The Bus

We all know the stereotype of the super-music-snob who has responses to things like, "Oh, that band? I've known about them for eight years. I have all their German import EPs." What bands were you into before they got really big? What songs had you been listening to months, or years, before you suddenly heard them on the radio?

We have these unknown band threads as proof in the future, but what bands are big now that you knew before "everyone else"?

By sheer difference in popularity, I'd have to say pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas: back when they were doing interesting things (like working with Esthero).

But I also liked Sublime for years, before they released their last album.

That's about all I can think of for now.

You?

wendersfan

I was a fan of R.E.M. before they'd released an album. That's all I got.

Mopower

I'll probably get bashed for this but fuck ya all. I really liked Creed right before their first single came out nationally. Bought their first CD. No one knew who they were but local radio station started playing the crap out of My Own Prison and a few years later they were the biggest rock band there was once their music went to crap.

FatTony

The biggest ones that immediately spring to mind are Blink 182, New Found Glory, and most recently, Panic! At The Disco.

DVD Josh

I bought Pablo Honey before I even heard Creep (I had heard You and was mesmerized). Got into SP pre-Disarm. Pearl Jam pre-Jeremy.

muttonhead

Goo Goo Dolls! Early 90's.

cactusoly

Guns N Roses,
Metallica,

maxfisher

Brendan Benson - not sure if he qualifies, but I'm betting on the Raconteurs raising his profile. I've been a fan since I picked up Lapalco in 2002.

Coldplay - I bought Parachutes before Yellow was everywhere. Local indie record store had it at a listening station.

Creed - I'll join Mopower in getting mocked. Early copies of their album were big among the Christian rock kids, of whom I knew a few.

Dave Mathews Band - Ok, this pushes me beyond Mopower in mockability, but some kids in my high school saw them and, through word of mouth, I had Remember Two Things before Under the Table and Dreaming came out.

Death Cab for Cutie - A friend gave me a copy of You Can Play These Songs With Chords in 2002 and I've been a fan ever since. Through this, I also had the Postal Service on release date, while it didn't seem to get really popular until something like a year later.

Old 97s - A friend got me into them in 1999, before their (and Rhett Miller's solo) songs were popping up in films and tv.

Phish - While they never got that much radio play, I had Junta in middle school (probably 1991 or 1992) because a friend's older brother was really into them.

The Shins - A girl bought me Oh, Inverted World in 2001, beating Garden State to the punch by several years.

Metrodub

Being a college DJ in the early 90's allowed me to hear some bands before they made it "big". Smashing Pumpkins before they released Gish, Nirvana before they released Nevermind. Alice In Chains before "Man in a Box" became popular. Soundgarden during their Ultamega OK and Louder Than Love periods. Pretty much any of the "grunge" bands that were pouring out of Seattle (Love Battery, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, etc.).

I was a huge Mother Love Bone fan, so when Andrew Wood passed I followed the remaining members' paths...which led to Pearl Jam.

Growing up in Richmond, VA, I saw the Dave Matthews Band a lot as they would play a small venue every Wednesday night for quite some time. I also promoted/produced a show they did at my college for a class I was taking right before they signed their contract with RCA.

To keep this from being a brag post, I will just end it by saying this: If you truly enjoy music (any kind of music), it would be to your benefit to seek good music out. Go to bulletin boards that are devoted to music and read what people in the know are saying about certain bands. Go to sites such as www.pandora.com to listen to bands that are similar to bands that you currently listen to. Read the Rate Them as You Hear Them thread that's stickied up top and research the bands that are consistently on members' top albums lists. Living in this time of vast information and on demand desires, you can gain access to songs/samples of songs by these bands in no time.

Then, in a year, when a thread like this re-appears, you can say you heard *insert band here* first.

sherm42

No Doubt - I grew up in Anaheim and was a fan of theirs for about 5 years before Tragic Kingdom. I bought Tragic Kingdom on the release date and the album didn't even really become huge until about a year later.

Saw them many times in very small clubs that only held a couple hundred people. Great shows.

Tscott

I'm only slightly ahead of the curve. No following a band for years before they make the big time. Instead I usually hear about an artist I'd like just as they're "on the verge"

I asked my local record store to pre-order Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville after reading an extensive article about her and her upcoming album in the Chicago Tribune. Took them about 3 or 4 weeks to get it.

I bought Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes the next day after seeing MTV "Artist on the verge" that Atlantic Records paid to have shown once in early 92. Been buying up every album and b-side since.

I asked for Jewel - Pieces of You after seeing the video for Who Will Save Your Soul (it was the last video that week on MTVs 120 Mins) and the guy at the record store look it up in the computer and told me that artist didn't exist.

