Pretty much the same experience, only it was at (I think) Borders Books. I walked into the store and Brasileiro was playing. I was studying Portuguese at the time with Brazilian instructors, but nobody can hear that album and not be swept up by it. I was so surprised by it, as well, because like you say, Mendes has been around since Brasil 66 was his group and they were mostly covering American pop hits. Brasileiro is a total departure from that sort of thing.
I was watching Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show (RIP) and one of the guests was a rapper/personality named Action Bronson. I was curious to see what this dude’s music sounded like so I checked out some tracks on YouTube. One of his tracks is “Baby Blue.” I watched the video and thought it was a pretty good song. There was a feature in the middle that I thought was the funniest break I’d heard in a long time, and I loved his style (3:30 in the linked video if you’re interested). The artist was Chance The Rapper. I immediately checked out all of Chance’s stuff on YouTube, and downloaded everything I could. All his music was free at the time (stillis if you’re interested). Eventually he released a studio I could pay for, and did a show in Cleveland I could pay for. And I did. I’m obsessed with the dude!
So, thanks to a random guy being on a random show, I found one of my favorite artists (who was neither guy).
I’ve found a lot of good music via Stephen Colbert, both on The Colbert Report and Late Night. Lizzo, Vince Staples, Ok Go, Movits! to name a few. I usually give artists on his shows and on SNL a try.
In the early 2000s, I was watching a cop show or movie on TV which had a scene set in a dance club. The song being played grabbed me immediately: “This is so frickin’ cool!” I’d only heard a fairly short snippet, so it took me the longest time to determine it was by Depeche Mode. I eventually found “It’s No Good” on the **Ultra **LP.
A song in a Mitsubishi ad caught my ear. Eventually tracked down “Breathe” by Telepopmusik.
Saw this TV ad by Volkswagen back in the day:
Young guy is racing through the (Irish?) countryside to get to a wedding and try to stop the love of his life from marrying some other guy. Very dramatic and memorable ad, with haunting music. It’s called “One Million Miles Away” by J. Ralph.
Heard Island in the Sun by Weezer on the muzak of a bank in the mid-2000s. This was unusual since in-store music was in the middle of transitioning from catering to Boomers to the X-ennials and millenials (I guess we older X’ers were written off as a lost cause) because they knew they would need to eventually. This was also before you could easily search for music you heard anywhere.
I only heard it five years later in a game store and recognized it as the same song I heard in the bank, and this time did find out who it was by.
Not exactly unusual, but… I only bought one artist’s music because I saw them on the Tonight Show, and that was k.d. lang in 1986. She made an impression.
Stumbled across this video of an Oklahoma ghost town. “Down to the River” by The Cadillac Black.
I was on deployment to Guam in 1978, sitting in my room and reading, when I heard guitar music. It was insistent enough that I put down my book and opened my door. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and went down the hall to the room it was coming from and asked the guy “Who the hell is THAT?” Well, it was Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia tearing it up on the Elegant Gypsy album. An amazing fusion of jazz and rock, with some flamenco thrown in. I asked him to make me a copy and I wore out that cassette.
Ha, I was just going to post how I’ve purchased a few albums after hearing one of the songs in an ad, and I that was one of the ones I bought as well. I bought the entire album The Heartlight Set, partly to support the band, and partly on the idea that if I like one of their songs there’s a good chance I’ll like others.
Besides that one, I’ve also bought Shiny Toy Guns’ cover of “Burning For You” after it was used in a Lincoln ad. (that time I just bought the one song).
I also bought Freezepop’s album Future Future Future Perfect after hearing them on NPR. That’s probably not all that unusual, but the reason they were on NPR was to talk about how they experienced a sudden rise in popularity after one of their songs was included in Guitar Hero.
I first heard The Ramones, Frank Zappa, The B-52s, Devo and Weird Al on Dr. Demento. The last two were several years before getting a record deal. In Al’s case sending in tapes; In Devo’s case sending in copies of their first indie singles.
I learned about Big Star/Alex Chilton from the Replacements’ song “Alex Chilton”.
I discovered Southern Culture on the Skids after “Camel Walk” was featured over the end credits of the indie comedy “Flirting With Disaster”.
When I was a kid, a garage/punk band named The Weasels was renting the house on the corner. Us youngsters would hang out and chat while they were rehearsing. One day in 1977 they told us they were going to be playing in a club on the Sunset Strip up in Hollywood. They were going to play before some band called Van Halen. About a year later, VH’s cover of “You Really Got Me” exploded all over the radio. “Hey, that’s the band The Weasels played with!”