How Many Musical Revelations Have You Had?

[Bogey_J]

basically, have you ever listened to an artist that opened you up to a whole genre of music you were ignorant to beforehand?
i've had three musical revelations:

1) Kool Keith - Before listening to dr octagon I was strictly on mainstream hip hop. This album opened me up to the underground. Insane album. If it wasn't for kool keith i'd probably still be bumping blueprint 2 :gag:

2) Jimi Hendrix - Introduced me rock. Listened to are you experienced stoned and I never looked back. I was completely ignorant to rock before I heard Hendrix.

3) Tricky - Introduced me to the whole bristol Trip-hop scene. dark ass beats. Essential stoner music.

[BreakCanon]

CCR- Classic rock

Clash- Punk

George Thorogood- Blues

Typical Cats- Underground hip-hop

[Copper Scroll]

Public Enemy: hip hop. My favorite hip hop group coming up. To me, they were set apart from a lot of their contemporaries... in a way Wu Tang and Outkast ended up becoming.

Parliament-Funkadelic: funk. This guy I knew on a job I worked in high school owned every Funkadelic album on vinyl. Before finding this out, I'd copped a Parliament compilation on cassette and loved it. He let me borrow his records. I didn't have a record player, but my cousin did. I remember, one day after school, sitting on my cousin's bed and listening to each Funkadelic album in chronological order. It had me up half the night. From there, hip hop took a backseat for me.

Jimi Hendrix: classic rock. Hung out with some hippies in high school. You know how it goes. The funny thing, though, is that it wasn't until recently that I really started appreciating the greatness of Jimi's playing (as well as the mediocrity of his songwriting abilities) and how bad a lot of other guitar players sound by comparison. I think this comes from listening to a lot of jazz.

Prince: He's a musical world all to his own.

Lee Perry: roots reggae/dub. I'd been a fan of Bob Marley years before discovering Perry, but Bob never really opened up reggae as a genre for me--mainly because Bob was head and shoulders above everyone else. Perry's music really got me to appreciate the roots reggae aesthetic though, and I think he perfected that sound.

Miles Davis: jazz. No one has done anything in music during the 20th century on the level Miles did it, I've come to discover. His work from '65 through '70 got me addicted to jazz as a genre. I'd heard some of Coltrane's best work years before Miles' music clicked for me, but (like I describe Marley above) Trane was almost too good to help me appreciate jazz in general. Trane was an individualist (a singular talent on saxophone), where Miles was a collectivist--always surrounding himself with the best musicians with the best ideas. So, his records helped open up a whole new world for me--one I haven't left since.