Unloved Gems šŸ’Ž (songs with <1000 plays)

Foolā€™s errand for my tastes. Tapping out.

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Hi Brian

I have one that I think you would like presuming you donā€™t now her already.
Mary Hampton an English Folk singer. She has 481 Monthly listeners on Spotify The Record ā€œFollyā€ is not on Spotify at all. The Song Hoax and Benison is not in a named Video on Youtube I can only find this rather wonderful version which has only had 361 views in 13 years.

I think she is an extraordinary talent.

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One of the few Norwegian bands I know and likeā€¦ :blush: Didnā€™t know this song. Later deleted or not. Thatā€™s a gem indeed. Added to playlist :grin:

This one might qualify. I donā€™t have Spotify at the moment. But 838 views on YouTube only. Welsh band Pigeon Wigs ā€œHold Upā€.

One of the songs on my favourite playlist that always makes me smile since it sounds so cheerfully retro

I discovered Pigeon Wigs, when I was checking the line-up of a random festival whose name I donā€™t even rember anymoreā€¦

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@tRONd Itā€™s not a ā€˜tough callā€™, as in: this is not a competition :smiley:
I started this thread because I am sometimes astounded at some of the quality music out there, that has virtually no (online) listeners :thinking:
Regarding the incredible Madrugada, well, they kind of get carte blanche for everything :laughing: Nice find.
Iā€™m sure your fellow countrymen St. Thomas might end up on this thread at some stage, but not tonightā€¦

Sounds like a plan. Looking forward to it already (in fact I think we might have heard the preview :smiley:)

Itā€™s not an/in out thing, Clint :wink:
You never know, you might come across a band/artist that you really like that you wouldnā€™t normally hear :smiley:
@Will_E_Vander Iā€™m usually not that into English folk, but thatā€™s a cool performance, Will.
Thanks for sharing :smiley:
@JokuMuu Hey I can see Wales from my bed :open_mouth: (Just a pity theyā€™re from Cardiff on the other side). Nice share. I enjoyed that.

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Whoopee.
My third thought and I have struck gold.

I initially thought of Half Man Half Biscuit - Len Ganley Stance.
Too popular.

Then I thought of The Weather Prophets - I Almost Prayed.
Much too popular.

Then I remembered an EP I bought in the mid 1980s that was pretty obscure then. It was the time I was buying albums by The Church (of course), REM, Green On Red, The Waterboys, Echo And The Bunnymen etc. In the UK it was the time of Stock, Aitken & Waterman and plastic pop saturation - and no amount of modern day revisionism is going to convince me that Rick Astley or Sinitta or Kylie Minogue were releasing great music.
It was peak Reagan and Thatcher.
It was leg warmers, shoulder pads and power dressing.
It was yuppies, gazumping and greed.
It was pre internet dot com, people bought newspapers and fed coins into public phones in the street to talk to distant friends and family.
I was a pale student in a long, dark overcoat and I wanted music that had substance and power to take me elsewhere.
I read a review of an EP by a new band from California on limited release.
The band were called 28th Day and the EP carried the same name. It was seven tracks of raw jangle post-punk psychedelic rock. And I loved it.
I will limit myself here to the last track with a criminally low < 1000 view count on Youtube. It is epic.

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Guilty of no research. I have not heard her for a long time. Good to know she is more popular than I imagined. :smile:

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Hi Brian,
Nice idea :sunglasses:
But so so sad that the first 2 persons have a total lack of respect for the rules you set up :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :see_no_evil:ā€¦a ā€‹ā€‹very simple ruleā€¦
Annoying isnā€™t itā€¦thatā€™s how I usually feel if I come up with something and ā€¦ :joy:

And unfortunately you covered yourself with

otherwise I (we) could of course have posted our own video`s ā€¦I was already think wich of mine i post :laughing:

Of course I quickly looked at a few but some are not even on YouTube :flushed: and a few others are just a little bit too much, and one of which I had doubts about the 59k viewers :see_no_evil:

And then there are a few from friends where the sound on YouTube is very badā€¦and the video`s too, but I do have CDs of themā€¦so who knows in the future when I am a bit more creative with dawā€¦

But Iā€™m sure thereā€™s enough music I listen to that meets your criteria :upside_down_face: :sunglasses:

Greetings and thanks for that I saw some friends and with the nice memories that came with that :smiley:

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Hahahahaha!!! :rofl::rofl::rofl:
Struggeling with my coffee now Rogier!

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I love this! Thanks! :slight_smile: Also love the lead-up intro for it :smile:

This is from Ffredi Blino - also Welsh
Tarmacs, Roads and Fences.
Heā€™s got some other songs on YouTube with more than 1000 views but this one doesnā€™t. Iā€™m not sure about Spotify though. This is the title track of the album and one of my favourites.

