obscurity in the age of streaming

Ben Ratliff's essay "Within The Context Of All Contexts: The Rewiring Of Our Relationship To Music" got me thinking about the notion of obscurity in music, a concept that has, perhaps, lost its meaning in an age where most recorded music is instantly available on Youtube.

I realize that specific artists' catalogs, bootlegs, field recordings, private pressings etc. etc. are not available online, but this thread is not for discussing music that is truly obscure/unavailable but the music that, say, 25 years ago would have been almost impossible to get a hold of and which could today reach wide audiences through "secondary use" in tv shows, movies, advertisement.

I'm not completely sure what it is I want to discuss, or how, but here are a few thoughts that, along with the essay, can hopefully get the ball rolling:

- I was at an outdoor cafe recently, kind of a tourist trap, and the stereo was playing Buddy Miles' "Down by the River"! I guess it charted in 1970 (peak position: 68) but I'd still thought it a relatively obscure song. I didn't need to Shazam it, but if I hadn't known it I probably would have, it's a cool version. I think I came across by algorithmic chance - was it perhaps an algorithm DJing at the cafe?

- I love my Discover Weekly, but sometimes I can't help but worry it works like an echo chamber, since it draws from other users' recent playlist additions. I can't help but wonder if the songs to pop up were recently used in some popular tv-show/movie... The easiest way to find out is, of course, to check the Youtube version and go through the "x brought me here" comments. Recently "Pourquoi Tu Me Fous Plus des Coups?" by An Luu popped up in my list, and while it's a beautiful song, I feel a bit weird enjoying it without any context (as mentioned here) and for this particular song Youtube is to no help - is this a real algorithmic obscurity?

- Maybe there is a similarity between what happens with a private story/tweet/vine goes viral and when an "obscure" gem gets exposure from, say, a blockbuster movie? Not that the attention is necessarily harmful to the vulnerable recording, but there is something... unnatural about it? And then and there are songs like "Down in Mexico" by The Coasters where it's hard to believe the song was ever obscure, it seems destined for exactly the kind of canonization Tarantino brought it.

Please post examples of groovy obscurities to keep the thread groovy!

an obvious thing to talk about here is the way Plastic Love has somehow taken over the youtube recommendation algorithm, it seemingly gets recommended to everyone these days and is at 20 million views now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bNITQR4Uso

^^exactly!

def feel like obscurity has lost its shine for me, but it's hard for me to tell how much of that is being a jaded near-40-year-old, how much of it is streaming/spotify/youtube, and how much of it is I'm too busy for that shit with work and kids.

Still, it feels like even if I were in college today there wouldn't be that same thrill of the hunt for some underrated out-of-print classic, or excitement at discovering something great that I had never heard of before.

I also feel like in entertainment in general, including in music but even moreso in movies and TV, niche micro-targeting has gotten *too* good, to the point that even the more "obscure" becomes predictable.

maybe not totally obscure but the following were either one hit wonders or cult hits:

feminine complex - livin love (60s teen girl group who did a mix of surf, doo-wop and sublime ballads, search hold me (demo) and i wont run)
murmaids - popsicles and icicles (dreamy doo-wop one hit wonder)
marcus belgrave - gemini II (spaced out jazz music)

as far back as i can tell music has always been a technologically mediated form - at least once you take into account that i consider things like musical instruments and western notation to be technological developments. different forms of technological mediation privilege different sorts of music. so "plastic love" was obscure in the west when it came out, and isn't obscure now. not much different to my sensibilities from pachelbel's canon in d being obscure at one point (except that as far as i'm concerned "plastic love" is _far_ better music than pachelbel's canon).

i don't think the present conception of obscurity (and its flipside "popularity") is any better or worse than past conceptions of it i've known. streaming technology and propagates human desire _differently_ than most humans would. i don't see this as a particular aesthetic problem. it has also basically destroyed all existing business models relating to music. well, that's capitalism for you!

obscurity continues to have meaning for me because it implies actively seeking out new music - hang out on music message boards, go digging beyond youtube's immediate recommendations, and listening to "obscure" music is basically inevitable. the big problem is that of feeling overwhelmed. there's more great music than will fit in my head. i "lose" music in my library a lot.

oddly i don't have a problem, which i do in other areas of life, of tolerance - listen to a lot of music doesn't mean i don't feel really great listening to a song i love. not like a drug at all, really.

i'll second the marcus belgrave - good stuff - and add on alfonso lovo. i'll have to check out the other stuff you mention, ross

Ratliff's a good writer, but I'm not sure I really follow his argument in that piece.

