Music that few have heard or forgotten

Last time we told about services that accumulate videos that almost no one has seen. Today we will continue the topic and talk about the resources where you can find music tracks that almost no one listened to. Their authors are forgotten performers of the last century, rappers who are “not given”, and composers who play music for the soul.

Forgotify

The Spotify library has tens of millions of tracks, but according to site statistics, a fifth of them few people listened… All these compositions are collected Forgotify… To dive into the unknown depths of streaming services, just click on Start Listening.

Of course, there is a reason why the listening counter of the presented tracks cannot come off the zero mark. A lot of what Forgotify offers is amateur covers and remixesas well as strange country music and rap, recorded somewhere in the garage… But not everything is so bad, and sometimes you even come across real “hidden gems”. So, the residents of Reddit found an interesting and relaxing folk, as well as post-punk from the 80s last century.

Interestingly, by listening to a song on Forgotify, you can actually become the last person to listen to it. From this point on, the site’s algorithms begin to ignore the track, and on large streaming platforms, it has almost no chance. It turns out that each launch of Forgotify is a unique experience, when you don’t stumble upon the same track twice.

Camp explorer

If you want to get more control over the issuance of poorly known tracks, you can refer to the site Camp explorer… This is an engine for finding music on Bandcamp… Enter the name of the genre in the search box, and the service will show the relevant albums.

The search results contain works by musicians around whom a certain fan base has already formed, but few have listened to many compositions. For example, there is mixtape the little-known rapper Centinel, who has been fond of this occupation since 2000, and rock album with inarticulate texts from the artist s1m0n. Judging by the cover art and nickname, he was definitely inspired by the cartoon. Adventure Time…

Camp Explorer is open source and posted on GitHub… If desired, you can use it to develop a similar service for other platforms.

Vintage obscura

It – thread on Reddit, whose members publish songs written over 25 years ago. A prerequisite is that the number of views on YouTube posts must not exceed thirty thousand. The range of genres is extensive – darkwave, jazz rock, pop and even funk from the times of the USSR… The latter includes “Dance of the Shaman” performed by the vocal quartet “Smile”. It was released on the Melody vinyl record many years ago.

There is also a resource vintageobscura.net… It collects all the music from the Reddit thread in a convenient format. The platform can be used as a streaming service.

Soundcloud Gems

SoundCloud was originally conceived as a platform for indie musicians, so it’s not surprising that you can find a huge number of rare compositions here. The search for these treasures is carried out by Reddit users in the thematic thread. r / soundcloudgems…

One of the artists whose work was recently published was liltimbo of mokum… He writes tracks in the environmental trap style, somewhat reminiscent of lo-fi… So far, the musician has only thirty-three subscribers, but everything can change thanks to the “redditors”.

Some composers put their work on the thread themselves, hoping to gain community recognition. For example, so done Fuzen, who writes chill-hop music. His discography includes more than twenty tracks, and about two hundred people enjoy them.

Of course, not everyone manages to win a fraction of attention. Many musicians complain that they are tired of posting their work on the Internet, as no one wants to listen to them. Young composers ask for advice on social networks, how they can break the vicious circle, or are ironic about this topic, naming songs appropriately – for example, “Another Useless Minute of Music No One Listens To“.

Services like Forgotify and Camp Explorer, as well as communities like r / soundcloudgems, provide a small but small chance of being heard and perhaps provide the necessary motivation to continue making music and creating no matter what.

Other materials from our “Hi-Fi World”:

• Glitter and poverty: how to make a living if you’re a musician

• Music “by default”: what tracks could be found on players and PCs

• Sound maps as a way to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of an unfamiliar city