In 2014, due to a glitch in the Canadian version of iTunes, a Taylor Swift song titled “Track 3” was released and immediately shot to the top of the charts. Fans who downloaded the song had purchased eight seconds of static noise for $1.29.
Nadia Comăneci became the first gymnast to receive a perfect score at the Olympics, at 14 years old in ’76. The song “Cotton’s Dream” was used often by Roger Riger to playback Nadia’s performances. The song became a hit in ’76 & the composers changed the song’s title to “Nadia’s Theme”.
You’ve heard people brag (or humblebrag) about being into certain things before they hit the mainstream.
Movies, music, artists, etc. People always like to make sure that everyone out there knows that they were into it WAYYYYYY before it got popular.
But some people really were into stuff before everyone else knew about it.
What were you into before it was cool?
Here’s what folks on AskReddit had to say about this.
1. Snapchat.
“Snapchat. I downloaded it when it was in its early stages..and then deleted the app shortly after because none of my friends were on it.
I still have people asking me how I got my username.
@ohsnapyo.”
2. Wow!
“I went to a bar a long time ago (illegally- I was below drinking age) to see this punk band play. I liked it enough that I shelled out for one of their cassettes (pre-CD).
The band was Green Day.”
3. Rock star.
“I got stoned with John Mayer in a college town before he put out a CD. He was playing the blues at a club in front of 100 people and i only caught the last song.
We got high and he gave me a cd and wrote on it…. few weeks later I put the cd in and quickly tossed it out.
So I was early adopter of John Mayer playing the blues, AND throwing out his trash studio albums.”
4. Vinyl.
“I was into vinyl before it made a comeback.
And since nobody in the ’90s or early 2000s wanted their records anymore, I basically got 500+ records for free or nearly free.”
5. Potterhead.
“I was reading Harry Potter from like, day one. I remember how this happened so clearly. My dads birthday landed on the same day day that the book was released in the US, September 1, 1998, and we got him a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, among a few other things.
The very next day, my dad and I went to Barnes and Noble. He picked two books, one was a New York Mets coffee table book and the other was the newly released Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, which he handed to me.
There were stacks and stacks of them on a display table right at the front of the store. He mentioned that he had read an article about how good the book was a few weeks prior, and that it would be releasing in the US soon. We were in the store for all of five minutes.
I read the first two chapters on the way home, and was immediately hooked. I swear I read that book a dozen times before going to the midnight release of Chamber of Secrets the following year.”
6. Awesome!
“Saw Metallica for my first concert in 1985 on the Ride The Lightning tour in Austin Texas.”
7. Interesting.
“Donald Glover.
He was part of a comedy group called Derrick Comedy that was absolutely hilarious.”
8. Eminem.
“I once did a Google search for Eminem and it came back with zero results.
I was an editor at All music at the time and emailed my higher ups to tell them he needed a listing ASAP.”
9. Old school.
“I was chugging Pabst Blue Ribbon years before it became the go-to hipster brew.”
10. Back in the day.
“Reddit.
This account is rather recent but I discovered the platform in its infancy. It had less stuff back then but the discussions were better.
And then, mainstream caught up.”
11. DMB.
“When I started college in 1993, the first real big party I went to was a sorority party with a band. I was there before they went on, and when I saw they had a saxophone set up on stage, I (having played alto sax in hs) set my beer down on the stage in front of where the sax player would be.
They wound up being really good live, and a few weeks later the Dave Matthews Band first album came out, and I bought it first day.
I’ll never forget taking that cd home at Christmas break and playing it for high school friends who said “WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS SH*T?” The next year they all apologized because they were all into them once they got popular.
I saw them a few times, but after they got super big I really didn’t like any of their new material and quit listening to them. The last time I saw them I remember seeing Daisy Fuentes outside the theater interviewing people after the show and had a feeling they were about to be a big MTV band.
However, from time to time I’ll hear an old tune of theirs and will remember when I thought they were very cool.”
12. Get with it!
“Adult coloring.
I never liked drawing but loved coloring, so as I grew up I would seek out all kinds of coloring books. I loved how calming it was, and I would often color with my grandparents so I created a lot of fond memories there.
I got made fun of a lot for my hobby until it suddenly became cool in the last few years.”
13. Good stuff.
“Tito’s Vodka.
I was living in Austin before it went nationwide and after moving back to the Midwest, it took a couple years for the mass release before it really took off.”
14. Cool Mom!
“My white suburban mom did yoga back in the 1970’s when it was considered “a hippy thing”.”
15. Crazy.
“I was out for the night back when I was 17/18/19. A friend and I went to a good pub in Oxfordshire where we thought we’d have a chance to pick up some girls.
