なにかと思ったら meaning

Question

なにかと思ったら, I have come across this sentence a couple of times when talking to Japanese people, but I seem to struggle with the actual meaning.

I translate it as "if I am thinking of something" but the times I have seen it it doesn't make much sense. Here is a couple of example sentences I have seen it used with:

"なにかと思ったらホルモンじゃないですか！笑 " and っていうか何かと思ったらPerfumeじゃないですか The context of these sentences are them replying to me linking to a music video.

Answer 1

~たら conditional form of verbs is not always best translated as "if".

For example, it is sometimes used when the outcome is unexpected (often in this case the following phrase would be in past tense).

家に帰ったら猫がいた。 ← implies I wasn't expecting a cat on my doorstep.

I think in this case your friends are just expressing mild surprise at the content of the link.

Clunky translation: "Oh, it's ホルモン? I wondered what that (link) was."