Is it just in the name (i.e. some time later the music scene as a whole sounds a lot like it) or is it more complicated than that?

Post an example

Making something that seems simple once it's made but it's not

🤔 do you have an example?

No im at work

Whatever sounds experimental and trendy for blog nerds 😴

If it basically created/paved the way for a genre out of thin air that wouldn't be around for 10-20 years after it dropped, it's ahead of its time

DJ Screw, Three 6 Mafia, Vangelis, Janet Jackson, Timbaland, The Velvet Underground, etc, were all way ahead of their times

What make something ahead of it’s time is it being ahead of its time

Something that was the first of its kind but still didn’t catch on until years later

Either throwing in some futuristic sounding synths on a beat or having a bunch of mid clones biting your sound after 2 years

When its critically panned and sells 70k in its first week but eventually people realize its overhated and it becomes a cult classic

Obvious example is Young Thug. On his come up he caught a lot of s*** for how his music sounded, now most of mainstream rap has run off with his sauce they're praised for it.

The key is being so 3008 while everyone else is so 2000 and late.

It would have to have on sight, black skinhead, I am a god, new slaves, and hold my liquor on it.

It would also have to have I’m in it, blood on the leaves, guilt trip, send it up, and bound 2 on it

Not many albums fit this criteria

I feel like it’s not something you can say about an album at the time it releases

But basically whenever an album releases with a specific sound or style that is uncommon at the time and later becomes mainstream

so like 808s was weird at the time - using auto tune like that, talking directly about depression and etc from a rapper etc. but this is very common now
So 808s was ahead of it’s time

If Kanye made it

Kinda like CLB. Years from now, every top 10 billboard hit will have hooks about lesbians.

Something of influence but wasn’t accepted by the masses at first

But you’ll hear the influence later on

Brine

Three Six Mafia's existence

if someone hot sings over a gated synth

Its being an early adopter of a trend that is NOW popular.

Dont overthink it

I'd say it's something that does stuff before others were doing it, but it wasn't necessarily influential in its time

A good example would be Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, a 1982 Indian synth album that sounds incredibly similar to Acid House, but none of the genre pioneers had ever heard it

If it’s a new sound, then several years pass and you start to notice it everywhere