…when you first heard those incredible notes:
U2: Sunday Bloody Sunday
Uncle Tupelo: Slate
Johnny Nash: I Can See Clearly Now
etc., etc.,
to be clear, which I wasn’t, I would like to hear stories about how you guys and gals heard a song for the first time, and how it affected you. That is all.
Well, I remember being in the passenger seat of my older brother’s car when I first heard “Stairway to Heaven” in 1972. Although I’m very bored of the song now, it really did impress me as a ten year old. I still remember the ending and my brother saying “What a great song!” And me whole-heartedly agreeing.
I heard “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley on MySpace weeks before it took off, and was convinced it was going to be a massive hit, and a classic. I even posted about it before it hit, and thought I was being all cutting edge and stuff, then was (quite rightly) smacked down by other posters who had already been aware of it for ages. But still, most average people (in the US) hadn’t yet heard the song at that point.
I remember hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana when it first came out in late 1991. I knew it was something different… something special. It just had this sound like I had never heard before and somewhere in my 16-year-old brain, I recognized that it was the start of something big.
It’s actually a special memory of mine because a few weeks after that, my big brother bought me Nevermind on cassette tape as a birthday present, and I remember thinking how cool it was that my brother predicted that I would be very into that sound (whereas normally my brother would ignore me). That was just the beginning of my grunge fan period, where I loved Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.
I don’t listen to radio much, but started up again about a month ago. I heard Viva La Vida by Coldplay, and I immediately knew it was a hit. But I still don’t know what a “Roman Cavalry Choir” is.
I was in a heavy metal bar outside of Ft Hood Texas when this song was played during the band’s break. It is the only time I remember thinking that way about a song I never head before. I was never a big Nirvana or Grunge fan but I knew it was special when I first heard it.
When I first heard Outkast’s Hey Ya on a friend’s stereo system during a house party, and people just got up and spontaneously started dancing (myself among them, and I don’t dance much), I knew that 1) it was gonna be a massive hit and 2) I loved it.
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Blues Traveler**'s Hook was also love at first listen. I think I was completely and utterly enraptured by the end of the harmonica solo, and I remember thinking to myself, “This is the best pop song ever made.” After more than 10 years and hundreds of listens, the most I can back down from that statement is: “This is one of the best pop songs ever made.” It’s too bad nothing else that Blues Traveler has written even comes close!
The dance music from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Best Christmas special music ever.
I Feel Love. In 1977 it sounded like music from the future, which I suppose it was.
Heart of Glass. Still sounds great, that one.
Thirded on Smells Like Teen Spirit. I first heard it on a TV show, and was blown away by it, but I remember some old farts at work the next day saying “what the hell was that noise on Top of the Pops??” That just confirmed to me that Nirvana were going to be huge 
MGMT’s “Electric Feel”. Like Equipoise, I discovered it shortly before MGMT started getting mainstream airplay (at least in the US – somehow though they’re from Brooklyn the UK embraced them first) and I just couldn’t stop playing that track from the album. It was released as a single about a year ago and enjoyed a great deal of popularity.
Windwalker, we’ll probably just agree to disagree here but I think “Run Around” is Blues Traveler’s superior single and a truly fantastic song.
I’d like to sort of disagree about Smells Like Teen Spirit. To me it was a memorable song at the time, in that I remembered it when I heard it on college radio a week after first hearing it, but it wasn’t any sort of paradigm shift and it would have been quickly forgotten had it not become a huge hit a couple weeks after I heard it. Although I can understand how could hit people who were not listening to college rock radio at the time as a hugely different song that.
I have to 4th “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I didn’t listen to rock radio at the time–I was raised with country music–but my best friend had an older brother who gave him the Nevermind CD. Lots of times I’d flipped past it in his CD case, but one day Metallica’s Black Album ended and the next disc in the changer was Nirvana. I’ll never, ever forget hearing that opening riff, stopping whatever the fuck I was doing, and thinking "man, that’s something completely different than I’ve ever heard…and it rocks.
I must have re-started that track 10 times just to hear the first 30 seconds. To this day it’s one of my favorite songs of all time.
The first time I heard The Music Must Change by The Who, I had just been woken up by my clock radio, and I was lying there groggily. When the song started playing, it brought me to full consciousness immediately. I was already a huge Who fan, and this song just stunned me.
I’m usually not the first to become aware of a new song, album, or artist. But I did buy Sixpence None the Richer’s self-titled album before they hit it big, and I do remember thinking “Kiss Me” had what it took to be a big hit. (Then again, I know of quite a few other songs that are good and catchy and could have been big hits if anyone ever heard them, but which have remained obscure.)
Although I ended up somewhat liking Nirvana, I honestly never realized, and don’t realize to this day, what was so special about Smells Like Teen Spirit. Maybe I was at the wrong age to “get it” (I was only about 11.) And maybe I was just at the right age to “get” this (about 15), but I knew Sublime was something special the very moment I heard them. A really “cool” kid who had moved out from socal gave me rides to school and he played them in the car sometimes. Sure enough, a year or so later, they were huge. They never acheived mega super Britney Spears Jimmy Page stardom, but to this day whenever I see a group of teenagers, one of them is wearing a Sublime shirt. That’s more than most '90s bands can boast.
I was a little kid, around 8 years old, and had a little AM radio I used to listen to in my bedroom at night when the lights were out. I remember very clearly when I first heard the Beatles’ “Let it Be.” I was mesmerized. The song was just so comforting. I was left home alone a lot around that time, and my radio was a big deal to me, and that song became my instant favorite. It’s been a favorite ever since.
I’ll have to say U2, also. Waay back in the '70’s I came home from another big night at the disco, much worse for the wear, at 2 or 3 a.m., ready to conk out. I had the TV on and there was a late night syndicated show (Night Flight?) on… U2 - live concert at Red Rocks - I heard about 5 minutes and chills went down my spine! I sat up and watched the whole concert because I knew coming over the airwaves that night was Greatness!
Late night, listening to the radio to fall asleep… Riders on the Storm.
I was suddenly wide awake and knew I’d heard something special.
Years later I had almost the same experience with Darkness on the Edge of Town.
You know, it’s threads like this that make me realize how incompatible I am with most people here.
My nominee is Heartbreak Hotel by The King. Brought home a 78 and pretty much wore it out. My mother pooh-poohed it and said he was a flash in the pan and would never last and why was I wasting my money on that foolishness.:eek: