The artist you discovered through the back door: a cover, a film, a game, an advert, then fell in love

[Freya_27]

A thread about the strange side entrances to musical love. Plenty of the artists we adore we did not find head on, we came in through the back door, a cover version that led us to the original, a film scene, a game soundtrack, an advert of all things, a sample in a song we already loved, so share your side entrance and where it led

The pattern is that the back door often works better than the front, because the song arrives attached to a moment or an emotion rather than as a track to be evaluated, and by the time you learn who made it you are already halfway in love, the discovery smuggled past your usual gatekeeping

The interesting bit is how the point of entry colours the whole relationship, whether you can ever hear the song without the film scene it soundtracked, whether the cover that introduced you remains your true version over the original, and how a single advert can permanently attach a piece of music to something the artist never intended

So tell us your back door discovery, the unlikely doorway into an artist or song you now love, and the honest question, whether the accidental route improved or slightly haunted the music, because a song you found through grief or an advert carries that entrance forever whether you like it or not

[GradientPiston]

Came to a whole genre through a game soundtrack, the composer used a style I had dismissed for years and hearing it attached to something I loved sneaked it past my prejudice completely, the back door beat every recommendation

[MickFoley00]

The smuggled past your gatekeeping point is exactly it, I would have skipped the song as a track and fell for it as a moment, context is the trojan horse that recommendation engines cannot replicate

[Cantona]

A cover introduced me to an artist and here is my confession, I still prefer the cover to the original, the doorway became the home, the version that reached me first owns the song for me now no matter what purists say

[DeepPilot]

The doorway becoming the home is real and slightly controversial, whichever version you heard first usually wins forever, being first is worth more than being best in the heart

[NovaPrime90]

Found an artist through an advert and cannot unhear the product, the music is permanently attached to something the artist would probably hate, the back door let me in but locked me in a specific room

[WanderingSentinel]

That is the haunting version, the advert or the film scene colonises the song and you never get the neutral version back, the entrance becomes a permanent tenant in the music

[Karen88]

A sample in a song I loved sent me digging to the original and down a decades old rabbit hole, samples are the best back door because they are a direct trail of breadcrumbs to what came before, whole eras opened up

[ModelCoreWhale]

Samples as a trail of breadcrumbs to the past is lovely, they are little doors hidden inside songs you already own, following them backwards is how a lot of us accidentally became historians

[Slay]

Mine came through grief, a song from a funeral that I then could not stop listening to, and the entrance haunts it forever, but I would not trade it, some doorways are sacred even when they are sad

[KaiHeck]

The thread proves the front door barely matters, almost nobody fell in love by evaluating a track cold, we all came in sideways through a moment, and the moment is why the love stuck, music needs a smuggler