How did you get into ...?

[Sage3]

How did you get into a particular band or artist?

What made you look into this artist? What was the first song you heard by them? First album purchased?

I think it would be interesting to compare stories of how we came across some of our favorite artists.

[X-Nightcrawler]

50% of my favorite bands, because of schmoe reccomendations in the "Metal" thread.

30% or so, odd browsing internet, music videos, etc.

20% MTV videos.

[a7xfan]

well i'll talk about my favourite band, avenged sevenfold.

i actually got into them about 2 years ago, from my friends girlfriend, she introduced me and my friend to them, and we have both loved them ever since.

i think i first heard 'beast and the harlot'..........and that was it.

so i started purchasing their albums, and they have never dissapointed me since.......

[AversionTherapy]

Videos when i was a kid on kerrang, first got me into korn, mettalica, linkin park etc, then the influence of my girlfriend got me into acoustic stuff which i now love, my favourite artists being nick drake, the shins, the eels, jose gonzalez and more stuff like that.
Also i really got into led zeppelin and the song tangerine really inspired me to sort myself out and was a big part of a big change in my life, hence a big tattoo of the zeppelin symbols on my right arm. The first album of theres i got was III and it just showed me what real meaningful music was.

[athf1980]

I got into classic rock from my friends

I got into Movie scores because of movies

I got into Johnny Cash because of the opening to Dawn of the Dead with his great When man comes around song.

[Homyrrh]

There was a small underground rap influence on the MaddenMania boards back in the day ('03 then, now defunct...), and I kind of picked up on it from there. I had Rhapsody on the family computer then, and the program was really good for expanding my grasp of the genre.

I've also loved classical for as long as I can remember, specifically the symphonic arrangements (Mozart, Vivaldi, Holdst, Beethoven, etc.). The two types of music constitute the vast majority of my listening, and consequently my interest fuels my pursuit (almsot exclusively online) to find more artists and albums, etc.

[zombievictim]

Umm...lets see. My favorite band is The White Stripes. It was about the time Icky Thump came out, and I heard the single and loved it. I remembered listening to The White Stripes before but I was never really into music. So I listened to the entire CD and loved it. Then listened to the other ones my dad has. And loved them more. Then I downloaded their entire discography and loved them to death. I've probably listened to all of their CDs...10+ times each. Probably more.

[DareDevil]

Reading/watching interviews of my favorite musicians and listening to who they say are good or were inspirations to them.

[Criminal Rock]

Friends, the internet, and magazines...

In that order.

[Le_Big_Mac]

I got into the Rolling Stones after hearing Gimme Shelter in a commercial for The Departed on DVD (didn't remember it from the movie) so I want and bought it on iTunes, leading to many more purchases.

That's the only artist that has a special story to how I found them, since it was really the first (my interest in popular music isn't that old). Most other artists I heard of by word of mouth or because of their general fame or I simply heard one of their good songs. I was never really big on buying any albums until much later because I would just get as many interesting ones as I could find out of various libraries (I still do).

[Jerk Shapiro]

My dad got me into a lot of older good stuff, like The Beatles and whatnot. That developed later on into a love of classic rock like Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Who, etc. Then I guess, for about a year if it wasn't classic rock I didn't listen to it. Then I came to my senses, started smoking pot again, and discovered what I had been missing. This would probably put me where I am now, addicted to "jam bands" and funk music. Still love classic rock, though.

[Psychocandy]

How did I get into The Jesus & Mary Chain? The answer is very, very simple. I heard April Skies on the radio. That was it. I immediately knew that i'd discovered something very special. And I was right. I'll be back with a guide to how I discovered other bands. It wasn't always as simple as it was with The Mary Chain.

[LordSimen]

Some I got into through friends, some through going to shows, some through the internet.

[Criminal Rock]

How did I get into a particular artist?

Well, to start off, I was musically repressed by my parents until I was about 15 or 16 years old. So I was behind most other kids my age in terms of discovering my style of music... My mums would get me shit like Savage Garden for my birthday and on jesus day (which I never listened to because it usually sucked ass), and my family couldn't afford cable TV so I had absolutely no idea what was out there. I was completely cut off.

Oh, and at the time all I had was my lame ass portable am/fm radio which didn’t receive anything good. So no radio for Josh either.

In any case, enough with the background crap, my first love was the Chili Peppers. Full stop. My uncle took me to see them when I was like 6 years old, although (sadly) I don't remember anything after parking the car. But I knew of the band because of it and I remember hearing their music at a friend’s house or whatever. Come 9 or 10 years later, I then rediscovered the band when a cousin gave me a copy of BSSM on tape. Favorite band ever since. That shit, literally, changed my life forever. From them I discovered Foo Fighters, then Nirvana, then went on to Pearl Jam, then to Alice and Chains, and then to Rage Against the Machine... etc, etc, etc...

But yeah, that’s how I got into the Chili Peppers... through a series of fortunate events.

[Jerk Shapiro]

I also got big into the Chilis after seeing them back in '06 at Voodoo Fest. Twas the greatest show I'd seen until that point. Actually, it made every other show I had seen seem like a fucking peanut operation. Still one of the best shows I've ever seen, and I've probably listened to a little Chili Peppers almost everyday since then.

[Sigur509]

I bought Amnesiac after hearing about 15 seconds of I Might Be Wrong on my local radio station. Then at a random order I bought all of their albums. The rest is history.

I had always been a fan of Fade into You in Starship Troopers, but it wasn't until I heard Flowers in December that I fell in love with Mazzy Star. I just wish they had released more albums. They still never get old for me.

[Ayestrain]

Friends' word of mouth, reviews, people playing stuff for me. Some of the best stuff I've got into I just took a chance on and bought it.

A funny example is PJ Harvey. I knew very little about her until I saw the video for "50 Ft. Queenie" on MTV's Beavis & Butthead several, several years back. I was intrigued enough that I filed it away for later, until I took a chance and bought her Is This Desire? LP in the late 90's. Now I own all her CDs, b-sides, several bootlegs (& more) & seen her concert a couple times. It's just funny that you never know when somethings first going to impact like you like that, & whether you'll be responsive or not..

[Cronos]

Most of the music I listen to was either from my dad, friends recommendations (In Flames, Explosions In The Sky etc) or just random stuff I've downloaded (Nightwish, Grendel, God Is An Astronaut, Firescape etc)
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