This was posted in the "Obscure Music Heard At CVS" thread. It's a great song, unfamiliar to me and I'm presuming to many people, which somehow made its way to a supermarket soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyxU9jmk21E

Speaking of which, I'm checking out the girl-group Spotify playlist that Ratliff linked to, compiled by the Numero Uno guys. It's true that I haven't heard a lot of these tracks (and I have tons of comps in this genre). But the thing is, these songs all appear on CD comps or single-artist collections (obviously, they're on Spotify) -- so they're no more "obscure" than anything else that's been compiled -- and I'm not sure how it really fits in to Ratliff's overall point.

OK, I see a few at the beginning are from an actual Numero Uno comp: https://www.amazon.com/Basement-Beehive-Girl-Group-Underground/dp/B07FJ9ZMPF

Which I shall now purchase

(I guess it's just "Numero Group"; they're not the deep-dish pizza guys.)

It was kinda fun to see this happening in real time with Cardiacs. I believe I got into them around 2004 (five years after they'd released their final studio album...sigh) and back then they really did feel like a fiercely guarded secret, in no small part because their music was notoriously difficult to get ahold of.

And about a year later, I discovered them, told this guy named Neil about them, and the rest is history.

zvuki mu went minor-viral amongst muso acquaintances a year or two ago with responses mainly in the ha ha foreign 80's moustache bracket.
the day the entire das ist fisch & buffy satan tapeographies are uploaded to bandcamp or youtube i will be happy.
fuck a NWW list patrician

not totally obscure but the following were either one hit wonders or cult hits
good stuff Ross, Feminine Complex is right up my alley

but maybe what I'm getting at is actually songs that were neither one hit wonders nor cult hits but for some reason surface, whether through "secondary use" or algorithmic chance

there's something fuzzy about the recontextualization (or in the case of algorithms: decontextualization) that I can't get my head around

oddly i don't have a problem, which i do in other areas of life, of tolerance - listen to a lot of music doesn't mean i don't feel really great listening to a song i love. not like a drug at all, really.

it's the cheapest drug there is :D

Ratliff's a good writer, but I'm not sure I really follow his argument in that piece.

me neither, but I enjoyed the read

the Walk Tall song is a jam!

I hope the Numero guys and the other reissue labels find a way of navigating the syncing/streaming economy, found it an interesting detail that it would not be an issue for them to have their playlists copied since all that counts are the play counts

a recent, amazing algorithmic discovery, for me, was when Willie Wright showed up on my DW. I know this is an album that I'll keep with me forever:

https://youtu.be/0l15Pii3x3c

and then of course it's a Numero release, so it's really not the algorithms but the crate digging curators I have to thank

I think obscurity is circular, and collective awareness (aka attention span / free time) always an iceberg, and at best technology just facilitates the movement (and expands it globally) of things reaching the surface before they fade again into the depths.

I think we're all guilty of not keeping things in perspective: we take our individual actions to represent a culture. But God knows how little it changes that today I'm catching up on a few 70s brazilian classics I've been missing out on. Sure, a few people will be doing the same, and there are the (old) Brazilians themselves, but I'm not raising the awareness much nor am I transforming the cultural landscape. We can hardly manipulate it.

And since YouTube was implicitly taken as an example: are you kidding me ? YT is designed to make sure everyone listens to the same 1500 songs. That it can serve to discover obscurities seems almost accidental.

I feel like there might be something to be said about the improved access to decades-old library music that wasn't even released directly for consumer use in its first life, but I'm not sure what exactly. I do know that I'm delighted that Spotify gets that I want it to recommended relatively anonymous, typically barely-utilised tracks from the KPM library (and/or soundtracks to largely unheralded Italian and French films from 1970 that I'll never see, for that matter) and it does so routinely.

that sounds interesting, that stuff shows on your Discover tab? can you give an example of some jams?

Yeah, KPM in particular is well represented on Spotify and it comes up a lot for me. Not necessarily my favourite library music and it's hard to pick representative tracks, but here's a couple of gloriously tepid jams I recall hearing in the recent past. YMMV, obv. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=276tBTaIhlw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3mpquK4Kq4

How are we defining "obscurity"? Because I assure you that songs by my post-punk favorites are still obscure outside of a small cadre of motivated listeners. Like all of you. I don't know how to view the fact that The Chameleons "Swamp Thing" has over 750,000 views on YouTube - does that make it less obscure?

