Songs that became famous because of a system glitch

Some pretty blissed-out YT comments for that “Maybe” track.

All those records sound the same to me, lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you leave Soundcloud running after the track ends, the app, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear (algorithms? Mischievous intent?) immediately moves from the nascent oeuvre of Elon Musk to the work of a rapper called almndjoy, automatically playing his track Erectile Dysfunction, with its diverting opening line “I’m sorry my dick doesn’t work”. Languishing unnoticed on Soundcloud for a year, it’s seen a vast upsurge in plays since Musk’s track made its debut, replete with a series of comments indicating that “Elon brought me here”. Perhaps that will be Elon Musk’s most lasting musical legacy: he’s brought Erectile Dysfunction to the masses.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/31/elon-musk-edm-artist-first-track-dont-doubt-ur-vibe

(there is a very tempting potential explanation for this if you know how recommendation algorithms usually do work for things without many sources of input data, like a brand-new elon musk song before it's been reported)

this might count

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaXDhd2-mwM

I have no clue what the origin of this is (and where volumes 1-7 are) but it seems to be very popular on RYM

Not relevant to this revive but in the original go-round I enjoyed the discussion of how different people's technology played first alphabetical track or first alphabetical artist.

For a long time my wife and I had a shared bunch of music and when sorted alphabetically it always started with ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.

Many xxxposts on Amazon music:

My grandparents and my parents and their friends bought Alexa, which I find odd because around my age only one person I know has an alexa. At least in my city it’s the people over 50 that are buying Alexa.

Anyhoo, this spike that I’ve noticed this past year in Alexa purchases might be why Amazon music is becoming important and why they can choose which song becomes a hit, most people just say “alexa play some “insert music genre”” which gives Amazon the chance to push whichever track they chose at the beginning of their playlists.

Yep

can't find any info on this weird amateur (?) recording that has 100000 plays on spotify
https://open.spotify.com/track/5lIikHmK6oZSaPw1vsi35S?si=mr9Syo9eTfS_0Lx8Rm-kGg
a glitch in the matrix?

it was on my discover weekly 🤔

it's kind of amazing

yes it's weirdly enjoyable

crossposted from the J-pop thread, CHAI have covered Plastic Love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhkQgyxzRzI

i guess pavement "harness your hopes" and the galaxie 500 song could count for this

it wasn't a 'hit' per se, but the same year Orgy released Candyass, a band called Candyass released an album named Orgy.

don’t forget green, who came out with an album called rem

REM was a single. And the bassist on it is currently out on $100,000 bond while working on a plea deal.

jesus christ, R.E.M.'s lawyers are brutal.

lol

Hahaha

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Bowi.jpg

god damn that still cracks me up

Not really a system glitch, I guess this is more a case of algorithms working how they're supposed to I guess, but still mostly by accident:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/11/how-old-ambient-japanese-music-became-a-smash-hit-on-youtube/

Just came here to post that. Which came as a suggested article on my phone!

it's now on spotify

https://garbageday.substack.com/p/grieving-on-my-peloton

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-07-19/surf-curse-freaks-tik-tok

“Harness Your Hopes” appears on Spotify’s “Classic Punk” playlist; all the other tunes are decades older (needless to say, it doesn’t fit the theme). Pavement’s official Instagram posted a meme recently about the track’s ubiquity. It really is a weird thing.

this thread is amazing, btw

i have noticed recently that "never too much" by luther vandross pops up on a lot of the spotify playlists i like and i always play them on shuffle (NOT repeat all). it will always play "never too much" multiple times. especially if i need to pause — and then it almost always plays "never too much" next. it's his most played song on spotify by quite a lot. it was a top forty hit when it was released, so i'm not sure how much it factors into this discussion. i just thought it was weird.

The music has been sequenced for CD release in accordance with how the songs were recorded. So don't get your drawers crooked in your butt because songs are in a different order.

shit meant that for liner notes post.

this is a great thread either way. read it.

your drawers crooked in your butt

Pavement went ahead and made a "Harness Your Hopes" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Ww_O3ceKU

Hey guys, I'm starting a Soulseek-proof band called 'My Documents and the MP3s'. Who's in?

not sure if this is going to lead to anything

this is what comes up rn if you google animal collective😭😭 not a joke. try it yourself pic.twitter.com/RRb60zYqnS

— jet’s key🪩✨ (@jetskitosway) June 3, 2023

boy i really dislike anco, but that is quite unfortunate.

(btw i was curious, so checked around and this seems to be exclusive to google)

Yes, you can see it in Google’s auto-suggestion when you just start typing the band name. Somehow the fact they’re both abbreviated as “AC” must have created a mucked-up mismatch.

who am i to argue with google

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-06/hiroshi-yoshimura-from-internet-obscurity-to-youtube-sensation/11366386

found a new one yesterday-
https://i.imgur.com/TAIsDoI.jpeg

(hope that image works. here's the direct link in case.)

band is mid-90s emo group
everyone asked about you + the song is "sometimes memory fails me sometimes" + i find its female vox + flute coda quite delightful. i don't do tiktok, so not sure what the context of the song's use was/is. very solid jam imo.

idk where this fits. i was recommended x-cetra in the similar artists section on the spotify profile for some modern bay area twee bands. here they are on discogs. i genuinely don't know what to make of this one. the backstory is pretty nebulous, too. seems like it's been "known" for a while but also has gotten numero's attention as of late. it's on spotify.

sorry for the redundancy. just kinda wild what shows up on there sometimes.

oh yeah, sorry i didn't say anything about the actual music--

ermmm... proto-vaporwave shaggs?

They appear to be children (or preteens at most) in that cover art…

they are.

(or were, at the time of recording)

i'm very confused by the whole thing. it's getting rym hype too.

the bio claims they all loved (among other things) fiona apple-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFeTGwi5Iow
x-cetra - 'wonderland' (2000)

That’s actually kinda cool & sophisticated, I can see why ppl are into it (I listened to a few more tracks). Dunno about the Shaggs comparison; seems like they can sing pretty well…

yeah some of the songs are... ehhhmm, kinda good? but like- was this meant to be heard? idk, just weird vibes. whoever did the music was into something else entirely.

Looks like his blog includes his radio show playlists (so you can see exactly what he’s into): http://kunstlertreu.blogspot.com/

(tantalizingly, it goes all the way back to 2002… which doesn’t quite get there)

oh weird, i was listening to this X-Cetra earlier and it was reminding me of something i couldn't put my finger on... i thought maybe some of the synth patches were presets i knew but i think it was because i used to have this Künstler Treu 12" from 2001:

https://www.discogs.com/release/178993-K%C3%BCnstler-Treu-Humuhumunukunuku-apuaa

it's kind of lightly-glitchy, woozy early-Mouse on Mars/Global Goon-ish electronic music with sampled easy-listening/hawaiian elements

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

i wonder what the connection was...

kind of an angular way to take the thread's premise, but this thread always reminds me of the Monotones's "The Book of Love". Simply because that big percussive "thud" between "ba-doooooo" and "who wrote the book of love?" was itself an accident. it wasn't part of the song, but some kid was outside the garage they were practicing in, kicking a ball, and he managed to smack the ball into the garage at that exact moment of the song, and they heard it and loved it and decided to add it.

idk that the song becomes popular without that.