I’ve been listening to XM’s Lithium station a lot lately–the format is 90s alternative. And there are two bands on there that I really didn’t like much back in the day but love now. The first is Everclear–I was decidedly “meh” about them when they first came out, but now I know every word to all of their singles, and quite a few of them absolutely require singing along. The second is The Offspring. When they first came out all I knew about them is that my boyfriend in high school initially thought they were some sort of weird racist group because all he could understand from their first song was a guy saying “You gotta keep 'em separated.” Not quite sure how he didn’t figure out that the dude was not white from first listen, but whatever, we were teenagers. Anyway, the first hit was “Come Out and Play,” then there was “Self Esteem” and “Pretty Fly For a White Guy” and “Why Don’t You Get a Job” and I wrote them off as a gimmick, never appreciating the wonderful “Gone Away,” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” and “Bad Habit”, among others.
I know I focused on bands here, but this thread has limitless possibilities–I know there were lots of TV shows that I didn’t watch until syndication (like The West Wing) that I ended up loving too late. What did you not enjoy until after it peaked and faded away?
I can remember when I was 10 or 11, I’d be channel surfing and see Star Trek. I’d watch for a bit and realize it was Deep Space 9 and change the channel. I wanted Picard’s crew. Now I’m going through it on Netflix and realizing I should have given it more of a chance. I might end up liking it more than TNG.
C. S. Lewis’s A Horse and his Boy. As I child, I found it boring, and considered it one of my least favorite of the Narnia books (right behind The Last Battle). Re-reading it as an adult, though, I caught so many subtle philosophical and theological points that just went right over my head as a kid. It’s now one of my two favorites (up with Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
I had multiple instances of this happen with various Star Treks. I remember not being interested in TNG during its initial airing because I was a little kid and, hey, it wasn’t a cartoon. Then I got really into TNG and TOS in grade school - but refused to watch Deep Space Nine because it “was boring” and “didn’t have starships.” Also, it was about dull topics like politics and religion. In college, once I realized that those dull topics were actually very interesting, I fell head over heels for DS9. It’s now, by far, my favorite Trek series.
The Beatles are another case for me. I never dug them growing up because they sounded like oldies, and I had neither the musical training to get why their songwriting was so good, nor the patience to sit down and learn why they were so revolutionary. Fast-forward a dozen years or so, and they finally “click” for me. I’ve since accumulated multiple copies of every Beatles record, including numerous bootlegs, and had completed “The Beatles: Rock Band” by the end of its release date.
Great Expectations (and Charles Dickens in general). We read it in high school and it bored me. I reread it later and was delighted to see how wonderful it was.
I’ve recently been on a bit of a Primus kick. I had a lot of friends who loved them growing up, but somehow they never caught my interest. I’ve been playing ‘Jon the Fisherman’ in my band, and have looked up some of their other tunes, and I can’t believe I didn’t get into them back in the 90s.
Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. As a kid, I tolerated Cinderella, but wasn’t into much else. Now I think musicals like Carousel, Oklahoma!, and The King and I.
Other than the hits that I heard on the radio, the Mo-Town sound was on the periphery of my music listening. I was heavily into rock music at that time (Doors, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, etc.) and it wasn’t until much later that I came to fully appreciate the complex harmonies and beautiful voices of those singers.
The only jazz I was familiar with in the 60s were the crossover hits of Brubeck and the Bossa Nova music of Stan Getz. I had a brush with fusion jazz in the 80s, but didn’t really get into bop and post-bop until my late 40s.
Counting Crows. When “Mr. Jones” was blowing up, I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not; I never really listened to the lyrics and thought it was just about hanging out at a bar with a friend. I really liked “Accidentally In Love” after it was featured in the Shrek 2 soundtrack, but still didn’t care enough to explore the band’s other work. It wasn’t until I caught a few seconds of the video to “A Long December” on some compilation album ad that I decided I should actually listen to some of their work, and I was blown away. Now I own every album, and love their music more than I’ve ever loved any group. I really regret not opening up to them sooner.
Come to think of it, I was a snobby teenager in the '90s and never liked anything too popular, so overlooked Nirvana, Alanis, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and about 60% of the songs on my mp3 player.
DS9 always reminded me of a mall or an airport. All I wanted to see was the Enterprise blowing stuff up.
I’m nearly done with TNG and I’ve got 5 seasons of DS9 to go. When I’m done there, I may try Voyager next. I’ve seen less than 10 episodes of that I bet.
What did you not like when you first experienced it, but came to appreciate later?
What did you not even experience until long after it was no longer new?