Ended up getting drunk, taking an E and listening to the band who were pretty good. After their set we popped out of the pub for a quick joint.
The band walked over and asked for a toke. Ended up spending the rest of the evening In the back of their van smoking weed and drinking.
Turned out that the band was an unknown indie/rock group called Radiohead. A couple of weeks later Creep went international.
Been a fan ever since.”
Now we want to hear from you.
What were you into to before it became really popular?
90’s band Ace of Base only got worldwide fame due to their demo tape getting stuck in a producers car stero resulting in him listening to it repeatedly and realizing the songs potential.
You might be surprised how many singers are also songwriters, and that sometimes, they don’t keep their music and lyrics to themselves. They share the love, or they’re not making an album currently, or what they’ve written doesn’t vibe with their style – or, you know, someone paid them a lot of money for it.
If you’re curious, here are 11 famous musicians who wrote giant hits for other artists.
11. Bruno Mars helped write “All I Ask” with Adele for her 2015 album, 25.
“As soon as we hit a couple chords that Adele liked, we started rolling and that’s where we got that song from.
There was a moment when she was singing in the booth – and I’m not exaggerating at all – and the water was vibrating.
Like you know that scene in Jurassic Park where the water starts jiggling?
She’s got some pipes on her, and she’s just a superstar.”
10. Taylor Swift wrote “This Is What You Came For” for Calvin Harris and Rihanna
Swift has a songwriting pseudonym, Nils Sjöberg, and Calvin Harris didn’t appreciate her coming out as the writer.
“I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy, etc., but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it.”
I guess he didn’t like the spotlight being on her instead of him and Rhianna.
9. Harry Styles wrote “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart” for Ariana Grande’s 2014 album, My Everything.
An MTV interview revealed that Styles was “just visiting the studio” when the producers asked if he wanted to write a song for Ariana.
The two worked together for awhile, and it clicked!
“I remember when I heard it, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a really strong verse, that’s really beautiful!’ and then at the chorus I was, like, crying!
I’m really excited, obviously for his fans to hear it as well, ’cause they were very excited when they heard.”
8. Pharrell helped write “Hollaback Girl” with Gwen Stefani for her 2004 album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Stefani had the idea for the song, based on her experience in high school, but Pharrell already had it written.
“He always had this little keyboard that he writes everything on, and he programs stuff into it.
He goes, ‘This beat?’ and he played ‘Hollaback Girl.’
I was like ‘You had that in there all these hours and you never played that until now? Why didn’t you play that the first time I walked in here?!’”
7. Mariah Carey wrote Faith Hill’s “Where Are You Christmas?” for the How the Grinch Stole Christmas soundtrack in 2000.
Carey originally thought to perform herself, but a legal battle between Carey and her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola, meant Faith Hill recorded it instead.
6. Kelly Clarkson wrote “Tell Me a Lie” for One Direction’s 2011 album, Up All Night.
Clarkson talked about writing the song in 2012, saying
“Giving away my songs is not something I do lightly.
I’m very particular about that because my songs are like my babies – I’m such a writer’s snob.
But I like the story of One Direction and how they came together as a group.
They’ve worked so well in the US, as well as the UK, because people love a story.
Plus, they have this innocence about them that attracts people.’”
5. Missy Elliott wrote “My Love Is Like…Wo” for Mýa’s 2003 album, Moodring.
Elliot tweeted about the experience in 2018, saying
“I remember I had 10 shots of Patron writing the lyrics.
I played it for Mya and we was dancing ’round the studio having a ball. In this music video, SHE DID DAT.
The choreography was lit.”
4. Miguel and Justin Timberlake helped write “Rocket” with Beyoncé for her 2013 self-titled album, Beyoncé.
Beyonce revealed the songwriting assistance in her documentary.
“There was a moment in the studio where I didn’t wanna stop singing it, and I just kind of zoned out.
I don’t think I would’ve done it back then – I don’t think I would’ve been confident enough.
I wouldn’t been too afraid of what other people thought.”
3. Christina Milian wrote “Play” for Jennifer Lopez’s 2001 album, J.Lo.
Milian appeared on Talk Stoopin 2019, and recalled,
“A lot of the songs I wrote early on were songs I wrote for myself.
So for people like Jennifer Lopez, Play was a song I originally wrote for myself.
When we were in the studio and recorded it, she hadn’t added the ‘Play my motherf%cking song!’ lyric yet.
I remember I heard it on the radio, and everyone was talking about how she cursed on the song.
But I loved that she did that.”
