Albums I disliked, now I love

[Random Axe]

AKA WTF was I thinking???

I've always been pretty terrible about judging a band or album really quickly and dismissing it prematurely. I'm quite opinionated, and that often causes me to miss out on really great listening opportunities. The three examples below are all kind of the same slower tempo burners that just needed the right moment to sink in with me. That's probably a common theme for me.

Wolverine/Communication Lost - While I was so enamored with Still, this one initially just bored the shit out of me. I didn't feel the energy anymore, just a bunch of melancholy, introspective meandering. However, recently I'm discovering how effin stupid that thinking was. I'm really listening to the vocals and the lyrics and feeling it as it was intended. It doesn't have the dynamics of Still but offers a more cathartic experience.

Psychotic Waltz/God-Shaped - I made it through about four songs before pulling this form my car CD player. Same as above, I was expecting something close to the energy level of Bleeding and got something completely different. What I'm just no learning is that different is also potentially just as brilliant. I'm really feeling the groove here, far more than the first spin. I'm listening at work as I write this wondering how I was so wrong.

Course of Fate/Mindweaver - Just like the above, this is mostly mid tempo prog but with a slight doom edge. Stevie made sure I kept trying with them and it worked. There's some brilliant playing and vocals in there even if they don't hit as hard as I'd hoped. The hits come from the really soulful vox and lyrics. It was this band that got me thinking about trying Wolverine again since there are structurally a lot of similar traits.

I'm sure if I go back through my collection there will be a few dozen more examples. All of that is packed up in tubs for a while till I get a nice bookcase assembled and installed.

[BC]

Rush. Select any album.

I couldn’t get into Rush because of Geddy’s singing. It grated on my ears and nerves. It also didn’t help that Tom Sawyer seemed to be the only Rush song Columbus radio stations played for a time in the late 80’s/early 90’s. That all changed after the Working Man tribute album and Mark Slaughter living up to his name by with an abysmal job on vocals. I figured, if I could tolerate Mark’s vocals, I needed to give the original songs a second chance. Now I’m a fan.

[Sir Exar Kun]

Rush. Select any album.

I couldn’t get into Rush because of Geddy’s singing. It grated on my ears and nerves. It also didn’t help that Tom Sawyer seemed to be the only Rush song Columbus radio stations played for a time in the late 80’s/early 90’s. That all changed after the Working Man tribute album and Mark Slaughter living up to his name by with an abysmal job on vocals. I figured, if I could tolerate Mark’s vocals, I needed to give the original songs a second chance. Now I’m a fan.

Same here; it wasn't until I heard "La Villa Strangiato" at a friend's house that I finally realized there was a whole other level to Rush to explore, even though it took getting over Geddy's vocals to appreciate it. To this day, if I never hear "Tom Sawyer" again I won't be disappointed. (FYI - I see you are in Columbus; I actually saw Grand Designs, a local tribute band, play Picktown Palooza this weekend.....)

The example for this thread that always comes to mind for me is Arena's "Contagion" album. I had first heard Arena on "Immortal?" so didn't have a ton of background with them, and had yet to hear "The Visitor" or any of the other albums, so "Contagion" was just my second experience with them. I was a HUGE fan of "Immortal?" so had high hopes for "Contagion", but after a couple of spins it just wasn't doing ANYTHING for me. Fast forward a couple of months, and played it one more time and song after song leapt out at me. Not sure what "changed" in my hearing, but it went from a snoozer to one of my favorite Arena discs almost right away.

Another one was the Brazilian symphonic power metal band Aquaria..... Had their debut album, listened to it a couple of times and shelved it, but then had it back out one time when I was driving solo back up to Detroit. It's a good "builder" of an album, with the culmination being on track 7 (?) "Judgement Day" where it all builds to this massive crescendo of craziness, including some of the best orchestrations I've heard in the genre to date. I kept turning up the volume a bit, and when it hit this song as I'm driving north I had the speakers about as loud as they would go and I was getting goosebumps at how massively epic this song was..... I ended up listening to this disc almost nons-stop that entire roadtrip, and to this day this song is sort of my "go-to" example for everything I love about music, wrapped up in one tune. Ultimately, this is also why I try not to make any real opinions on an album until I've had a chance to give it the car treatment (cranked, driving solo, no distractions).

[Nos]

First one that comes to mind for me is Meat Loaf's "Dead Ringer". I even loved a lot of the songs that were clearly copying Steinman's style across all the later albums, but I never liked the follow-up to "Bat Out Of Hell". Steinman's solo album from the same period was great, so I don't know exactly what it was. Maybe it was Meat's broken voice, or maybe it was just that "Peel Out" opened the album with the weakest song of the bunch.

Sometime in the last two years or so, I completely turned around on the record. I was in one of my Steinman binges, so I gave it another listen, and I was sold. Suddenly, I heard the album as I always should have. It's not classic in the same way "Bat Out Of Hell" is, and it Meat can be tough to take at times, but I love it just as much now.