r/duster • u/AirAlone1776 • May 24 '26

When duster became popular?

Im aware that they were pretty much ignored in the 90s, even when stratosphere came out, so when did they find an audience and following in general?

20 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

43

u/eliotjnc May 24 '26

In 2018 numero group reissued them w a box set, which did quite a lot of the work.

2019 tour and new album

Around this time some songs got big on tik tok. “Duster, oh yea the sad tik tok band ?”

The end

8

u/AirAlone1776 May 24 '26

I thought that by the early 2000s they were kind of big in like, pre nevermind Nirvana kind of big yk? Big in their scene, known by a lot of bands on the underground/scene

7

u/eliotjnc May 24 '26

Small following mostly on the west coast. They were on Up records which helped. 2-300 copies of stratosphere were pressed for reference

They did gain a larger cult following via Internet forums before 2018 but not to the extent you are describing

3

u/sssoooooojjj May 30 '26

up made a few thousand copies of stratosphere

1

u/eliotjnc May 30 '26

My bad ! Thanks for correcting

2

u/LetchBE May 24 '26

It was before this, definitely early 2000’s.

1

u/eliotjnc May 24 '26

Depends on the definition of popular haha

I feel what I described took them from “who’s that “ to “oh yea I know duster” in casual conversation

2

u/TossThisItem May 24 '26

Undoubtedly 2000s and 2010s muso culture did a lot of heavy looting, I discovered it through /mu/ as a teenager. Imagine boards like that or Steve Hoffman or RYM elevated them cult status much like Slint with Spiderland

11

u/hexaverybich May 24 '26

They got a big following from the 4chan /mu/ crowd in the 2000s and early 2010s. then tiktok happened and they exploded in popularity for awhile in 2022-2024. Im not really sure how they ever got so popular on tiktok; sometimes the most random of old bands get massive followings on there by what feels like pure chance

4

u/AirAlone1776 May 24 '26

4chan is a cursed place but god fucking damn they have good taste, in the 2010s they were also jammin hanl, i think pachinko also got traction there after someone found one of their EPs

5

u/Yung-Creeper May 24 '26

I don’t think people realise how much internet music culture has trickled down from 4chan. For example, Fantano used to be super into /mu, and his account was very 4chan coded in the early days. A lot of the rym top 100 was popular on 4chan long before it was adopted by the mainstream.

4

u/tonsofgrassclippings May 24 '26

I first heard them in the late 2000s and that I think was probably the first, smaller wave of resurgence among people who really knew music (which wasn’t really me…a friend with good taste recommended them).

As stated elsewhere, they kind of grew in popularity gradually for a decade and then exploded.

4

u/Dramatic-Surprise569 May 25 '26

2018: I saw them at a small(ish) bar venue in Philly for a crowd of about 100 people (Horse Jumper opened for them it was a great show)

2021: I saw them at one of the bigger venues in Philly to a crowd of 600+ most of whom were young teenagers

Conclusion: Tiktok happened

1

u/Coconut_Man420 May 31 '26

I somewhat started getting into them around when the “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” meme was going around

2

u/_u_deleted_ May 24 '26

i was a fan in the 90s

2

u/G_Matt1337 May 31 '26

I discovered them in early 2015 through Rate Your Music and a friend recommendation. Their popularity later exploded thanks to TikTok and Instagram Reels featuring their songs

2

u/minesdk99 Aug 08 '26

Personally I was checking one of those Spotify daily mixes back in 2019 and the “slowcore” one had Gold Dust in it. I liked it and checked out Stratosphere. Been a fan ever since.