Bands You Should Have Listened To Forever Ago But You've Only Just Discovered
 

What are the artists you've only started listening to recently that everybody is aware of, but you've never bothered to listen? Of course, over the course of my life, this has happened to me with many bands. But two recent ones are The Beatles, who I barely knew at all, and The Smiths, who I hadn't heard a single song by until about five months ago. Both of those are probably up there with my favourite bands now.

Here is my RYM "Wishlist", which has every album I want to listen to at some point. There's near enough 500 on there. I will say over half of those will turn out to be bands/artists who fall under that category.

The most recent artists/bands I have actually listened to that I wish I had heard earlier are Catherine Wheel, The Church, Peter Brötzmann, and Ultra Vivid Scene.

I didn't know about Elliott Smith until last year and now i'm a die hard fan, but now it's too late for me to ever see him play live :(

Boards of Canada. Don't ask why, but they just clicked with me a few months ago, and have been one of the main staples in my taste lately. I remember listening to them not knowing much, or caring, as I was in a state of looking for something particular and "Music Has A Right to Children" was tossed aside. I've also been urged by other members on the forum to give them a shot, but peer pressure and music don't mix well for me. When finding music, I work backwards for some odd reason. I find myself getting into more obscure artists, and I find out about popular ones through the obscure ones. So far "Geogaddi" is my favorite album, but most of my favorite songs are on EPs and other releases. "Everything You Do Is A Balloon", "Seven Forty Seven", and "Julie and Candy" are some of my immediate favorites.

Many current favorites have fallen into that category over the years, such as The Smiths, Simon & Garfunkel, David Bowie, The Byrds, The Kinks, etc. It's just not the kind of stuff I cared about during my teens and most of my 20s. But when you finally discover them, you realize it's all gold.

Most other things are too recent, and bands haven't released enough albums to really qualify. Maybe Wilderness (the ones on Jagjaguwar), even though they only had 3 albums between 2005-2008. They disbanded before I learned of them, so I guess that should count as something I missed out on. Also Paul McCartney, I never bothered with his solo stuff until recently and RAM is amazing. I've listened to Sonic Youth for quite some time but for most of that time I only had a passing interest. In the last 5 years, let's say, I've been going through most of their discography and realized I should have been listening to them in high school. Marmoset also. Their first two albums (and their best) came out in 1999 and 2001 and I only discovered them last year.

For years I'd hear songs from Bjork on various artists compilations. I never cared for her until recently and it was a track on a Rough Trade collection (the song "Where Is The Line"). So I picked up her best-of cd and the music just clicked as if they were old favorites of mine. Been buying up her back catalog and enjoying everything I'm hearing.

Well I have a list of bands to listen to, that I've heard one song of and always meant to look up more but haven't ever gotten around to, I guess the best example will probably be The Menzingers. I've only got one song and I've meant to get On The Impossible Past since it was released last February, but I still haven't gotten it yet.

Also I've just recently gotten into some of popular rap like Danny Brown but that's really all I can think of.

Well, I heard the occasional Nirvana song, but they never really clicked with me until I discovered that Kurt was a huge Beatles fan and heard my brother's copy of Nevermind. Now I'm working on getting Bleach, In Utero, and Incesticide.

Marshall Tucker Band, Hank Jr, old Charlie Daniels

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers for me!