I’m ripping my CDs onto my hard drive. Simple enough.
I use Music Match. It’s simple to use and fast. Satisfactory for my purposes.
And it automatically fills in track and album information from MM online database. No typing! Whee!
So far I’ve run into two CDs I have that aren’t in their database. That pretty much means that I’m the first to use their DB to try to ID these albums. Woof.
FTR:
‘Full of Life’ by Dead Girls and Other Stories
‘Time Gentlemen, Please!’ by Caprizzio
I was googling the lyrics of some songs on one of my favorite CDs earlier today, and found that they were nowhere to be found! :eek: (This is an English language CD, put out by Warner Bros.)
That was a first for me.
I just brought home a CD that my “one man band” friend back home gave me. As far as I know I’m the only person in the world that has it. Now that’s obscure ;).
When it’s a live recording of a concert that was lost in someone’s house for 30 years. 
That happened to me, once - my dad and I made a friend in Virginia who said he’d been to an Allman Brothers show in July, 1971, and that his brother had recorded it all. At the time, only four songs were being traded, the rest presumed lost. A few weeks later, he found it and gave us the rest - and his version was missing some stuff at the end. So the version my dad burned was the first-ever complete recording of this show, and we were the first to hear it. Who knows how many people have it now… but every complete copy traces back to ours.
In increasing order of obscurity:
There’s a group I like called Uncle Bonsai; hard to describe, but sort of a hyper-literate, satiric folk trio. The front man created his own label for their recordings, and he’s added a few other artists, but it’s a small operation. A few years ago when Napster was trying to cut licensing agreements with record labels to make their business legit, he announced that it was okay to share his music. I think he even sent a letter to Napster to let them know. They had, and still have, a small, dedicated fan base and could only gain from spreading the music around to new people.
And even with all that, I used to do periodic searches on Napster and almost never found anything of theirs.
A CD titled “Fortune” by Giant Ant Farm, packaged in a recycled, tri-fold cardboard sleeve, purple on brown.
I have a second-generation tape copy of “Motor Scooter” by The Surrealists. Apart from that, there is no evidence, anywhere, that it exists. Which is a shame, really, because the song kicks ass.
Same way you did, Jonathan. I was listening to my CD on MusicMatch, and neither the album nor the tracks appeared on the database. I found it strange, since it’s an anthology CD series, and the previous one was on the database (much to my surprise). I wonder why the new one in the series isn’t.
None of the Stockhausen CDs I’ve done have ever been in ANY online database I’ve used.
Besides the obvious ones (school concerts and such) I have a Japanese import. I had to piece together the track listings with help from friends online, the listing (all in Japanese) from CDJapan, and my Learn Hiragana and Katakana book.
And no, I’m not going to tell you which CD.
I know it’s pretty durn obscure when an online database recognizes it as a completely different CD. “Well, I don’t know; um, how about this one?”
Here is Obscure - Red Flag, I had a friend in the Navy that were friends with this band, and I taken to see them them in a club, I have a tape of there demo, and bought there CD. When I play there music people go, Who Is That - I go Red Flag, they have no idea.
I know a band i listen to is obscure when i search good for their name and lyrics or a lyrics from their song and it comes up with nothing of theirs and the only lyrics ti finds are other obscure bands lyrics.
cellardoor–I know how you feel. One of my favorite artists is a Danish lady by the name of Gry. I tend to get some Polish websites and a lot of ‘what is the third ending in -gry’ pages. Very frustrating.
Good thread!
http://www.digelius.com/order.htm
Most obscure artist with a legitimate claim to be the greatest singer in the world. I’m a huge fan of Linda Eder, and sincerely consider her to be the world’s greatest singer. Unfortunately she has chosen to work in that strangest of musical genres known as ‘musical theatre’ (although she could sing anything she wants). As such, only a small fraction of her work tends to show up on most usual databases. She does fare better on more specialised lists.
Most obscure officially released and published CD in my collection. If you want something really obscure, I have a CD single called ‘Modern Santa’, recorded, produced and distributed by Customised Gravel in 1999. I was one third of this band, and sang lead vocal. This was a proper CD, with all the proper forms submitted to the PRS and MCPS and was, I believe, played exactly once on one radio station. Only 100 CDs were ever made. It is the only thing ever recorded or published by C Gravel, and the band no longer exists. It is unobtainable in CD form from any source, although there is one website from which the track can be downloaded (I think). I guess that makes it about as obscure as an officially released CD can be.
Ultimate obscurity. I have CDs of my own music, each one of which is unique and has never been heard by anyone except me. I doubt it’s possible to be any more obscure than this!
You know you have obscure music when the track list is hand lettered, and it’s not a style decision.