This thread be for finding bands/songs that accurrately predate the sound of a really popular artist that came later

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This was partially inspired by reading an old thread where someone mentioned a Wire song off of 154 being the blueprint for late-80's Sonic Youth. That planted the seed in my head. It reminded me of some other cases like that (this one John Cale song sounding like Beck's sampling-era stuff being another, etc) and resurfaced tonight when I heard Doll House by the Blue Things. The Blue Things were a mid-60's American garage band that I remembered liking but hearing Doll House tonight I couldn't get it out of my head how much they sounded like early-R.E.M. It has the jangly guitars, the Michael Stipe voice and even the opaque lyrics that leave lots of room for deciphering. Not polished enough to sound like something worthy of an appearance on an album, but maybe a rough demo of something off of Murmur. Agree or disagree?

http://s25.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0164I7TM8C5TV3AJYVOT5SVEGA

Let's try to name other releases that define and/or predict the sound of a future band.

Another example would be to say that a certain song off of the VU's 1969 album would be the blueprint for Galaxie 500 (to use a clichè) or to say that "I Should've Known Better" is the closest Beatle song to "There She Goes" by the La's, in a way being the actual relative that is always vaguely brought up when discussing the latter band and comparing it to the former. But There She Goes was atypical of lots of other stuff recorded by the band so it might not best define "the band", but at least their most famous song for which they are known for almost exclusively.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 28 August 2005 07:11 (twenty years ago)

I actually think Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" was much more an establishment of the G500 prototype than anything VU ever did.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Sunday, 28 August 2005 07:20 (twenty years ago)

That's an interesting point. I was just using a clichè comparison that I figured many had heard before with mine.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 28 August 2005 08:22 (twenty years ago)

"really popular"

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 28 August 2005 08:49 (twenty years ago)

And should "I Should Have Known Better" by Wire have been a cover? And would it have set back history if it were?

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 28 August 2005 08:52 (twenty years ago)

Every song on Neil Young's first solo album sounds exactly the same as Dinosaur Jr (and every other American slacker indie rock band).

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Sunday, 28 August 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

What's the name of that album?

And which Wire song would that be? I could maybe see the riffs of "Two People In a Room" or the noisy stuff in "A Touching Display" being Sonic Youth-y but not to the point of being the blueprint. (Most obviously, the vocals and production are very different.)

― Sundar (sundar), Sunday, 28 August 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

curve pointed the way to garbage.

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 28 August 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Great thread! My question is: Who predated the raggamuffin-with-brit-house-sound of Reel 2 Real's "I like to move it"?

― Herr Fahrstuhl, Sunday, 28 August 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

Suzanne Vega's 1991 album 99.9oF quite surreally predates the acoustic-guitar-over-industrial-loops sound that every female singer-songwriter took to the bank around 1997.

Re: The Blue Things - OMG you are right a hundred times over. The guy sounds exactly like early Stipe (especially when he kind of half-heartedly attempts a falsetto in the bridge), the balance between the acoustic and electric guitars are straight out of Murmur and even the tambourine accents on the drums are very Berry as produced by Mitch Easter. Wow.

And kudos for supporting a claim with a YSI, I wish we all did it all the time.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 28 August 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading up on the Blue Things - looks like they predated a lot of stuff!

Bobby had to cut out his drum head and use marching sticks to get the volume he wanted. Mike usually played blue guitars, everything from a '56 Stratocaster to a Danelectro guitarolin, a longhorn with a three octave scale, rigged with built-in fuzztone and special pickups. Chapman supposedly burned a guitar onstage one night at the Johnson County Rec Center (later Coya's Castle) in suburban Kansas City, a couple of years before Jimi Hendrix would do something similar. Richard Scott was ambidextrous, so he would keep his bass on a saxophone strap so he could switch from right to left handed play and back in midsong. The Blue Things drew their biggest crowds in Tulsa, Omaha and Wichita, introducing light shows and smoke machines to the Midwest.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 28 August 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

Faith No More predates Limp Bizkit.
Helmet predates Chevelle.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Sunday, 28 August 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

boys and girls - blur predates lad bands/dancepunk/strokes

― ihope (ihope), Sunday, 28 August 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)

I forgot to mention how I always felt that Pere Ubu's Final Solution felt like a precursor to the fat white man ranting's of a Black Francis/Frank Black Pixies song. Not to say I don't love the rants.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 28 August 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

In what format is that Blue Things file?

― Sundar (sundar), Sunday, 28 August 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

What's the Cale song that sounds like sample-happy Beck? Speaking of which, Holger Czukay's 1981 Movies album, especially "Cool in the Pool" is pretty Beck-ish.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Sunday, 28 August 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

Going back to Wire, it's been said that "Outdoor Miner" on Chairs Missing=proto-GBV...

― Craig D., Sunday, 28 August 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

Interpol is Josef K dressed up for 00's NYC.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: a casualty of social estrangement. (Eastern Mantra), Sunday, 28 August 2005 22:57 (twenty years ago)

The Blue Things song is in mp3 and the John Cale song that I thought sounded like Beck when I first heard it was Letter From Abroad, although it's still weirder than anything Beck has ever done I think.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 28 August 2005 23:04 (twenty years ago)

i've never heard that john cale song. would you ysi it please?

― reo, Sunday, 28 August 2005 23:23 (twenty years ago)

I feel pretty stupid now, looking back at when I got that John Cale song (from a music friend about a year ago over AIM) I assumed it was from the 70's or 80's but it was actually a really recent release (from 2003!!!). So any idea of it "predating" Beck is pretty impossible. Oh well, still a great song that does sound like Beck or Beta Band. Serves me right for being presumptious about John Cale's best work being done a long time ago I guess.

http://s27.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2OMXFWMB0CRS10NDJAIRAPEPKA

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 28 August 2005 23:34 (twenty years ago)

c'mon Ian, the only thing Interpol and Josef K have in common IS the sports jacket.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 29 August 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

Tyrannosaurus Rex > Devendra Banhart

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 29 August 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

Alice Desoto of 80s synth pop duo The Vels ("Once Upon a Time", "Tell Me Something") anticipated Britney Spears' cartoonish voice on upbeat dance pop (but not ballads).

― Curt (cgould), Monday, 29 August 2005 02:08 (twenty years ago)

"running wild" by 60s group fresh air could easily pass for a GbV song

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Monday, 29 August 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

Shampoo's "Trouble" IS every Spice Girls song ever.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, 29 August 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

If you really want to hear some tracks that influenced Sonic Youth, try some of these gems...

Red Transistor - Not Bite / We're Not Crazy 7" (1977)
The Fall - Dragnet (1979)
Glenn Branca - The Ascension (1981)

Listen to those, then listen to any pre-Sister SY album.

― Edward III, Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

also Computer Dating by the Theoretical Girls, and I always thought Helicopter Spies by the Swell Maps.

Alice Desoto is still playing in bands around NYC these days.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

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