What band(s) did you stupidly overlook for decades?

I just turned 57 and started listening to them within the last year.

 

It took me way too long to find Ambrosia and 10cc. Oh yeah Gentle Giant too.

I based Ambrosia and 10cc on their hits and couldn’t initially get past Gentle Giant’s silly looking album covers. Oh well, you live and learn.

 

i'm avoiding them for the same reason......fifteen years ago i said the same thing about drive-by truckers.......

 

The Grateful Dead, Beatles, Kinks, and Allman Bros.

 

Black Sabbath.

 

I skipped over Blues entirely when I was a dumb kid. I only recently discovered Johnny Winter, James Cotton, Buddy Guy, even SRV.

As for bands, I never listened to Little Feat or Wet Willie. I love them now. Once I moved to Canada, I discovered The Tragically Hip. Never even heard of them when I lived in the States.

 

John Mayall - I heard so many backhanded compliments of him as a talent scout and not much of a musician, but his 64-72 albums are entertaining as hell once I ignored the critical snark.

 

Richard Thompson’s 1999 tour was Mock Tudor wasn’t it?

 

Sun Ra - Nubians of Plutonia is a great place to start

 

Brand X
Jean-Luc Ponty
Porcupine Tree
Global Communication
Anathema

 

Yes. It was Thompson; Danny Thompson on bass; Pete Zorn on acoustic guitar, sax, mandolin, and backing vocals; Michael Jerome on drums.

 

Rush. And then I saw them in concert and was blown away.

 

Jeff Beck. At first, I just didn’t know any better. Then I became a Jazz snob. But then I read a quote from him about Punk Rock: “I figured I’d just go work on my cars until knowing how to play your instrument came back into fashion” That intrigued me so I gave him another shot. Smart move. I dig his audacity.

 

Marillion.

Ignored them from Kayleigh in 1985 until F.E.A.R. in 2016. I ignored thirty years of Marillion....

D.D.

 

The Feelies
Television
Uncle Tupelo
Betty Davis

Too many to list, really.

 

Thanks! I'll get on that.

 

The Jam and The Replacements.

I finally heard them both about three years ago, and now own their "Complete" box sets. As brilliant as both groups' music is, I hear it with a twinge of regret that I wasn't listening to them in high school 30 years ago...

 

Basically anyone from the 60s.....

And bands from the 80s like Crowded House, A-Ha

 

The entire Flying Nun catalog and Bert Jansch.

 

I was never that excited to hear a Doobi Brothers song on the radio for most of my life, and don't own any of their records, but have watched a couple of concerts on You Tube and have been floored by how good they were live. No doubt you could tell from studio records they were fine writers and players, but.... wow. I can not imagine any live band sounding better. The singing and harmonies alone are just perfect. Unreal.

 

Sisters of Mercy. Floodland now ranks among my fave albums of all time. Ignored it for 20 years.
Stone Roses Debut Same thing, ignored it for decades and heard it by chance 3 years ago, and haven’t stopped playing it since.

 

The Mekons
Sadly
Great rock n roll band with equally great offshoots
Would have liked them even more back in that dull sterile decade the 80’s

 

'70s Genesis is the biggest one for me as well. I knew "Follow You Follow Me" but I was mostly only familiar with the '80s recordings by Gabriel and Genesis. I've never liked much of anything by them post-"Biko" or post-"Abacab," and when the music critics I was reading (I'm looking at you, Christgau and Marsh) proclaimed that '70s Genesis sucked, I never felt the need to explore further.

The threads on this forum about the best-sounding Genesis CDs got me curious about what I'd been missing. I listened to some iTunes samples from "Foxtrot" and was blown away. I tracked down V/C versions of that album and "Wind & Wuthering" and went on from there. "Supper's Ready" is now my favorite side-long prog epic.

 

After being such a massive Scorpions fan and wearing out multiple copies of “World Wide Live”, not discovering UFO until recently was a definite oversight but the lack of radio AirPlay didn’t help get their word out

 

I missed out on a ton of great music through the years, mostly because I was listening to other great music. Some artists which I discovered an really like after years of overlooking:

Frank Zappa - tried many times to get into him - one night the Roxy album just clicked. I own over a dozen of his albums now

Roxy Music
King Crimson
Little Feat
Bevis Frond
Guided by Voices
Tragically Hip
Ray Charles
Jefferson Airplane
Moby Grape
Country Joe and the Fish
Vanilla Fudge
Canned Heat
Savoy Brown

Just last night I was blown away by a Bobby Whitlock album.