When was the last time you were surprised by liking a piece of music?

There's a site that gives you an album a day to listen to and review from the book '1000 albums to listen to before you die'. One day I got an Abba album and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had a surprisingly dense, dream-like production to it. I expected simplistic pop but was surprised by how well structured and layered it was.

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So, I like metal. Death, thrash, heavy, doom, prog, it's all great.

However, something like 8 years ago, I found myself really enjoying Lana Del Rey and I still can't explain why. Then a year or two ago the same happened with Dua Lipa. They are the only artists I can't explain and when I get suggestions similar to them I don't like them.

If you'd told me this time last year that my new favourite genre of 2023 was going to be Finnish rap, I'd have said "no I hate rap".

Well, actually I'd have said "this is some kind of Eurovision related nonsense isn't it?" and the answer is yes. The people's champ Käärijä hooked me in with his party metal, got me checking out his rap back-catalogue and now Spotify has decided all my playlists should be Finnish and here we are.

We got the moves - Electric callboy. Popped into my recommended when it released, with me having 0 knowledge about the band or what they're all about. Just saw this dude in a weird costume and apparently it's techno? Not the kind of music I like, gave it a try anyway. Then it got fucking wild. Not a day goes by without at least one EC song since then.

Pinguini Tattici Nucleari.

I grew up performing. Loved music of all kinds. Went and studied music at university.

Then ended up hating music. Which is so weird I know. Something about needing to perform to survive haha. I didn’t like it.

I started listening to pop music in different languages. German. Italian. French. Etc.

Was surprised and became obsessed with an obscure Italian pop band from Turin called Pinguini Tattici Nucleari. Flew there from Australia. Saw them play.

Now they are huge in Italy.

But yeh. Dunno why it took listening in a language I didn’t understand to do it for me. Probably something with appreciating the actual music, rather than a catchy pop song. I say great music “creates interest”. And it definitely does.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3V9aCzb0dOvuLHRerJ8sJI?si=a5CAgXH5SQ-ejfl6qgoEfA

The first thing that came to mind

This was years ago. I didn't like this band, but I knew of them.

My ex girlfriend told me to listen to this track.

I was kinda blazed, I put this on, put on my headphones, and holy FUCK

I never expected it. It's so amazing, so heavy, so light, so aggressive and peaceful, it still gives me chills as I'm writing this.

If you want to be moved by music, be moved by the music, don't be on your phone watching tiktok at the same time.

BE IN IT.

Sails of Charon - Scorpions - Woah just woah this is where all those great guitar gods took inspiration from? (from Randy Rhoads to Yngwie Malmsteen). Second realization: Welp now I know why Scorpions made such a huge, they were great. Now I can deconstruct the image of those sad arena shows. Ok Germany I get it, you guys aren't square for liking Scorpions, they were the tits. Obs: I had the same realization when I saw a clip from AC/DC playing way back when on the streets and Angus was killing it.

I liked the last album by The Interrupters, and I don't even like punk music, but their songs were all wonderful

The new Lil Yachty album this year surprised me for sure. Really big departure from what he usually does, and he did it (in my opinion) really well. Never been a fan of his in the past

Though it is more in line with what I usually listen to, experimental hip hop, psychedelic rock, indie. Just didn't expect it from him.

Something separate from what I usually enjoy would be That's The Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon. Never been into that genre really (metal? I'm honestly not sure how they're classified) but I really enjoy this album and I'm sure it's gonna be right near the top of my Spotify Wrapped this year.

I guess when I ran into Aesop Rock, and got absolutely infatuated? I don't do a lot of rap, so his stuff hitting so damn hard was a surprise.

I remember a few of the other times. Mostly it has taken the right moment, the right mindset and the right artist. A dark autumn evening and a walk in a park for Dark Sanctuary, falling asleep to SunnO))) and waking up to it was a mindblowing experience.

Carpenter Bruts album Trilogy opened up electronic music for me, and Crypt of the Necrodancers soundtrack cemented it.

Normally I used to listen to pretty heavy rock music and metal. Ever since seeing Hamilton all I can listen to is Broadway musicals. They get shit done!

Miley Cyrus did a tribute to Tom Petty and it was incredible. I never thought I would say that about anything she did.

An old podcast introduced me to 'All Day' by Girl Talk. I thought it was the weirdest shit at first but I kept coming back to it, now I listen to it basically any time I'm doing menial/tedious work.

I think I've learned over the years that I can like almost anything, and although I'm more likely to like music from my favourite genres, it's possible I'll like anything.

The most recent example I can think is that an artist I like did a cover/colab of Unholy by Sam Smith and after listening a couple of times I listened to the original and found I actually prefer that.

I also like things which are borderline not music, like The Shaggs.

Celldweller - the last firstborn is awesome mix of electronic music and hard rock (or how would you call it)

https://youtu.be/bmlJx9Jgugk

I grew up not liking rap and hip hop, except exclusively liking Eminem. But lately I've been trying to branch out. Thought I'd give Kanye a try, so I listed to the College Dropout album and wow, I was not expecting to like it the way I did. Almost the whole thing is solid beats and decent rhymes. Same with Graduation. Color me impressed Kanye, I don't like you as a person but your early music is great.