There's others I didn't start listening to at the very start but did start sometime before they reached the peak of their popularity. I started listening to Sarah Mclachlan with Solice (her second album), Aphex Twin with Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (bought as an import in 94), Cat Power with Moon Pix (in 98), Neko Case with Furnace Room Lullaby (in 2000), Barenaked Ladies with Gordon (although I was a few years late in finding it, I still got it before they really hit it big- and its still the only album of theirs that I really like).

nodeerforamonth

the list is too long to mention. Practically all of them!

Here's the highlights:

Goo Goo Dolls (first saw them in '89; first heard them in '86; saw them play in front of 14 people back in '91)
Nirvana (saw them in front of 150 people w/ Dale on drums after passing up the chance to see them on their Tad tour because it was raining and I didn't have a ride)
Metallica
Slayer
Anthrax (saw them w/ their first singer, opening up for Raven)
practically every other metal band (did a college radio metal/punk/alternative show from '86-'91)
Everclear
Soundgarden
Pixies
Soul Asylum

I'm in the same boat as Metrodub. And his post it right on. There's good music everywhere. You just have to do the work to seek it out. And it's way easier now w/ the internet than back in the tape trading days in the '80s.

atlantamoi

I can think of many bands, but I'll never forget the first time I heard Midnight Oil on a Top 40 radio station down in Alabama. That's still got to be one of the strangest successes in the U.S. (one of my favorite bands).

The Church, Violent Femmes, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.

A funny moment I can think of involved the Indigo Girls. I was music director for Auburn's radio station back in '86 and one of them called me and asked where a good club would be for them to play in Auburn. I truthfully told them that the club scene there was nonexistent and in the back of my mind I sort of thought, "Poor girls, nobody is going to give you guys the time of day. Duo folk chicks? Decent music, but it's not going to happen."

majorjoe23

I wasn't a fan, but I saw Slipknot a few times before they signed, including before Corey Taylor was the vocalist.

DrRingDing

Radiohead is my biggest get.

I was in love with them the instant I heard The Bends. FWIW, I don't consider them to have reached the status of truly popular until OK Computer became so popular - an album which I had the day it was released.

People will disagree with that assessment, but I don't care.

I also got Songs About Jane before the band that released it made it to radio. Now I can't stand 'em and the singer's voice is beyond annoying.

-ringding-

alfonsosoriano

The Offspring

joefrog91

I graduated from Texas Christian University in 1991. In 1990, I saw a band play in the Battle of the Bands on campus. The band was The Toadies. I was hooked and knew this band would go far. I even had a business management class with Charles Mooney - the original guitarist. Of course, some frat daddy band won because it was based on applause and all the frat people applauded for some dork band.

The Bus

chino77

marylin manson.... i was a big fan of "portrait of an american family". sadly thats the only cd of theirs i ever liked. anyways i saw them at the metro in chicago in 95'. that was my first show at a small club and it was insane.

sublime...i was a fan soon after the "date rape" song contreversy (not because of it though) but before the mtv hits.

kmfdm...might be a stretch but i listend them when they were unknown. now i here samples of their music everywhere. hell fox news chicago a few yrs back used to always play a couple different clips in and out of commercials.

modest mouse..but barely, i got into them when "the moon and antartica" cd came out.

rage against the machine...somehow i was listening to them before they were on mtv.

auto

sublime
white stripes

astrochimp

Well i guess you got me beat there wendersfan although i was gonna say REM too since i was in high school and was mainly into metal/hard rock but was sick of that and the people i hung around with so one day i saw the video for "Fall on Me" and it really caught my attention so i picked up Life's Rich Pageant and then worked my way back thru to Murmur and Chronic Town.Then of course Document was released the following year and "The One i Love" got alot of airplay and they started to get bigger and more popular with the next few albums.

Alan Smithee

I first heard "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys two fucking years before it became popular everywhere else. The older version was better too.

zombiezilla

I've loved the Ramones from the beginning.

If you want to find out about a group that WILL be massive someday (soon!), check out Shadow Reichenstein. Some of their ex-members have gone on to be in Ministry and Damage Plan....but the current line-up is perfect; they're sort of a Rob Zombie crossed with the Ramones type of thing, with a little of Metallica's classic tone and some cool horror-film elements thrown in for good measure.

Rypro 525

the only band i can think of is good charlotte. Well, they were at the time popular only in the baltimore/dc area, before TRL got ahold of them and before "lifestyles of the rich and famous" came out.

AnonomusBob15

Radiohead got huge before anyone could have heard of them. Whether or not you heard Creep doesn't mean it wasn't popular at the time.


I got a hold of Letting off the Happiness in the late 90s and loved it, then Fevers and Mirrors came out two or so years latter and cemented me as a Bright Eyes fan.

I also was a huge fan of Guster in the Parachute/Goldfly era, but don't know if they ever got "huge".

Been listening to Wilco since Summerteeth, but they have been around for awhile.

Phantom Planet, been a fan since their first CD, Phantom Planet is Missing.