Regarding #1 – when I was first getting seriously into music as a young lad (well, as a high school/college student), there were a number of works that left me cold at first and ended up being huge favorites. A couple of examples I can think of at the moment are John Mayall’s USA Union and Genesis’ Nursery Cryme. But the winner in that category was David Bowie. I absolutely hated both “Changes” and “Starman” when they first became hits, until at some point, I suddenly realized that I loved them. Later, I was horrified when he put out Young Americans – it seemed like the latest and worst in a series of sell-outs. It wasn’t until years after that I was able to appreciate what he was up to.
Regarding #2 – All my life, I’ve been a Johnny come lately when it comes to music… typically, I don’t get into a group or album until it’s been out at least a few years.
I grew up when Julie Andrews was featured in some Disney movies. I liked the songs…but I didn’t realize just how good she really was until I was an adult. I’m an atheist, and I firmly believe that if you feed the birds, not only do you get fat birds, you get a whole lot of birdshit, too…but I still think that it’s a beautiful song, and a beautiful sequence. She had an absolutely amazing voice.
I didn’t like Dickens when I was a kid, and I STILL don’t like him, though.
For me, it’s The Silver Chair, which I hated as a lad but like quite a bit as an adult. It’s the best-written of the Chronicles (though my favorite remains Dawn Treader).
This is a little different than the other examples given because I’ve always enjoyed this one. I think I was about 10 when it came out and watched it with my family many times (HBO aired it constantly). We all thought it was pretty funny then. In fact, chocolate cake for breakfast became a family in-joke. To this day, if you ask someone in my family what’s for breakfast, the answer is still occasionally “chocolate cake”.
I hadn’t seen it again in decades until about a year ago, and now that I’m an adult and a dad myself, I appreciated it on a completely different level. Watching it again from a parents point of view changed it for me, for the better.
Beans, greens and cornbread. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand why my dad, a doctor, would cook that so often. Why didn’t we just have steak? Well, he did grow up poor in rural Arkansas, and beans, greens and cornbread were mostly what he ate (sort of the equivalent of the college student/ramen thing, I guess). Well, what do you know, I love that stuff now.
My dad was raised by the military, and for him it was shit on a shingle. Now it’s become my nostalgia nosh.
Stuff I not only failed to appreciate, but which I must admit I spurned because I believed that developing taste required partisanship:
Charlie Chaplin: Oh no; Chaplin was too sentimental and cutesy (and a preachy Luddite to boot). You have to appreciate poor, shat-upon absurdist Buster Keaton (who also loved technology). Later I realized there was no law against both their being geniuses.
Mark Twain: Sorry Huck, we of the cognoscenti only read our fellow-cynic Ambrose Bierce. But as good as Bierce is, Twain championed a lot of unpopular political causes that deserved to be championed, not hand-washed away with misanthropy.
On the other hand, in high school I thought Slavador Dali was cool, until I fell in with the college art crowd and agreed that Max Ernst was the Surealist painter worth thinking about. The years still haven’t changed that reasessment.
Rush: My brother was a Rush fan, and I *did *like “Closer to the Heart” but I thought that they were just a Led Zep ripoff. Ha! I kept listening to the “Exit Stage Left” tape, to hear that one song, and they just grew on me.
**Roxy Music. **I had always thought that I was too cool a rocker, and had even seen them once in concert (back in 72) with Edgar Winter, and couldn’t stand them. Then, at a friend’s house, I said “What’s that song?” It was Avalon, and I was hooked.
Gone with the Wind. Yes, I’m a dork. What of it?
The Bible. Couldn’t stand it, before I got saved. Wow.
Sign me up with the Horse and His Boy crowd. Last Battle still sucks though.
On *exactly *the opposite end of the popular media scale, when I was a kid I had a Steve Martin stand-up album. He does a bit about a girl he dated with “the cutest little pussy I’ve ever seen.” Even at seven years old, I “ooohed” along with the audience at that one. The joke is that Martin gets all offended by that reaction: “You people! I was talking about her cat! Nowadays you can’t say anything without people thinking something dirty!” Then he mumbled something under his breath I never understood. 10 or 15 years later I heard the album again and finally picked up the last line: “That cat was the best fuck I ever had.”
When I was about 18 I heard “Star Sign” by Teenage Fanclub. I thought it was catchy but went back to listening to Matthew Sweet and Lush and assorted shoegazers. Some years later I moved to the UK and rediscovered the Fanclub. Now that band is my life.
I always thought the act of cooking was “meh.” You’re going to eat it, and it’s gone, why spend time on it. Then one day my then-wife said, “You know, Duke, you are really good at cooking. In fact, can I invite my friends over so they can see for themselves what I’m raving to them about?” So then I started learning how to cook the things we liked, and it all just sort of blew up from there.
I drank one or two Dr Peppers, I’m sure, when I was young. Didn’t agree with it too much. Now there’s a garbage bag stuffed with empty Diet Dr Pepper bottles that I have to take to the redemption center. I’m looking to get sponsorship soon.
