what songs made you a fan?

[JHernandez]

Love on a Real Train - Tangerine Dream
Blade Runner Blues - Vangelis (well let's be honest, the whole soundtrack of course!)
Worlock - Skinny Puppy
Clipper - Autechre
Frantic Aerobics - Mitch Murder
Sacrilege - Mentallo & The Fixer
Tha - Aphex Twin

Damn fine list sir. Just saying.

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Topic: As for me, I find it impossible to boil it down to a few songs. It's more like bands, albums, & eras. I usually listen to albums, even if it takes me a couple days+. So it's my favs from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2k+

Most influential would be: Skinny Puppy, NIN, Faith No More, Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, Prince and the Revolution, The Cure, Naked Eyes, New Order, Genesis/Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel.

Favorite decade, the 80s.

More recently/2k: I've been into Gunship, The Midnight, S U R V I V E & Haim (Days Are Gone only) You can likely guess why. Also, Tesseract is incredible imo.

That said, I have a lot of love for 60s/70s rock bands. I grew up on that stuff. Lot of love for 90s metal/industrial and some "grunge".

[BONES]

But surely you can understand the question? I love a lot of music but that doesn't make me a fan of every artist who releases something i like. Fandom goes a bit deeper than that, doesn't it? As I said, I classify myself as a "fan" if I own their whole collection, even if I don't like all of it. e.g. I am a huge fan of Ultravox but I hate U-Vox and I don't really like Lament much, either, but I own both albums. The second part is what made me a fan and that's usually easy. Again, in Ultravox's case it was when someone played Systems of Romance for me, because they thought I might like it, one day in 1979. Slow Motion is the first song on that album and that was all it took to hook me. Or in the case of Genepool, it was when I was trying to find a song called "Berlin by Night" that I used to have on a VHS tape from some German band whose name I couldn't recall at the time. (It was PVC, but that's a different story.) So I searched the Zune Marketplace for "Berlin by Night" and found Genepool's version, which I liked even more. Viola! Instant fan! (Their first couple of albums are krap, though, but I still have them because I'm a fan.)

Interestingly, a lot of stuff from the 90s that I used to really love, I no longer find quite as compelling. I hardly ever listen to anything from that era any more. IN fact, I find a lot of it quite cringeworthy these days.

[mumpcake]

Here are a bunch of songs where I had been familiar with the artist but a certain song brought me into fandom:

Ben Folds Five - "Song for the Dumped".

Wilco - "Pot Kettle Black"

Radiohead - "Just"

Cake - "Never There"

Flaming Lips - "Race for the Prize"

[raiderpdog]

Songs from different eras off the top of my head that pulled me into fandom (sometimes I did know of the band from previous songs, but didn't investigate as much until I heard these, then was in deep with the bands, and would then go back and buy everything, if I missed it. Sometimes, though you get lucky right from the start of the band, too, so I was happy either way). Also, sometimes I heard/saw them on MTV, or heard them on a tape a friend had, or in a club. Or, a giant chunk of my collection has just been buying albums from reading reviews about them first, without hearing them and then having the album and band become a favorite. Or luckily in college, campus radio was always influential on hundreds of things. Sometimes just connecting with the cover art, and buying it because of that. Basically I just listed bands I have all of, will buy all of, sight unheard. Locked in fan of these all.

All of this is hit and miss, luck, etc. Basically finding stuff that clicks with you is something we all want to do, I think. Plus, it doesn't matter when you find your favorites, only that you do. I always feel its never too late to find something I will love from years ago, and have a moment of "how did I live without this?!?!"