I still get totally jazzed finding an old band I missed, or digging into genres I hadn't before. The old adage "if it's new to you, it's new music" has never been more true.

i mean shit like wanda de sah and wendy and bonnie could be considered obscure depending on the region-audience

How are we defining "obscurity"? Because I assure you that songs by my post-punk favorites are still obscure outside of a small cadre of motivated listeners. Like all of you. I don't know how to view the fact that The Chameleons "Swamp Thing" has over 750,000 views on YouTube - does that make it less obscure?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing

the grid's "swamp thing" still has more views, so i think the chameleons song counts as "obscure"

i don't quite trust youtube view counts. i don't trust its quantification of "popularity". "plastic love" has 150 billion views or whatever, but is it something people are really aware of? god, how many people on tiwtter have legions of ghost followers? maybe the numbers are there, but it's easy to read more into numbers than is justifiable...

i'd say it's a relative term. i'd say everybody is obscure, or has been, or will be.

i'm listening to a song by jeremy dutcher, "nipuwoltin" and it reminds me of a song on bondage fruit's first album, "hikou suru ko". which is more obscure? who has more youtube views?

I found myself thinking about obscurity in a Spotify context when I was listening to some Witch House playlists... so many of the bands use a bunch of symbols for their band names, and I wondered if it was partly to make them unsearchable to some extent online. Of course all you need to do is find some adjacent search term ("Witch House" for example) to turn up playlists and there they are. But there remains the hint of unsearchability as an aspect of their image, and more interestingly, it evokes the idea of bands and playlists that are entirely in the shadows... like, you found us, but the act of being momentarily stymied in your online search invites contemplation of music that is truly occult, unfindable yet amazing, and maybe these people could show it to you.

I suppose it goes with internet anonymity at the same time as it delineates a subculture. If you're really into it, you probably recognize the bands visually. I mean, some people are into Japanese music / artists and they probably end up recognizing the relevant kanji/kana. Also, at first it was striking enough, remember when Sigur Ros did it.

where's saer?

I'm in Greggs!

:D
that gives me great comfort

Another YouTube recommendation hit:

https://youtu.be/YixAD9GIAuY

xp rather enjoyed those tepid library jams!

Obscurity in music is alienating either way. There’s still many artists and songs that I wished more people knew about, I don’t have a fetish about how obscure an artist is, that’s pathetic. The more, the merrier.

well, this thread is certainly not meant to celebrate obscurity, and I don't think many posters on this board value obscurity for obscurity's sake

I'm more interested in discussing what happens when (relatively) obscure music becomes available to everyone with an internet connection, or when it gets pushed by algorithms or syncing/secondary use in, for example, tv shows

in a way, there is no obscurity on the internet, and I'm reminded of all those Lil B videos with "EXTREMELY RARE" in the title, parodying exactly that

but then there are records that, for lack of a better word, are "obscure", and when I clicked those library videos posted upthread the recommended videos were full of great little funky jams, that would have been completely obscure - very difficult to get a physical hold of - 15 years ago, but that are now racking up millions of views

what does it mean? perhaps just that channels of distribution were always more important to the popularity of songs than the quality of the songs themselves

This might be a bit obvious, but for every hyper-obscure recording that gets a second shot via prestige television or YouTube, surely there's a thousand that don't? Like, they might be more available - someone might take the effort to upload them to youtube - but being "discovered" that way is still a total lottery and they might linger in less than 100 views obscurity as much as they might go "Plastic Love".

The problem with the lack of context is, I think, mitigated by the fact that most of the ppl who hear stuff that way previously wouldn't have heard it at all - context, history, the nitty gritty details are always the province of the saddo music geek and not how most people consume music.

Which is why the part I found most alarming in that NPR piece was Numero talking about how they're moving away from publishing stuff in physical format and towards playlists - as a saddo music geek I cherish those liner notes, I want to hear every last no hoper band's story. The streaming format doesn't lend itself to that much, but I'm sure like minded folks will find a way - text, podcasts, video (Stevem is a good account on YouTube contextualizing Japanese stuff that's discovered-by-algorithm - "Plastic Love", Ryo Fukui).

mystery is its own sort of context. reading someone raving about a piece of music I haven't heard, going into great detail placing it in context, explaining its power and significance and so on can be amazing and make the first lesson really intense, but hearing something out of the blue with no idea what it is and no clue if you'll ever be able to find out anything about it or hear it again gives a charge of its own, its part of what's special about live performance

Sure, there's that too - I'm not wired like that but intellectually I can see the appeal. Dunno if the information has to be unavailable for you to get that charge tho - don't you just have to not follow up on it?

being unable /= not bothering

coming up against finite limits feels different to only exploring a bit of what you could

OT somewhat but what is 'Plastic Love''s story? How did it blow up? Can't find a Voxplainer or something on it. It wasn't mentioned on ILM before ufo did up here, search says.

