misattributed songs in Napster, AudioGalaxy, etc.

I came across a funny one: if you use Gracenote to tag this disco/boogie tune by Glass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsG_u_Eo1KQ

...it attributes it to Philip Glass. I wonder if anyone who doesn't know Philip Glass has tried to search for more tunes by this "disco artist", and gotten properly confused by the results?

Aphex Twin - Outside Kickass Violin Solo

my favorite was when St. Anger was coming out, some jokester got a whole buncha authentic metal songs that might have sounded like Metallica, and labeled them as new Metallica songs. obv people did/do this all the time, but it was funny cuz more fans than usual bot it hook, line, and sinker.

and all these nerd fans were actually using quotes from the songs on their sig lines on metal message boards and shit. "Hunger" was the one I remember....fans were so desperate to think they were gonna write quality metal again that they believed shit that obviously wasn't Metallica was.

In a similar vein to the St. Anger story. I remember fondly the many fake leaks of Autechre's 2005 release - Untilted.

A standard one is Sublime - Smoke Two Joints being listed as being by Bob Marley, which had to have been a mistake someone who hated all sound must've made.

Good God I'd love to shoot whoever did that witha BB gun loaded with bubonic plague infected bullets

The Sundays' cover of "Wild Horses" used to be listed as being by Mazzy Star on Kazaa. I've gotten the impression lots of people never got that one cleared up...

Grandaddy's "so you'll aim toward the sky" was listed as Radiohead. Also apparently recorded by Radiohead: the harmonica theme from Once Upon A Time In The West. For a couple of years there any vaguely british falsetto (or spaghetti western post rock?) was Radiohead. Super-prolific period for those dudes.

i found quite a few instances of "send me an angel" being attributed to the pet shop boys. not a difficult mistake to make, mind you

I remember when searching for Boredoms songs I got a track called "Dead Cat" which turned out to be by The Macc Lads. There's some screeching and yowling at the start which is (very) vaguely Eye-ish, I guess, but jesus...

Also, I found Taco's "Puttin' On The Ritz" being attributed to They Might Be Giants, and the Beatles' "What's The New Mary Jane" being listed as a collaboration between the Fab Four and Syd Barrett. And there were seemingly hundreds of people sharing Blur's "Song 2" as "Woo Hoo".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1mth_4-LQc

labelled as 'the clash'

apparently there's a widespread misconception on the internet that the popular Gary Jules cover of Tears For Fears' "Mad World" is by R.E.M., which i find totally inexplicable and hilarious

I remember when Daft Punk's Human After All leaked (nearly a year early!) and everyone just assumed it was a fake

All-time favorite example is when somebody posted Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted as the unreleased new Weezer album in 2000/2001. A lot of people fell for it.

there are still dozens of people on slsk with "Detachable Penis" attributed to either Primus or the Butthole Surfers.

animal collective rickroll

Saw "99 Luft Balloons" by Bjork on grooveshark yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziWg-b-KBtU

Now if he ever covers "Bette Davis Eyes", I'll know he's trollin'.

that's not misattributed....confused

It's because Bonnie Tyler was often described as having a voice like Rod's. "The Female Rod Stewart" they would say...

R o d S t e w a r t - It;s a Heartache.mp3
R o d S t e w a r t - - Stay_With_Me.mp3
R o d S t e w a r t - Maggie May.mp3
R o d S t e w a r t - Ooh La la.mp3
R o d S t e w a r t - Me and Bobbi McGee.mp3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej1Kpv0WScw

But why'd they use a pic of Jimi Hendrix?

This thread is making me very nostalgic.

As mentioned above, Send Me An Angel as attributed to the Pet Shop Boys feels like the canonical example - I remember being on a PSB newsgroup around the Nightlife tour in 1999, and some wag who would post the set lists from each night would occasionally slip Send Me An Angel in there causing boundless confusion to great amusement.

Also - Popcorn by Jean Michel Jarre. (Confusing, Jarre DID record versions of Popcorn - under the names The Pop Corn Orchestra and I think Jamie Jefferson? but the versions tagged as Jarre would always be the M&H Band version).

Oh, and Adiemus by Enya.

In hindsight these seem so funny to me, like how would you end up with totally unattributed MP3s and have to guess at the artist and title? But I guess people did a lot of mass ripping and ending up with generic file names and then other people downloaded them and gave them names? What a strange and wonderful moment. The biggest one I remember was Weird Al getting the blame for any parody or comedy song, even if neither the vocal stylings nor the type of comedy remotely resembled anything he would do - "King of Spain," "Because I Got High," that "piece of shit car" song, etc.

There was also that thing, which I think only lasted from maybe 2000 to 2002, where people would deliberately misspell artists and song titles in an effort to evade primitive piracy detection schemes, or so it was believed. The ones that stick out in my mind are the Ramones becoming the Romones, and the Flaming Lips' "Buggin'" becoming "Baggin'," which made me think of it as some kind of Phish kid hackey-sack anthem, or a statement of lazy summer-day purposes: ahh, we're just baggin' around, baggin' the day away.

Ah, the Bee Tols.

Apparently Right Said Fred's classic "I'm Too Sexy" is a Chipmunks tune.

― Sean, Saturday, March 16, 2002 1:00 AM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't that the one that's actually a Hendrix one?
Main melody is 3rd Stone from The Sun on one of their songs from what I remember.

I found a whole treasure trove of Beatles cuts on Grooveshark once by searching for Los Escarabajos.

"She's Making Movies" by Lou Reed