2. Prince wrote “Manic Monday” for the Bangles’ 1986 album, Different Light.
Susanna Hoffs, the Bangles lead singer, told NPR that Prince was a fan of the band, and wrote the song before inviting them into his studio to listen to the demo.
They “hovered around the cassette machine – ’cause back then, it was tape – and they were smitten with the song. I wish I had a chance in the decades after to tell him: ‘Thank you for the song.’ It’s still fun to sing, every time.”
1. John Lennon helped write “Fame” with David Bowie for Bowie’s 1975 album, Young Americans.
Bowie toldPerforming Songwriter in 2003 “John and I had been talking about management, and it kind of came out of that. He was telling me, ‘You’re being shafted by your present manager,’ and that was basically the line. John was the guy who opened me up to the idea that all management is crap, and that there’s no such thing as good management in rock ‘n’ roll.”
“It was at John’s instigation that I really did without managers and started getting people in to do specific jobs for me, rather than signing myself away to one guy forever and have him take a piece of everything that I earn.”
I’m surprised by some of these, but now that you know, you can kind of hear it, right?
What’s your favorite example of this? If it’s not on the list, share it with us in the comments!
Background singers in the Beatles’ All You Need Is Love include Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon, Graham Nash and Eric Clapton.
Here’s the best things about Converse Chucks: they truly cross generations, as everyone from the upper edges of GenX and down through the current generation of Z (or whatever they will be called), consider them a closet staple.
Sure, there are those Vans people, or those people who claim not to like Chucks, but we know they’re all wrong, and that’s all that matters.
So, without further ado, here are 9 facts about the company that makes your favorite shoes.
Rubber Tracks, a Brooklyn-based recording studio that offers time for free, opened in 2011 – the company finally embracing its role in the music scene, as well.
Though they’ve done things like introduce slip-ons and elastic heels to some designs, the classic Chuck Taylor has endured, flaws and all. In the 1990s, the company tried introducing All-Stars that were more comfortable and had fewer design inconsistencies, but fans didn’t want it.
Though Chuck Taylors are closely associated with punk rockers, and The Ramones in particular, Marky Ramone told Spin it wasn’t a love affair or anything.
“Dee Dee and I switched over to the Chuck Taylors because they stopped making the style of U.S. Keds and Pro-Keds that we liked. Joey never wore them.
He needed a lot of arch support and Chuck Taylors are bad for that.”
Country music used to be known as “hillbilly” music. Billboard released its first country chart in 1939, called “Hillbilly Hits.” Though that name lost favor as a pejorative, it left its mark. After country artists started using rock techniques, they created Hillbilly rock, or Rockabilly.
Everyone who loves history and a sick beat and fun things in general is geeking out over Hamilton right now. Whether you’re discovering it for the first time on Disney+ or coming back to it like an old friend, it’s delightful, and honestly, none of us can get enough.
If you’re out there reading everything you can find about the hit musical, it’s cast and creators, well, you’re going to want to scan these 19 behind-the-scenes secrets.
Two of the days took place during live performances and the third, which gave us all of those delicious close-ups, dolly shots, Steadicam, and crane angles, was shot in an empty theater.
17. Philippa Soo preferred to stay in character.
When @Phillipasoo and I would sit on the piano bench, she would be completely in character the whole time. We would talk like mom and son during a piano lesson. We had a whole scene about Alexander and me not wanting to perform the poem for him. #anactorprepares#hamilfilm
— RenéeEliseGoldsberry (@ReneeGoldsberry) July 4, 2020
They each wanted to be there for their characters, but probably also for the magic.
12. Leslie Odom Jr.’s favorite song is “The Story of Tonight.”
Image Credit: Disney+
Seeing “four men of color on a stage singing together about friendship and brotherhood” left a Leslie explained, “Never in my life, you see, had I seen four men of color on a stage singing together about friendship and brotherhood.” on him when he saw it during an early staging.
The line when Jefferson says “uhhh…France’ was improvised during “What’d I Miss.”
6. Renee Elise Goldsberry confesses that the final toast was actually the hardest part for her.
Image Credit: Disney+
Yes, even though she rapped and performed “Helpless” backwards during “Satisfied.” The emotion of the moment got to her.
5. Philippa Soo believes the “final gasp” could mean a lot of things.
Image Credit: Disney+
It can be interpreted as Eliza getting to heaven, Eliza seeing Alexander (or Philip), or Eliza seeing the audience and realizing her legacy – or all three at the same time.
4. Lin Manuel is as impressed with Daveed Diggs as the rest of us.
.@DaveedDiggs has a sense of rhythm in that is IMPECCABLE! I marvel at it. @Lin_Manuel added an entire second section to "Guns And Ships" because we wanted to hear him do more!#Hamilfilm