I found myself thinking about obscurity in a Spotify context when I was listening to some Witch House playlists... so many of the bands use a bunch of symbols for their band names, and I wondered if it was partly to make them unsearchable to some extent online.

there's a lot of vaporwave that's dedicated to this concept. artist names starting with whatever character's the most difficult to make on the keyboard, albums full of samples from some 25 year old educational CD-ROM, composed by someone who most likely doesn't even remember making it anymore. it's fascinating from a conceptual standpoint but also quite obnoxious

personally I love being able to stream nearly everything I could ever want to: yes, it means when I talk about what I've been listening to lately I sound like a massively pretentious wanker ("do you not want to hear a compilation of late 80s Latvian ambient that was reissued recently?") but if you had told me twenty years ago when I was a child that I would have a box in my pocket that would allow me to hear anything I wanted, at any time, I would have assumed that future would have been a result of coming into a huge amount of money

there's a lot of labels like Music From Memory, ~STROOM, Be With Records etc that seem to be taking "obscurity" as a challenge and bringing music I would never have had the chance to encounter to my attention. I know these labels are often taking cues from blogs like Listen To This but there's only so many hours in the day to dig around online for new music and new-to-me music and having these labels act as filters/tastemakers is useful

that said, I started that streetsoul thread because much as I've been enjoying what Youtube recommends (and Discogs suggests) its hard to get a feel for stuff when you have no real concept of the backstory and circumstance of a period/scene. Also a lot of Youtube stuff isn't in great quality and some areas just haven't been "collected" properly. There's definitely room for some properly, carefull-assembled unmixed compilations of eg UK garage, 90s Italian house, 00s minimal - you can find a lot of stuff in DJ mixes but the full-length tracks aren't easy to find at all

It does seem like over the last ten years or so there's been a lot more labels digging up obscure music from the second half of the last century (eg Minimal Wave). As far as I can tell this all started with Soul Jazz and their compilations of krautrock and dancehall and free jazz for people who were sort of interested in those genres but had no idea where to start, such as myself

You're basically paying them to do the digging so you don't have to spend days looking through Spotify or YouTube for the very best private press Japanese psych tracks or whatever

Soul Jazz does an amazing job - those krautrock compilations were mind-expanding for me.

And, yes, I'm happy to pay someone to create an experience for me - ostensibly an expert in the genre or scene that's being covered. I've done the digging and compiling myself and, while fun, it takes a *lot* of effort. I've learned which labels/compilers I trust - I suppose I should look at Spotify playlists for something similar but the volume of them makes it hard to know where to start.

someone did a music video for "Plastic Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMmUXamntPI

did we ever figure out how this song in particular got so big? there's something cool about a quirk in the YouTube algorithm turning a 35-year old city pop tune into a massive hit but I'm curious as to how it happened. it's fascinating how stuff like this or say the "SOMEBODY TOUCH-A MY SPAGHETT!" cartoon can suddenly explode decades later, long after everyone involved has forgotten about it

v weird

do the ppl who have discovered "plastic love" via youtube then proudly proclaim it An All-Time Great Pop Song from their tastemaker perches go on to, like, listen to the other music that was being produced in that milieu or even other work by the same artist to see if that inkling holds up? will these people remain convinced of its unique quality or will the song come to be seen as a signpost that is good in itself but more importantly points to a robust body of work with many gems, hidden and conspicuous alike, that are even better?

it's fascinating how stuff like this or say the "SOMEBODY TOUCH-A MY SPAGHETT!" cartoon can suddenly explode decades later, long after everyone involved has forgotten about it

totally.

the most fascinating example of something like that that i'm aware of is "thoda resham lagta hai", the bollywood tune that had been almost completely forgotten, including by its composer and the director of the film in which it appeared (and almost certainly the singer, lata mangeshkar, given how prolific she is), until it was literally recorded off a tv by dj quik and incorporated into what became truth hurts's hit "addictive". wrested from its original context to be used (honestly, quite effectively) as ~exotic~ flair for an american recording, the tune came back to life in a huge way, even getting re-remixed by indian and jamaican musicians. the entire cultural-transactional whirlwind seemed to come and go so quickly after "addictive" set off the spark that the saga seemed almost like destiny.