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Hi Brian, you gave us quite a challenge with this one and I already thought, I have to give up finding a song I know that meets your criteria of being played less than 1000 times in a year. Every not so popular song got, at second sight, more clicks than I expected.
Then, yesterday, on my dog walk, a song popped up in my head, I almost had forgotten from a Berlin underground performer. Quick check, and yes, with only 2.234 views within 9 years it should match your criteria? I didnā€™t check all the other platforms, only soundcloud, with a few clicks. If not, feel free to delete, but knowing that you have a certain connection to Berlin yourself, it might be interesting for you anyway. Unfortunately for folks here the song is in German.
Why do I remember a song like this?
Iā€™ve visited Berlin a few times in my life, mostly at the time when our country and Berlin was still devided and went back for a short trip for a few days maybe in 2016 (?). I always liked the city due to its spirit. Maybe one of those unique places in every sense.
One day, in the underground, a guy in very desolate condition jumped into the wagon with a guitar in his hands. I didnā€™t care about him at all, but as doors closed, he immediately started to play and sing and I was somehow catched by his performance, which was so intense and given the circumstances of a rumbling wagon with lots of persons in it, it was a thrilling and somehow brilliant performance.
Iā€™ll never forget this empty gaze of his eyes, maybe full of ??? I donā€™t know what, this total aversion against social conventions, but performing such a catching song with such intelligent lyrics. From one second to another, people listened and felt touched.
The song is called ā€œTeufelskreisā€ (vicious circle) and is about someone standig on the margin of society asking for some bucks and support and the indifference of people around towards, letā€™s say, ā€œnon conformistsā€ . For me a typical ā€œBerlin Songā€ that could have had the potential for more. At least, I never forgot itā€¦

Hereā€™s a link to a newspaper article, in case your are interested: Illegal und echter Underground - taz.de

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Great topic, Brian. Inspiring lots of nostalgia and music that was maybe popular locally and never mainstream.

And it took me back to 1987/88. I was enduring my time as a National Serviceman, conscripted into the Army. We shanā€™t talk about that here.

Fortunately the heart issue that would decades later put me on the operating table was sufficient to land be a cushy job in Pretoria, almost like a normal office job. One of our favourite escapades was a trip into the centre of Johannesburg to visit Jamesonā€™s Bar. A bit of a dive with what I considered to be the best of local music. Nothing that the popular radio DJs would play, records often banned from airplay for being too political.

Most of my favourite bands seem to get some love on YouTube and Spotify, but did find one whoā€™s most popular songs on Spotify were almost all below the cut-off and a playlist on YouTube with almost no views.

The band is The Kerels. The leader would subsequently join up with Ralph Rabie aka Johannes Kerkorrel and be part of The Voelvry Toer, a music revolution that toured the country getting banned on many university campuses. James Phillips was on the same tour whom I saw with his band Cherry Faced Lurchers (too many spins on Spotify and YouTube) at Jamesonā€™s.

Hereā€™s a playlist for The Kerelā€™s album Ek Se, released back in those crazy days https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nCTkWN-FxFdayPJyNLeTfDlDfI_YfWM1g

Great music and memories

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@Richard_close2u I know I said itā€™s not a competition, but sometimes a little challenge is fun :smiley:
The Len Ganley Stance , eh? I played that as well as a couple of other half-baked biscuits when I had my radio show on their home turf in Birkenhead. (Speaking of which, I need to get a new set of Joy Division Oven Gloves. Tor burnt my last ones! :roll_eyes:)
Iā€™m lovinā€™ your description of the 80ā€™s, as well as the 28th Day sound. I think we would have got on well as teenagers.But then again, we get on fairly well as old codgers too, so no real surprise there :rofl:

Haha, Iā€™m just the instigator. These things are supposed to take on a life of their own. Some gain traction, others peter out in the sand. I do find it difficult not to respond to comments though, once Iā€™ve startedā€¦ :roll_eyes:
Glad you had some nice memories, and yes, Iā€™d be surprised if you didnā€™t have a long history of ā€˜non-popularā€™ music listening. In fact Iā€™d imagine most of your weird stuff never even makes it onto YouTube :rofl:

@Avalon426 More Welsh! :scream:
Iā€™m starting to appreciate the natural barrier the Dee estuary provides.
Cool song and interesting visuals. Some of the lyrics text reminded me of those pesky ā€˜Captchaā€™ prompts to prove youā€™re not a ā€˜bot :laughing:

@Helen0609 Youā€™re bang on, regarding my affinity with Berlin!
Like many rap-acts, they live and die by the lyrics. I can only think of one German rap off the top of my head, so thanks for the reminder.
I enjoyed the accompanying article. Made me want to revisit.

