative music and the like, but around 2000-2004 I was more so into the likes of Eminem and stuff, heard Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out on the radio and thought thats ****ing brilliant!
Being young and with no money I robbed the single from HMV haha, was only like 3 quid or somethin!

swapple

the manic street prechers - everything must go, i was about 7 at the time but i have older brothers :rolleyes: