Songs that Changed Your Perception of an Artist...

[Lament]

I suppose this is a bit of a spin-off of the 180 thread, but these don't have to be 180s. Random songs that, upon hearing, changed your perception of an artist, or made you realize that there was more to them than what the general public's idea of them contained. I figure you guys probably have some good ones...

This song changed Simple Minds for me in a big way. Before this, my perception of them was as a watered down U2 with a few good anthemic tunes here and there. I had no idea that from 1980-1984 (before Derek Forbes left and they decided they wanted to be U2) they were staggeringly great. This entire album (Empires & Dance) is actually brilliant and psychotic and claustrophobic and unabashedly European in all the best ways (it also has my favorite album cover of all-time). The first side of the record (I Travel - Today I Died Again - Celebrate - This Fear of Gods) is as good as any album side of its era. The three albums that followed this one (and the one before it to an extent) make for a very impressive run by any standards...



I kinda just thought the Bee Gees were soulless 70's pop at its most cynical until a few years ago when someone played me this song from their first international release. My jaw dropped and it kinda dawned on me for the first time that the Gibb brothers were actually pretty fucking brilliant at one point. This whole album is worth listening to, but this song is the one that made me say "WAIT. The Bee Gees were...good?" Just some awesome baroque, psychedelic pop.



I don't give a shit about Simply Red, but I really randomly came across this a few years ago. Apparently before it was terrible, adult contemporary, blue-eyed soul turd, Mick Hucknall's previous band released Holding Back the Years as a mopey, post-punk, almost Joy Division-esque ballad. It makes the Simply Red version even more unbearable than before, but man do I fucking love this version. It makes me wonder if Mick Hucknall actually could've been something not completely terrible...

[Gods' Die]

Blind Melon: Mouthful of Cavities

I could have picked several that woke me up to how good these guys were.

[Lament]

Just checked out that song. I don't really know any Blind Melon apart from No Rain. I'll definitely have to listen to it again.

[harmless]

The deep cuts of Purple Rain convinced me that there was a lot more going on with Prince than I'd realised based on the singles. Cheers for that, Lament.

[harmless]

Wow, this is surprising.

When I was a kid, I really liked the Simply Red album Stars. I was in a hairdresser the other day listening to the song 'Something Got Me Started', and for a few seconds I thought 'Ooh, I might still actually like this.' But then suddenly it became Simply Rubbish. Repetitive, bland, without ever doing anything interesting.

[Lament]

At first I really thought I only enjoyed the Frantic Elevators version because it was so starkly different to what I was used to with that song, but as time goes by I find myself going back to it more often than I would ever have imagined. I really legitimately enjoy that song. It's perfect for those evenings of crushing despair. I love how desolate the bass sounds. The whole recording is so dry.

I just went back and listened to the SR version. Why did I do that? It's so bad. Is Simply Red still huge there, harmless?

[harmless]

I wouldn't really know; there are a lot of people who like them, probably (I don't know any), but I think it's probably because they're evocative of a kind of 80s soul music never replicated since. They're the same kind of people who still like UB40. Both bands conjure a time (the 80s), I think (here's where I start piecing together things I've heard) where white people and black people were meeting in solidarity against the racism / fascism of government, and the Skinheads, and their musics were gelling together. There had been the resistance movement which was Ska / two-tone, and now there was this soul / reggae-influenced stuff by white people. Someone like Lisa Stansfield would be a woman also involved in it.

[harmless]

Actually, I think the skinheads were probably originally the non-racist ska / two-tone fans, until the skinhead movement got co-opted by BNP types.