did we ever figure out how this song in particular got so big? there's something cool about a quirk in the YouTube algorithm turning a 35-year old city pop tune into a massive hit but I'm curious as to how it happened. it's fascinating how stuff like this or say the "SOMEBODY TOUCH-A MY SPAGHETT!" cartoon can suddenly explode decades later, long after everyone involved has forgotten about it

― frogbs

i don't think technology breaking a song is, in practice, any different from a dj or a movie or a tv show breaking a song, myself.

i would be more impressed by a "quirk in the youtube algorithm" making the song a hit if that same recommendation engine wasn't being actively exploited in the service of people like joe rogan, all while google hides behind a wall of "propietary code". no, we don't know why youtube suddenly started pushing "plastic love" so hard, but presumably google does - and they're not telling, i guess because they're worried it might compromise their _business model_.

do the ppl who have discovered "plastic love" via youtube then proudly proclaim it An All-Time Great Pop Song from their tastemaker perches go on to, like, listen to the other music that was being produced in that milieu or even other work by the same artist to see if that inkling holds up? will these people remain convinced of its unique quality or will the song come to be seen as a signpost that is good in itself but more importantly points to a robust body of work with many gems, hidden and conspicuous alike, that are even better?

Well city pop is definitely having a moment right now but I'm not really sure exactly how much one thing has to do with the other. I'm not sure why that particular boat seemed to rise so much with the tide. In general though I'd say...probably not? For example Daler Mehndi's "Tunak Tunak Tun" was a pretty massive viral sensation here (back before 'going viral' was really a thing) but it seemed like no one here was willing to write about any of his other hits, many of which were just as good. And I don't think "Gangnam Style" necessarily helped PSY sell a bunch of records from his back catalogue in the west.

those are fair observations. i would add, though, that "tunak tunak tun" and "gangnam style" were appreciated in the west as near-novelties, in large part for their amusing qualities. people hearing and enjoying those songs for the first time without any familiarity with the genres from which they sprung tacitly understood that what they were getting out of it might have differed immensely from what those attuned to its original cultural context were getting -- no one was presuming that "gangnam style" must be a towering achievement over the rest of kpop. and many of the westerners who did start getting into kpop around that time or later would soon come to find plenty of other music that they liked just as much if not more.

i don't know. to me some of the hyperbolic praise heaped upon "plastic love" seems so arrogant.

in the context of "all city pop songs", sure. in the context of "videos recommended by youtube", hyperbolic praise is at least understandable...

on consideration i wonder how much of the popularity of "plastic love" is the fake psychic shit youtube's recommendation pulls. "recommended for you: mariya takeuchi, 'plastic love'". it gives the impression that it understands you personally, is making personal recommendations. computers have been pulling this sort of cheap, superficial shit since the days of eliza (joseph weizenbaum's eliza, not eliza d), and we seem to fall for it every fucking time.

YT tends to recommend tracks that are very similar/related to stuff I’ve already listened to — based on that experience, I assume that this track is being served up to users who are predisposed to like it, based on their watch history. So I’m missing the mystery and sinister implications here...?

I mean if ppl are raving about it, then the referral was successful, no(?)

the sinister implication is that youtube is taking advantage of basically everybody liking "plastic love" to hoodwink their users into thinking youtube knows what's best for them, and than using that goodwill to spam the fuck out of their users with joe rogan videos

I’ve seen ppl complain about that phenomenon, but have never encountered it — guess I’m on a different “algorithm.”

it makes sense why *I* would be recommended this but this song in particular seems to be getting recommended to a bunch of people who presumably aren't into four-decade old Japanese pop

i would add, though, that "tunak tunak tun" and "gangnam style" were appreciated in the west as near-novelties, in large part for their amusing qualities. people hearing and enjoying those songs for the first time without any familiarity with the genres from which they sprung tacitly understood that what they were getting out of it might have differed immensely from what those attuned to its original cultural context were getting -- no one was presuming that "gangnam style" must be a towering achievement over the rest of kpop. and many of the westerners who did start getting into kpop around that time or later would soon come to find plenty of other music that they liked just as much if not more.

yeah you're right there, though maybe you can't really compare those two..."Gangnam Style" was mostly about the video which obviously was gonna appeal to the west, while "Tunak"s success was probably unexpected. there was actually sort of a meta/satirical context to that video that nobody over here could've gotten.

Not quite the same thing as what prompted this thread but I had some thoughts lately:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/eternal-present-104800578