10 Classic Albums That Came Out Of Nowhere

Never wasting the element of surprise.

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Columbia Records

After all this time, you'd think that people would begin to realize that pop culture predictions are a load of BS.

As much as people like to pride themselves on their track record and try to come up with up and coming stars, there's no rhyme or reason as to why artists and songs become famous in the first place. Hell, if you're not careful, some of the greatest artists of their generation have been known to come virtually out of the blue to grab their millions.

Whether it was right out of the gate or a bold new reinvention of their sound, each of these artists caught their audiences off guard with these albums, with hooks that were as strange sounding as the instrumentation around it. Although the settling in period for some of these records may have been a bit fractured, there was no question of the talent on display once things started rolling.

Almost like a ray of light, these albums managed to guide us into the more hopeful side of the music scene, that didn't have to rely on the "road-tested" way that artists normally gain traction.

Even with the massive amount of experience record execs claim to have, these are the albums that show how the music scene is as much the Wild West as it was in the early days.

10. Dookie - Green Day

As the '90s started to really get rolling, the rock landscape didn't have time to concern itself with having fun or anything. No, this was the era of grunge, where everything was either about the harmful use of drugs or the internal depression that many go through as a teenager.

Once Kurt Cobain died, though, the transition into the pleasant melodies of Green Day was like night and day when compared to grunge.

From a sonic perspective, this felt like the polar opposite of grunge music, with the same loud guitars but with a snot-nosed twist that made everything a lot more palatable for the teenage demographic.

As much as this might have been considered an industry plant, Billie Joe Armstrong's 'little punk band that could' weren't really supposed to hit the ground running like this at all, being just a bunch of kids from the California Bay Area who decided to roll the dice with a major label.

Even the first few weeks of Dookie weren't that great either, with word of mouth traveling super-slow before the age of cell phones. When people actually got ahold of things though, it became just the ticket to help us move on from the revolution that had largely been brought to an end with Cobain's passing.

Grunge was now the past; the future was coming on through a couple of chords and lip piercings.

Contributor
Contributor

I'm just a junkie for all things media. Whether it's music, movies, TV, or just other reviews, I absolutely adore this stuff. But music was my first love, and I love having the opportunity to share it with you good people. Follow Me On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/timcoffman97