I couldn't stand them when they were actually a going concern... they really weren't my cup of tea at all.

Then around 10 years ago I met a young woman who absolutely loved them and would play them when she came round to my flat. And gradually I started to realize that I had been completely and utterly mistaken about them. The reversal in my attitude towards them could not have been more extreme... now I consider them to be one of the greatest bands that ever trod the boards.

Whenever I read some mention of Fleet Foxes online or in a magazine, I always moved on. For some reason, I instantly assumed they were some skinny-limbed, tight-clothed Indie band that weren't going to be worth any of my time. Then I stumbled across 'White Winter Hymnal' on another blog about a month ago and bought the album more or less instantly. Fabulous stuff.

I also took a strong dislike to Led Zeppelin when I first started getting into music about ten years ago. I can put this down to no other reason than I knew they were a firm favourite of someone I didn't particularly like. How wrong I was. About Zeppelin. Not the someone.

like the new Oasis album! Will I now be banned from the site?!!!

For me one band that I ran a mile from where the early version of Talk Talk which was in the era of bad dancing, fretless bass and the linn drum kit...then I was visiting a friend who had some amazing music on in the background some years later. I asked who it was and they said Talk Talk..I went out and bought Spirit of Eden.

band names used to put me off: Echo and the Bunnymen and Revolting Cocks being the first two to spring to mind, a quick look through my CD collection will show that I got over it - The Teardrop Explodes however, is a name that made me want to investigate, any band with a name like that just had to be great, and they were

I hated anything with the slightest association with country through the seventies and eighties. Then mostly through Mrs P I was led down those country roads. Some of them were dead ends. The real turning point with Emmylou was Wrecking Ball, the most un-country album in her catalogue but I got to know the rest. I curse myself for my stupidity now and wonder how many tours with The Hot Band I missed. Then I hang my head and weep.

As a child of the punk years, much of 60s/70s rock was forbidden fruit. Hell even scorn was passed onto the Beatles, from these lips. Unbelievably it wasn't until the early 90s when a friend passed me a copy of Sgt Pepper, that i was sold on the fab four.

However the highest level of scorn was reserved for the likes of Genesis. Being a young lad,and the fact that i hadn't heard anything by them, meant little. The fact that they existed was enough. It wasn't until i heard Gabriel's 'games without frontiers'that i started showing any interest. Buying that 3rd solo lp was revelatory for me at the time, here was a relic of the 70s pomp rock that had produced such a stunning piece of work.

Also around that time i bought an lp by Peter Hammill called 'the black box', to me it was a great electronic lp, it wasn't until many years later that i found out about the history of the guy.

On the other hand, there have been many bands that i have got excited about only to have the rug pulled from under me. Most of them deservedly forgotten about. But special mention must go to New Order, loved Joy Division and liked 'movement', after that it all went badly wrong between us, have tried several times over the years to remedy this, but for one reason or another i just don't get New Order

Coldplay - I liked Yellow and with the surrounding hype I assumed I would like the rest of their stuff - what could I have been thinking of?!
Ian Dury - I remember the first time I heard Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll because I'd read so many references to it in Sounds and NME and I was thoroughly underwhelmed - fortunately it wasn't long before I realised the man was a genius.

For several years I've had a best of which seemed OK for the occasional listen, nothing more. Certainly unworthy of their exalted reputation. Then about 3 months ago a random listen suddenly sounded different and better. Gave it a bit more attention and I now own the complete back catalogue plus all Forster and McLennan's solo albums. One of the finest bands of the last 25 years.

I refused to read Douglas Couplands 'Girlfriend In A Coma', because the rock snob in me thought it a lazy, attention grabbing title.
How wrong I was, it's brilliant.

As a teenager/twenty year old, I refused to see any merit in anything that might encourage dancing. Thus, as a true prog child, I loathed all things motown, reserving especial venom for philly soul and then, that even worse horror of horrors, disco. Now I don't really know what changed, maybe it was my increasing immersion in the folk dancing world, the short (hop) step between Morris On and actually joining a morris side. This led me to explore my rhythm, or what of it I had or could muster, as well as coming into contact with the musical tastes, surprisingly varied, of my be-belled (and be-bellied) cohorts. I guess Blondie and Manifesto era Roxy had begun to break down my disco prejudices, but gradually, over the years I welcomed Stevie Wonder and the rest of Detroits music city into my life, not least as I realised that many of their songs were, for the substitution of brass for steel, the same structure as country music. Of all people, it was Linda Ronstadt who first taught me that. Now, it is the deeper southern twangs and twists from Stax that float my boat and, with a hefty dancefloor influence from Mrs Path, I can't find my feet enough. I love dancing. I love dance music.
Now all I have to find is somewhere that will allow me to flail appropriately with like minded folk. The Jam House in B'ham is probably the only arena for such activity to be deemed allowable for the more mature limbshaker in my neck of the woods. Unless you lot know any different......

I avoided Steely Dan for years and years, thinking them dull jazzbo musos, associating them with everything wrong with 70's AOR American Rawk music... I was converted by a weekend at work on my own, where I'd forgotten to bring any music to listen to, so was reduced to playing any CDs I could find on peoples desks, which included "Countdown To Ecstasy", and the rest is history as they say... geniuses of the highest order of course.

Conversely, I'd heard all I wanted to of Chic, a long-standing hatred which came solely from over-exposure in the late-70's, when disco was all you could hear on the radio, and seemingly hourly plays of "Le Freak" turned this too-young-for-punk new waver completely against them... it took a while, but gradual exposure to Sister Sledge and their work with Diana Ross led to a reevaluation and they're now among my favourite artists...