Cheers @DavidP ,
Glad to hold your hand for a stroll down memory lane.
Hmmm, I was glad not to have to do any national service. All my classmates in Switzerland had to do their military service after school, and whilst I would have survived well, being used to living in an institution, I wouldnā€™t have enjoyed it.
I did almost join the Irish Army a couple of years after med school. I was between jobs and they were recruiting doctors: 3 months induction, a 6 month tour of duty in Lebanon (where I would have loved to revisit) and then 3 months ā€˜debriefingā€™ back in Ireland. They threw in a decent salary and rank of Captain as well.
My courting was going too well at the time though, and my girlfriend said if I waited till she passed her exams, sheā€™d join me for a year in Australia. The rest is history.
I had a quick dip into a couple of songs on that playlist. It was much more polished than I was expecting and loads of energy. I could imagine them being great live.

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Lisa has a songwriting thread going at the moment and it reminded me of the course I took part in during lockdown. On the application we had to provide some background and share what we expected/hoped to gain from the experience. I sent the organiser a link to The Burning Hellā€™s song F*** The Government, as an indication of what I aspire to (much too popular for here :laughing:)
Theyā€™re accomplished multi-instrumentalists with witty, observational lyrics, on top of being just lovely human beings.
Their song Nonfiction provides so much food for thought, I could listen to it all day

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Great thread, Brian! And so many great contributions already, thanks all! :slight_smile:

Hereā€™s a lad I stumbled over looking for something completely different, but instantly caught me and hit the subscribe button. With less than 2000 views in 8 years, I hope this qualifies. Anyhow, itā€™s a great tune:

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Sumptuous psychedelia at its finest :crazy_face:
Apparently unknownā€¦ :thinking:
both from the album Technical Difficulties, Under the Influence

This is a version of a nice song but there are much better ones but unfortunately I canā€™t find much better quality of them on You Tubeā€¦ I do have some CDs but where???? These are good friends of mine and with the drummer and the guitarist (on the left ) who is a professional piano player who also plays the accordion and who played in the band where I was also part of bass guitar and also sang.... yes yes, I played in a band very a long time ago :smile:...or at least I was part of it and we often joke about what exactly I did :roll_eyes:... but looking sharp as a knife those days :laughing: I get some photos I heard this morning :smiley: ā€¦

ā€¦ This band ā€™ Hunker ā€™ (which means something like yearning) has been the supporting act for a band ā€˜De Dijkā€™, which is very well known to all Dutch people, and I have been there many times when they both playā€¦ but also in the squares and pubs in my area with Hunker in my hometown Amersfoort and in the gardens of the houses you see in the videoā€¦

I will do my best to find more of themā€¦ there is also wonderful blues, but they have been on a long hiatus as a band for a while now, except for a reunion year in I think 2020ā€¦ and those recordings are not the best I can find eitherā€¦

So I think itā€™s more their own fault that they donā€™t have much of an opinionā€¦the guitarist wearing an orange shirt plays in several bands and can really play the guitar wonderfully and performs somewhere every weekend, with the Top 2000 cafe as a highlight for years. Hooglandā€¦but only people from the center of the Netherlands can do something with that last informationā€¦

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This is very cool, mijnheer :sunglasses:
but might be better located in your learning log. Here itā€™s destiny will be to sink into obscurity in a couple of days and your past glories will be forever forgotten :wink:
Itā€™s not the first time you refer to yourself as ā€˜sharpā€™ and I find it hard to believe you would make such a boast with ā€˜Peacock Larsenā€™ around, if there wasnā€™t a kernel of truth behind it :rofl:
Photos and music please.

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I can keep this thread alive for a long time :laughing:ā€¦but thanks because youā€™re right :blush:

:rofl: just spilled some tea over the edge of the glass :rofl:

:shushing_face: don`t wake up the dogs that will convince me or you to flap out old pics

Yes on photo and no on sound it was before the time of mobile telephones or certainly smartphones.(I was 16 until 18 ) ā€¦the few recordings on tape have perished as far as I and 3 friends knowā€¦
Many warm feelings arise in the last hours :sunglasses: :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

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Jayā€™s cover of The only Living Boy in New York this morning reminded me of The loneliest Boy in the State of Nevada (37 views), by The Lonelyhearts, my favourite band a decade and a half ago. I loved their albums Dispatch and Disaster Footage at Night. I have no idea why they have hardly any listens on Spotify and virtually impossible to find on YT.
I covered New Virginia (with family & friends) a couple of years ago and sent a link to the band
Hereā€™s their generous response :sunglasses:

image

Itā€™s not as cool as John says, so Iā€™ll share the original which I had to upload myself and only has 51 views (as opposed to over 300 of our cover :roll_eyes:)
Thereā€™s no justice in this worldā€¦

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