cover image source: Giphy
For this one, I thought it'd be fun to open up the floor for everybody to drop something that they like which most people don't really like. This has some overlap with previous Music Monday like the Niche Edition and Underground Edition. But there's plenty of popular musicians out there who, for whatever reason, lots of folks just don't like... I'm thinking about this YouTube video called "Great Songs By Artists You Hate" by Rick Beato. Of course, plenty of people hate earworms too and we've had a dedicated edition for those too. Anyway, take this prompt in whatever way you want or ignore it altogether. Just share some music with us below!
How we do
In this weekly series, folks can chime in and drop links to whatever it is they've been listening to recently + browse others' suggestions. You can follow the suggested genre if you'd like, but don't feel confined to it; you're free to suggest whatever you wanna. 🙌
If you're interested in having other discussions about music, consider following the aptly named #music discussions organization.
Alright, let's hear it! Send me your most unpopular picks. Note: you can embed a link to your song using the following syntax {% embed https://... %}. This should work for most common platforms!
Looking forward to listening to y'all's suggestions! 🎶
Top comments (24)
He he @michaeltharrington a really interesting title.
Here's my suggestions:
@thomasbnt you will like this one 👇
Do try this one as well : 👇
Sooo cool, approved! Severed, I like the feeling of this one, the "old" style in this music
Woot woot, Saurabh! Coming in with the goods.
For starters, I had no idea that LCD Soundsystem and IDLES released a song together. This is rocking — it's unhinged in the best of ways. Haha, I can see why this made the unpopular picks list... it's challenging and not for everyone, but I'm with ya here!
Wow, I had never heard the original version of Daydream... this makes me happy. So, while living abroad in Scotland, I became pretty obsessed with a band called The Beta Band and they sample (or maybe just recreate their own version of) this for the hook in their song "Squares"... enjoy!
I'll keep digging into your list throughout the week. Thanks for hopping in and sharing some great tunage with me. 🙌
Waiting for next Monday to share some more stuff.
"i walk this earth all by myself" is so good!
Thanks a lot, it's a real banger. And kinda true as well. 😂
So some of my favorite "unpopular" things to watch on YouTube are strange music experiments...
Like this weird synthy beat made by multiple instruments synced together here:
Or meditative ambient tracks like this one below (👇)... which, btw, I met this friendly dude, Robert Chamberlain, because he works at my local guitar shop and we got talking about ambient music.
Also, I love interesting ambient guitar tunes in the wilderness like this one that @philiphow introduced me to:
And probably the most popular of these "unpopular" mad musical scientists is HAINBACH who creates pretty out there music, but also posts wonderful explainer videos about strange, old instruments that he uncovers, explores, and learns well enough to explain it to folks like me. Here's a good example of what a typical Hainbach video is like:
Wow, nice one, Lev! I'm really liking this one.
The layered guitar work is so awesome. All these guitar loops weaving in and out of each other, intermingled. The drums kicking in was a pleasant surprise and amped up the energy. The drums actually reminded me of this tune by Broken Social Scene called "KC Accidental", but "Goodbye" sounds a wee bit mellower, which I really like.
Glad you liked it! I found toe recently and fell in love! (their drummer is incredible).
They have a unique way of making songs that are extremely complicated yet calm and "chill" at the same time, which is something I have never heard before (to me they almost feel like listening to a soundtrack of life, more than a song?).
Watching them perform live (on YouTube) is a fun experience, all of them are on a different plane of existence while playing, it's great.
"KC Accidental" is great too! feels like toe with more gain and distortion :) added to my playlist.
I also listen the Toki Asako vocal and Diana Mikheeva Drum cover of this song
Maybe not the most niche genre ever, but a smaller artist I listen to every now and then:
Chillax! 🕺🏼
Oooo yeah, this is chill! Good one, Oscar. I like all the vocal parts layered on top of each other.
youtu.be/P9BfvPjsXXw?si=Uii_hocZ1O...
I freaking love NIN, Raf. 🙌
But you're def right that this ain't for everybody. Industrial music with it's usage of white noise & distortion, feedback, and aggressive rhythms is so unique.
Music like this just makes me feel like a badass when I put it on. If I'm at my sink doing dishes and I put on a tune like this one, you can bet that I'll start scrubbing the hell outta any dishes that come my way, haha.
I'm of the generation who went to NIN when they were new. :)
My parents used to play these albums when I was a kid in the 1970s. I f**king hated them ( the albums not my parents! ). Funny thing is that I know absolutely adore these two albums, I guess it's childhood memories about when my mum was still alive and we'd just have Sunday afternoons listening to music.
Wendy Carlos was one of the first superstar synth artists and while it's an acquired taste, the electronic sounds are extremely raw and rough on the ear, something hearing the Brandenberg Concerto played like this is amazing.
My father was a huge Buddy Holly fan as a kid, Holly's bass player was Waylon Jennings and my dad basically worshipped Jennings! Jennings and various C&W stars wrote The White Mansions album as a collaboration, it's the story of the how the poor white southerners felt after the American Civil War was over. How they have to come to terms with the massive changes they'd now be facing. It's a very tough album to listen to lyrically as it's sung by mostly southern C&W singers writing that the south was a great place before the war, but the clever part is that it's written from the perspective of poor white southerners who might have supported slavery in principle but none actually ever enslaved anyone, post war they'd now have no idea what they'd be doing with their lives, how to rebuild under the boot heel of the north.
Oh I most certainly know that feeling of being bored to death by your parents' music tastes when young, then growing up and having your tastes turned upside down so now that same music is your go-to. By the way, we previously had a Music Monday dedicated to parents' faves. 🙂
And I'm def familiar with that Wendy Carlos album! I fell deep into the world of synthesizers during COVID and really love Moog. If I remember correctly, this album was sort of an early showcase for what synths are capable of... because at the time, this instrument was so new and strange, folks didn't really know what to make of it.
As for Buddy Holly, I know he's a rock'n'roll pioneer, but I've not really dipped into his material much... I need to change that! I've also heard the name Waylon Jennings quite a bit, but am not that familiar... again, need to change that! As a Southerner who enjoys quite a bit of Southern rock, what you mentioned about it being kind of a tough listen resonates with me. There's some genuinely great music with cultural significance, but it is sometimes hard to swallow. For me, it's tough to hear any sort of Southern pride and not pair it together with the confederacy... and like I said, I'm from the South and generally proud of where I live, but I'm also very careful with how I phrase that because of the historical connotations. I don't wanna be lumped in with that image of the South. 😅
A song that comes to mind is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down — it's similarly sung from the perspective of a poor white southerner. And it certainly has some questionable lyrics. But, I think it's important to remember that when someone writes a song or sings from the perspective of someone else, it doesn't mean that they necessarily agree with everything the character says. Singing from a character's perspective offers you a window into their psyche — it forces you to try and empathize because you're trying to get in that person's head. The writer of this song was Robbie Robertson, a Canadian, and I don't think this song was him taking any sort of side... rather, I think it was him playing a part.
Randomly recommended to me a years ago in Spotify, still catchy to listen today:
Beautiful stuff! Appreciate ya showing classical music some love, Mateus.
You're welcome/I'm sorry... 😂
Wow, this is weird and exactly the type of thing I was hoping to get in this thread. I've not listened to a lot of it yet, but what I've heard so far feels like a mashup of Jane's Addiction and Frank Zappa. That's high praise!
I'm popping on the whole album now, we'll see how far I can make it. I think I'm ready for it.
Thank you, Keith! You aced the assignment, haha. 🙌