Depeche Mode---Get The Balance Right
The Cure---The Walk
OMD---The New Stone Age
Talk Talk---Mirror Man
Wire---The 15th
The Fall---Lay Of The Land
Skinny Puppy---Dig It
Front 242---U-Men
XTC---Roads Girdle the Globe
Stereolab---The Noise of Carpet
Tortoise---I Set My Face To The Hillside
High Llamas---The Sun Beats Down
Radiohead---Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Wilco---When You Wake Up Feeling Old
Autechre---Dael
Air---Remember
King Crimson---I Talk To the Wind
Genesis---Back In NYC
Gentle Giant---Prologue
Clinic---Earth Angel
Grandaddy---Hand Crank Transmitter
Van Der Graaf Generator---House With No Door

[VOODOO U]

Completely forgot about the High Llamas. Had one album (hawaii). I think I sold the CD to a friend. Whatever.
Listened just now and yeah, it's good stuff.

[osiris]

Rihanna I first heard on a White Label bootleg called S.O.S.(Not the ABBA one) Great song. I guess it was a mash up because the instrumental was Soft Cell Tainted Love. Great song only DJs would know. When I heard Umbrella I knew she'd be huge and was an even bigger fan. I've loved The Weeknd since Can't Feel My Face. Starboy locked it up.

[PatchAdamz]

Lets see, songs about fans.....

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window - The Beatles

I was already a fan....



Other then that, never been much of a fanboy.....(in general)

[Introspective]

I thought about this for a couple of minutes and decided that, no, I really don't become a fan from hearing a song. ...or two or three. I'll only consider myself a "fan" of an artist after hearing an entire album. Multiple times.

Maybe that comes down to semantics, but: there it is. ...my Hot Take™.

EDIT: In no way do I mean to poop on the OP or their post or anyone else's answer. I thought about it for a few minutes because I found it a genuinely interesting question. ...that eventually I decided I couldn't answer. My comment is really provided as a data point, not to render any judgments.

[vurt]

I thought about this for a couple of minutes and decided that, no, I really don't become a fan from hearing a song. ...or two or three. I'll only consider myself a "fan" of an artist after hearing an entire album. Multiple times.

Maybe that comes down to semantics, but: there it is. ...my Hot Take™.

i thought of it like, if i heard a track on john peel or on a mix tape from a friend, that made me willing to buy that first album, and then become a fan from there.
the spark that lights the embers before the fire!

[vurt]

for another slightly different way, maybe an offshoot act, like i was already a spacemen3 fan, which led to me being an even huge spiritualized fan.

[PatchAdamz]

I love my fans, and they love me......

[BONES]

I've heard your music and, realistically, that's probably the best you can hope for.

I thought about this for a couple of minutes and decided that, no, I really don't become a fan from hearing a song. ...or two or three. I'll only consider myself a "fan" of an artist after hearing an entire album. Multiple times.

So the question is what motivates you to make that effort? e.g. With Yachts, I put the record on in a record store. The first song I listened to was OK but the second song, Semaphore Love, was great so I decided to buy the record. So whilst I didn't become a fan on the spot, it was that one particular song that opened to door for me to eventually become a fan.

[kelvyn]

The Beatles - Rain
Jimi Hendrix - Castles Made Of Sand
Metro - Criminal World
Thomas Dolby - Airwaves
Bjørk - Isabel
Goldfrapp - Lovely Head
Lana Del Rey - Video Games
Sufjan Stevens - Mystery Of Love

[osiris]

I read the music magazine Crawdaddy when I was a teen. I became a fan of Prince the first time I saw the cover for his first album. I thought anyone who would do a photo like that I'm a fan. It was also funny to see him lauded for playing every instrument on the album vs. Tom Scholz of Boston who almost hid the fact that he recorded that entire first album alone in his basement. I love this quote: When Scholz arrived in Los Angeles for mixing, he felt intimidated and feared the professional engineers would view him as "this hick who worked in a basement".
Crawdaddy turned me on to Cheap Trick, Blondie, Television, too many to count.

[e@rs]

Karma Police, Radiohead;
Cascade Part 1-5, The Future Sound Of London;
A New Error, Moderat;
Cloudlight, Eskmo;
Second Bad Vilbel, Autechre.