Both were ahead of their time, but I can never listen to the Modern Lovers as I really dislike the vocals.

Really? I like Jonathan Richman's voice quite a bit.

I think David Bowie was ahead of his time. If he put out his albums today (and updated the production), I think they would fit in perfectly. His appearance is another story...

I try not to let the vocals cloud my judgement of a band if the music and idea is good, but in this case I find the vocals a real turn-off and have never gotten into the Modern Lovers largely for that reason, luckily they only made one album and David Robinson went off to form the Cars.

He`s really the obvious choice for this thread really and his image was shocking and controversial for the early 1970s, today somebody with this image would probably just get laughed at for being too corny.

Agree 100% on the Talking Heads

I would put Fates Warning on the list, who is beyond underrated in the world of progressive metal. and I absolutely credit them with being the first true prog-metal band, and you rarely hear anything about them anywhere. They were called the American Iron Maiden, but the depth of their music goes well beyond Maiden's, Compare this to what Maiden were doing in '86. I also like John Arch's vocals better than Dickenson's.

I have to say that muse was ahead of its time and still is.

I think I'm one of the few that was a huge fan of Fates Warning in the late 80's. Retrospectively it's hard to compare Iron Maiden and Fates Warning, as Maiden was far more accessible, had much more tangible lyrics, and as far as musical styles are concerned are concerned were much more anthemic, but at the time Fates Warning was in fact the closest living American relative to Iron Maiden.

I agree that Fate's Warning were far ahead of their time, which explains why they didn't cultivate more of a fan base. Revisiting their music, it hasn't aged as well as you think it would have, but the concepts are to to this day still quite fresh and progressive. No Exit is one of the very few 80's metal albums I still own.

Hmm... How can you not mention Silver Apples?



Stared doing music like this in 1968.

Chrome were ahead of their time, precursors of Industrial for one.