2 years ago when I think I listened to River of Darkness by The Midnight, I always liked 80s/retrowave/whatnot aesthetics so having music to match it all is especially great

Buena Vista Social Club. It came up on the 1001AlbumsGenerator. It's probably the album I've revisited the most.

The first time I heard this song

https://soundcloud.com/blacklabelnsd/mastadon-rip (MASTADON - RIP)

I was blown away at how insane it is, like how could anyone ever make something like this at all is bewildering to me. The song structure and sounds didn't even make sense to me at first.

But now this genre of music is the thing I love the most. This song is my absolute favorite of all time.

I generally listen to a pretty big variety of music, but over the past few years I’ve really been liking jazz and big band music from the 1930s and 1940s. So much so that I made an internet radio station of public domain music from that era so I could listen to it like it was a radio broadcast then.

http://1930sradio.com:8000/WJAZ.m3u

Quite recently. My husband kept asking me to Ren as he's from the same town as me but I knew it was a bit rappy and rap is not my thing.

Turns out Ren is great and some rap is maybe alright so that surprised me.

Fifty Fifty Cupid, but maybe I'm having a midlife crisis

Surprised by Ludovico Einaudi, as well.

I discovered a band, that I never could manage to listen to or was even interested. A while ago I got totally hooked - TOOL 🔨

And the most amazing thing the YT algo recommend - Dom whiting’s Drum’n’Bass bike ride (streams) As a fanatic cyclist I love the combo and couldn’t stop listening after the first minutes. Of course, I’m looking forward to participate to one of those.

The older I get, the less surprised I am by liking stuff that doesn’t fit the story of who I am. Because when you break it down, music is just movement of air, and how can different varieties of air speak to who you are.

So the music I like is just the music I like, and that’s fine with me.

Not a single piece, but I was pleasantly surprised by Ethel Cain's album Preacher's Daughter. Definitely not the sort of music I usually listen to, so I didn't expect that much despite what I'd heard about it, but I actually ended up quite liking a fair few of the songs (although definitely not all of them).

"Study" playlists on Spotify.

Not all of them mind you, mostly ones where the lyrics don't really matter. Really chill and great.

So so many examples of this.

I'm normally into ndh, industry and electronically, with some metal thrown in. I did however get a good surprise by the following musicians/bands

• Dirty shirt
• Otyken
• Shahram Nazeri
• Sofi Tukker

I was shocked by how much I enjoyed APESHIT by the Carter, it also helped me discover Formation by Beyonce. I don't really enjoy her other songs but those two are rad.

Maybe not the last time, but the last time I remember stumbling into a new genre. Mdou Moctor completely blew me away. Nigerian psychedelic rock meets folk and blues in such a unique and beautiful way.

Incredible musicianship, catchy songwriting, really easy to get lost in the music. It’s not something I ever sought out, it was just mentioned in a Reddit thread.

Note: all of my youtube links go to a Piped instance for privacy reasons (like a youtube proxy), but you can simply replace the domain name with youtube.com if you prefer

• GoGo Penguin (1, 2) - probably my biggest positive surprise in the Jazz/Fusion genre as of late. Singlehandedly re-invigorated my interest in the genre. I basically didn't listen to this genre at all for a very long time but they changed that
• Mammal Hands (1) - I thought I didn't even like saxophone but this band changed that. Very unexpected, very great. Apparently I just listened to the "wrong" kind of Jazz bands before. Discovered them right after GoGo Penguin.

Dessa, try album IDES. Feminine rap. Discovered via Doomtree when i thought their Boomerang video was hilarious.

I like everything, so there are very few genres or styles of music that I don’t expect to ever like at all.

Well raggaeton is one of them…

But man, have you guys listened to DATA by Tainy? It’s actually fucking good.

My main gripe with raggaeton has always been the samey and honestly uninspired production.

I know Bad Bunny had a banger last year, I haven’t listened to the whole album. But I didn’t love the few songs I heard.

But man DATA is awesome. It gives me Dawn FM vibes. It’s dark, very synth-genres inspired, and I do get an OPN vibe from it. Maybe that’s why I loved it tbh.

If you guys haven’t listened to it, give it a try. Specially if you like synth-genres and experimental electronic music, but don’t like raggaeton.

Basically every episode of Los Espookys.

Also comments on YT have led me to

• Bloodywood
• Hamlet Gonashvili and beautifully crushing Georgian music in general
• Nooran Sisters
• I'm an atheist but this gives me a glimpse of what the faithful might be feeling. Wow, just wow.

I was surlrised by two different pieces: To Ponemo Stithous Mou (Giannis Parios) which is improvised and it's incredible + Chaser (Mammal Hands) because I found it in my savdd music but didn't know how and when I found it and I was surprised by how I liked it

Randomly heard the track "Hollywood Baby" by 100 gecs in a store or restaurant or something. It instantly hooked into my brain and I'm still not sure why.

There’s this series of compilation albums called Dark Country, most notable for having a lot of the music from the Rebel Galaxy games. I would not call these good, exactly. But they have a very specific vibe and they all do that vibe extremely well. It’s not what I normally listen to by a long shot, but I keep coming back to them. They’re gritty, dark, cheesy, catchy, and fun.

MONO - Hymn to the Immortal Wind was a really pleasant discovery for me recently.