“I forgot how good they were” | When you re-discover music you’d forgotten or dismissed

One of the wonderful things about being into awesome music is how it’s possible to ‘rediscover’ a band that you’d either forgotten about, or otherwise thought you knew well enough to have dismissed.

While I can only speak for myself, I suspect many others may have experienced this same phenomenon. It usually occurs years after you became familiar with an artist — and inevitably, the rediscovery manifests in a random or unexpected way.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Maybe you re-assessed a band after you saw them at a gig or festival?

I had this precise experience after seeing Rammstein at their final Big Day Out appearance in Australia, all the way back in 2011. I love much of the Rammstein discography but at the time I’d dismissed 2009’s Liebe Ist Für Alle as mediocre — that was, until I saw much of it played live.

That show changed my perspective about this album. I can, with full confidence, say that I got back into Liebe Ist Für Alle with a whole new level of appreciation post-concert, precisely because I saw half of it played live in all its fiery glory (tragically, almost 10 years have elapsed since the last full-length Rammstein studio album, so until then we at least have the wholesomely glorious cheese of Lindemann).

Similarly, a good friend saw Gary Numan and subsequently had an even more electric experience. It began when she went to one of his gigs even though she was not familiar with his discography. Having elected to see Gary Numan with no preconceived expectations, she emerged as a true believer. Now she's the proud owner of vinyl test pressings and hand-written lyric sheets.

I never gave Sabaton much thought until I saw them live on the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise. What they lack in technical wizardry they make up for with the right attitude. And songs exclusively about military history.

Maybe a friend or acquaintance got you into a new group?

Those who are into fantastic music tend to gravitate towards others who are also into fantastic music. To ask someone “are you into so-and-so artist” or “have you heard the latest this-and-that?” is not so much a conversation starter as a way of life. On the other hand, when you've figuratively heard it all, and when you’re so deeply and heavily into your music that you rarely get surprised by new sounds, it’s inevitable that new and old things occasionally get tuned out.
One way to filter out the noise is to have a trusted source, such as a respected friend, invoke your full attention and articulate a new perspective.

Indeed, I would struggle to list the vast number of artists and tracks that I’ve gotten into as a direct consequence of one-on-one conversations and recommendations from good friends.

In fact, one of my all-time favourite activities with one of my best mates involved him bringing over a bag of CDs (yes, physical media), whereupon we would have a few beers while chilling out to and talking about tunes. While on almost every occasion the evening’s proceedings would close with’90s Eurotrance YouTube videos, I rate it as one of the very best ways imaginable to discover new music.

Maybe you forgot how good an artist was until you heard track played in your randomised shuffle playlist?

My shuffled playlist, more than any other factor, brings me back to music I’d tuned out, dismissed, mentally put aside, or otherwise forgotten about for months or years. I have facts to back this up: my playlist logs the Last played date next to each track, so when I see albums and artists that I know and love, I’m often surprised by how many years have passed since I last played them.

By that I mean track six from an album I’d long forgotten about suddenly grabs my attention in ways it never had previously, and for no other reason but that it came on unannounced in that shuffled playlist.

Left to run its natural course, this phenomenon often concludes with words that might best be paraphrased as “I forgot how good they were” and “I never really paid much attention to them until...”

This once more got me listening to Hocico. Pic: Discogs.

My Hocico ‘re-discovery’

This very thought occurred to me after I’d ‘re-discovered’ Mexican EBM electro-industrial champions Hocico the other day.

I was going through some photos on my hard drive of old music purchases (I’m just that kind of person) and I came across this single from EBM industrial outfit Hocico, purchased a few years back. The single is Dog Eat Dog, released in 2010.

Many months had passed since I’d last listened to big blocks of Hocico, and two things happened after I re-listened — or ‘re-discovered’ — this single.

Firstly, it immediately reminded me of how fantastic the Hocico discography is. Indeed, I’ll concede that, in this instance, it wasn’t a case of appreciation for a band that I’d dismissed but rather a case of “I forgot how good they were”.

To the point: I’d never dismissed Hocico. They are superb. It’s just that, for whatever reason, Hocico are a group I regularly revisit, but probably not regularly enough because there remains an unimaginably vast volume of awesome music still waiting to be discovered or revisited. Indeed, my hardrive playlist, consisting almost exclusively of music copied from my physical music collection, lists 55 continuous days’ worth of music.

As I said, it’s a bit too easy to filter out things when you’re so heavily into it. Other times, things just gather dust in the archive.

55.1 days of continuous music. If I played my entire collection 24 hours a day, I would get to listen to each track just 6.6 times per year.

The other thing to occur with the ‘re-discovery’ was that I was reminded of how privileged I was to have seen Hocico live in Australia. In 2012 I caught them at the Melbourne leg, a show that I thought was fantastic even though there were some technical difficulties throughout the gig. Despite sustaining a minor back injury — not from moshing-induced action, but merely from wearing a sombrero covered in gaffer tape — I had a fantastic time and you can see more about it in the above links.

Album art and association

In conclusion, a very small stimulus can be a powerful evoker, be it a track that stands out from the shuffle playlist, or actually picking up the *gasp* album art in your hands.

Not to denigrate digital and streaming (I am a heavy Spotify and Bandcamp user as I find both are excellent ways to discover artists that I then spend money on), but I feel the very nature of the physical presence of physical media is one edge it has over digital.

To get really metaphysical for a moment: the physical release is art that you’re holding, whereas the digital release is a representation of that art. Both are entirely valid and have advantages in that they’re equally capable of fulfilling whatever it is you’re hoping to get out of them.

Of course, for those of us who still love physical media, or who listen to their digital versions of legitimate purchases in the full format that they were created in, there’s still the dilemma of how to enjoy the historically maligned single.

Here’s how I get the most out of a release that consists of four remixes and a b-side: how to appreciate the much-maligned CD single.