Inaccurate/misleading answers to "Which artist did this song?"

In high school, when the radio didn't back announce and I did not have the internet, I would have to just ask people, "Hey, who did that song" in order to identify a song's artist (and I still sometimes find these things out by just asking around). Of course, you're then forced to rely on whatever inaccurate answer people give. This sometimes resulted in years of confusion. The biggest personal example of this is when my friend in high school told me that "Somebody's Watching Me" was by Poco, and I spent years listening to Poco albums at record stores trying to find any song of theirs that sounded even half like that song. Naturally, it was fruitless.

Not that the internet cleared this up – I remember being at a friend's house when I was 19 and almost every '60s radio hit he had downloaded from Napster was labeled as being by The Beatles, from "Purple Haze" to "White Rabbit."

What is the biggest confusion you ever had about who performed a song thanks to some overconfident person telling you the wrong answer?

I was told that Pictures of Matchstick Men (as performed by Camper van Beethoven) was by Rush, which threw me off course for a couple of years.

Bump just because I can't believe no one else had answers to this question.

Didn't Napster people tag every novelty song as being by Weird Al?

i remember all sorts of pop-punk being labelled blink 182.

bob marley's biggest hit dont worry be happy

LOL

In the Audiogalaxy days, I found a lot of great ambient techno mistagged as Boards of Canada. I'm still not sure who wrote half of it.

Yeah the asshole I've got as a brother still thinks to this day that every reggae-pop hit he finds is actually by Bob Marley. Red Red Wine, Dont worry be happy, Sweat (a la la la long)... etc

Actually if you google -looking in your big brown eyes- half the internet attributes the song either to Bob Marley or UB40

there is a thread on this in the archives, no idea what it's called though. godspeed~

misattributed songs in Napster, AudioGalaxy, etc.

well there you go! thxingU~~~

i remember my former roommate had an mp3 by depeche mode called "move out" (it was actually yaz - "situation")

But I don't think Abbott's original question refered strictly to audiogalaxy. More like shit that people told you that was WRONG. Friends talking out their asses about music you were genuinely curious about.

I was that asshole, had a stand up argument that the air-bass scene in Alan Partridge was to a Japan song and not Gary Numan, I felt like such a clown when proved otherwise.

I remember for quite a while before the rise of file sharing sites, I though that "The Boys Are Back in Town" was done by Trooper.

And then a few years ago, when I knew that it was done by Thin Lizzy, I had some friends who were convinced that it was a Bachman Turner Overdrive song.

Yes I live in Canada.

In the Audiogalaxy days, I found a lot of great ambient techno mistagged as Boards of Canada. I'm still not sure who wrote half of it.

― Veðrafjǫrðr heimamaður (ecuador_with_a_c), Thursday, 24 June 2010 11:17 (Yesterday)

probably partly me. i had a track called "litter duty" mistagged and since appropriated on a number of Boards of Canada bootlegs about a decade ago.

Ha, hmm. Kind of regretting bringing up the on the online aspect & wish it was just about misleading conversations IRL bcz they involve so much more trust and emotions! And helplessness.

Really felt helpless when no one could tell me what a song was, like the month I kept asking everyone "Hey what is that smooth funk jam that's just nice singing until the end when it gets all epic, with crazy harmonies? At the end it goes 'fwom fwom fwom FWOM?" (Turns out that was Earth Wind & Fire's "Can't Hide Love," which I discovered by buying a best of.)

Or, I felt frustrated when a friend in high school told me that scary music video of my childhood with the giant Reagan puppets was a Bryan Adams song. That wasn't right, but how to know what was actually right? Maddening!

In fact, I was in a sort of land of confusion.

The internet has helped me put names to about a dozen songs I heard in passing on Peel as a teenager.

i had a friend in hs who almost convinced me that foghat's "I Just Wanna Make Love To You" was early zz top (i guess w/ Dusty singing or soemthin)

LOL, I thought you meant Dusty Springfield there!

that would be sick imo

abbott! have you heard of born to run (glockenspiel addendum)?

soundgarden - truly madly deeply

i had that the other way around! when my friends brother was really into soundgarden i was like really? the australian homos?

Someone told me that "that song that goes 'teenage wasteland' and starts with a bippedy-boppedy synth intro" was by the Buzzcocks. After a while trying to figure this into the same universe as the two Buzzcocks songs I knew I decided it must be someone else, but assumed my fact-checking cuz would at least be right about the era, so decided on Talking Heads (think this is from the intro reminding me of "Once In A Lifetime" but I've no idea how I thought the rest of the song fitted into this).

At the same time, I knew that "Baba O'Riley" was a song by the Who, but I had obviously never heard it because I hadn't heard any other songs that struck me as being by the same band as "My Generation", and what oh what would a song with such a weird name sound like?

It took me years to figure out what Baba O'Reilly was after seeing Pearl Jam play it on MTV. What a stupid name for that song.

No offense to any fans of Meher Baba or Terry Riley, though.

there is a special kind of tension in the air, for a split second, between a caller asking for "teenage wasteland", and the classic rock dj responding, "...ok, baba o'reilly, the who, comin' right up"

I actually found the song by accidentally buying the right Who album at a flea market. I was so freaking happy.

I hadn't even listened to the Who.

this shit breaks my heart

i went to the New Museum in New York and this Scottish artist Ruth Ewan made a whole jukebox of lefty protest songs, which was a pretty cool concept. And fun to flick around. Great piece.

But one of the songs is some wacky "Let's Bomb Iraq" song and she credited it to Weird Al, Napster-style. I was like, "Fuck, you're 30 years old and did how much research for this and you still don't know what Weird Al is like?"

― miley stylus (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 18 January 2010 19:01 (5 months ago)

(xposts) Ha, I think later on in my life someone offered to lend me the right Who album because it was their favourite album, but I was on an anti-classic-rock kick at that point and was all "oh no I do not need to hear any 60s rocking dudes getting all old and hairy in the 70s"

which was pretty dumb because at that time I would have been totally excited to rediscover that song and all about that awesome organ intro

oh youth.

xp: "Weird Al" Yankovic as shorthand for "who gives a shit?"

Godspeed Black Emperor give a shit though, and that's what counts.

i loved when everyone thought "right round" was flo rida feat. keyshia cole. some ppl were even labeling "tik tok" as keyshia cole which i found even funnier.

The first mix tape anyone ever made for me was in 1995, when I was 12, and it was of "Weird Al" songs. Half of them were actually Weird Al, and the rest was about 25% They Might Be Giants (songs off of Flood) and other random songs that I later sometimes heard on Dr. Demento, novelty detritus.

iirc a few Monty Python songs on there too