Whenever I post about the music I listen to, I get a comment or two from people commenting that they've never heard of any of the bands I talk about. This is always a little surprising to me, because I don't think I'm all that much of a High Fidelity type.
As proof, let me note that I really have never heard any of the albums on Bullz-Eye's list of The Fifty Best Albums You've Never, Ever Heard. I've never heard of any of the bands on their list. I don't think some of the people in those bands have ever heard these records...
(Link via jefitoblog.)
Any of you recognize any of these?
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Not ony have I not heard of any of the bands, I haven't heard of most of the bands in the "Recomended if you like" lists...
Never heard of any of them. However, any music-geekiness I have is specific to classic soul music (a genre that doesn't really lend itself to the album format), so I can be excused for my ignorance.
Pet Peeve #43: As usual for these types of lists, the author seems to think that there were no albums made in the pre-punk era (or perhaps he thinks that we've already heard of every album recorded pre-1980).
In that list, I have that Shaw/Blades cd "Hallucination". I picked it up on impulse when I saw it for a buck in the bargain bin at a 2nd handed record store, back in the late 1990's. It didn't sound like any of their previous bands (ie. Styx, Damn Yankees, Night Ranger). Overall I thought it was ok.
No, the really obscure bands broke up before they recorded anything. "You had to be there, man."
I recognize four of the artists - don't have any of their albums, though.
I recognize zero of these bands, though I know almost all of the RIYL's. For what it's worth, only a couple sounded appealing to me based on the descriptions, so that's at least part of why I might never heard of them.
Then again, an awful damn lot of music gets made, and it's effectively impossible to keep up with it if you're at all a generalist. You'll never find everything good.
I didn't recognize any of them. I feel I've slowly been cut off from new sounds since I graduated from college so many years ago. My favorite obscure band is The Loud Family, which you can hear at their myspace site:
http://www.myspace.com/theloudfamily
I've heard of Paul Brady, obviously, and anyone the right age on this side of the Atlantic would remember Nik Kershaw (but from the 80's, not for that album).
I've heard or own music by 8 of the acts in that list. I own the Ballboy Club Anthems album (and one or two others) and I've seen them live twice. I own the best of Danny Wilson album (not Bebop Moptop), they've long since broken up (actually I believe one of the band members is now head of A&R for a major label?). I own a couple of Gun Club albums (Jeffrey Lee Pierce's band before going solo. He died in the mid 90's) and I own both Jellyfish albums (Jason Falkner's previous band). Nik Kershaw was briefly a huge popstar in the UK in the early eighties and has kept a pretty succesful career as a songwriter going ever since.Paul Brady is Irish and is most successful there and in Europe. Big Dish were a cult Scottish act and Cotton Mather were an American power-pop act. They all got played on the radio in the UK to some extent over the years.
Actually, I would say the person who compiled that list was either British or a total Anglophile and a huge fan of powerpop.
The Ballboy album is a one of my favorite disks. This disk will really grow on you. Don't let the "Club Anthems" title throw you off...it is singer-songwriter/pop/acoustic.
Other than that I only recognize the Push Stars, who played at my college in 1998. I thought they were very generic.
Hmm...
The Candy Skins opened for Squeeze in the fall of '91 at our Alma Mater (at which show I slow-danced with Nia the gorgeous Georgian). Otherwise, I never would have heard of them.
Shaw/Blades I've heard of, thanks to their more visible efforts in Night Ranger, Styx, and Damn Yankees.
Darden Smith, I ran across his CDs at a record store where I worked; we also had a customer by that name who was not related at all.
Other than that, nuthin'.
Thanks for posting the link to our piece. I actually spearheaded it, but believe it or not, the list was compiled by seven different writers rather than just one...and, in general, we tend to have pretty diverse tastes. For whatever reason, they just tended to look pretty similar when we all compiled our respective lists of obscure albums.
P.S. Kudos on the Loud Family mention...but, then, I've been a Game Theory fan since back in the day.
I've got a Candyskins single or two, nothing special.
The ballboy album however is superb (although technically, it's more a collection of the first few singles). I don't know if it's on iTunes, but if so, download I Hate Scotland to check them out.
Not heard of any of these, but there does seem to be a bit of a Rock focus here...