Obscure bands. Awesome bands.

Wow. Looking at those last.fm stats, I just realised how overly broad my definition of "obscure" is.

I guess I just haven't been in the music-nerd business long enough. Still in high school and a' tha'.

Dong worry. In time, you'll become as entrenched and snobby as the rest of us

It is interesting to compare band's last fm stats, although as others have mentioned, the older a band is the more the accuracy of calling them 'obscure' is narrowed.

Here's a comparison of just some of the many bands and musicians I have stuff by:

• Bjork 1,840,527 listeners

• Orbital 679,810 listeners

• Deerhoof 399,040 listeners

• Fela Kuti 198,486 listeners

• Magazine 178,143 listeners

• Cardiacs 10,488 listeners

• The Trudy 1,483 listeners

• The Hinkley Veltones 305 listeners

My favourite band is third from last... Hmmph!

edited 20th Jan '13 1:28:03 PM by porschelemans

Heh. "Dong worry." That typo makes me giggle.

The Hot Toddies have 30 435 listeners. 388 888 for Best Coast. 105 335 for Mother Mother. 142 948 for Lisa Mitchell.

edited 20th Jan '13 1:46:28 PM by Tiamatty

Oh dammit, freaking cell phone. At least it amused someone

We've all got dong worries. I worry greatly about my dong. I always make sure it's tucked away safely before I zip up my fly. And I keep my eyes open for any dong-seeking projectiles. Those pose a real dong worry.

I'm sorry, I'll stop now.

On topic, Hannah Fury has 60 425 listeners on Last.FM. Kristeen Young has 7 687. (But she's friends with David Bowie, Morrissey and Brian Molko. You'd think she'd pick up a few listeners from them.) Sunshine Blind has 9 353. Moving back away from goth, Spector has 49 309. Wussy has 9 642. Morningwood has 148 621.

*dons hipster glasses* Anyone who has less than 1000?

Criminally overlooked post-punk band The Momes has only 239 listeners, which is a damn shame because their LP Spiralling is possibly one of the finest albums of the 80s.

Some awesome instrumentation there!

206 listeners for the Babylon Underground. 796 for Mamajamas. 891 for Clare Bowditch & the New Slang.

The Canadian band Boy isn't even listed - there's 4 bands by that name, and they all get shoved together, so I have no idea how many of the listeners are going with the same one I listen to.

Can you check the stats on individual tracks?

And "Clare Bowditch & the New Slang"? Did they get their name from the song by The Shins after watching Garden State?

One of Boy's albums, the one I'm most familiar with, has 1 446 listeners. So I guess they do break a thousand. Damn.

As for where the New Slang got their name, no idea. But their album came out in 2010, if that means anything. Also, Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set, her previous (and much inferior) band, has 21 915 listeners. Clare Bowditch herself has 35 533. So the New Slang might not count.

They definitely got their name from the Shins song.

(This song, if you don't know it:)

edited 21st Jan '13 6:37:36 PM by 0dd1

Corpo Diplomático (it can be translated as 'Diplomatic Corps') is a Portuguese Post-Punk band. They're mostly famous for being the previous band of some members who formed a much more popular band called Heróis do Mar ('Heroes of the Sea'). They released an album (Música Moderna - 'Modern Music') and a single. They sound good. In case anyone's interested, I can send you a link to their album and single.

Their last.fm page.

edited 21st Jan '13 10:58:44 PM by Quag15

@0dd1: How about less than 100...

• Onnyk: 92 listeners.^note His name also shows up as part of two collaborative projects, with twenty-five and six listeners respectively.
• Gonk: 86 listeners.^note Noise improv represent, yo! A one-album wonder.
• Empty Box: 62 listeners.^note Precursor to the much more notable Wingtip Sloat.
• Sufi Mind Game: 42 listeners.^note A Portland experimental rock duo with very few releases.
• Capital Eye: 21 listeners.^note A Bügsküll side-project; hence, a point of interest.

Do I win something?

Damn. You win 100,000,000 Hipster Credits*

I'm not even sure if it qualifies as hipsterism after a certain point. For something to be hip, it has to have the potential to catch on to some degree, or to be known to enough people to look fashionable or avant-garde. Listening to music with that small a pool of listeners may have bragging rights in theory, but in practice, the plaid-and-skinny-jeans crowd just feel uncomfortable around people like me. I'm not a trend-setter; I'm an obsessive.

Oh, speaking of which, Slashing In Your Slumber have only 18 registered listeners on Last.fm, making them the most obscure artist in my music library and possibly anyone else's.

OK, I do feel a little pride there...

Eh, for me hipster isn't really anything concrete, just a state of mind and being able to say "Man, you don't know this? Well, you wouldn't have, it's so obscure" about the things you like

I'm even a hipster about the popular stuff I like. I'll sometimes defend some of the music I like by saying I liked it before I knew it was popular.

Saeglopur said that hipster credits can't be redeemed at most stores, and those which do accept them don't think you're cool enough to shop there anyway.

That is quite sage advice.

We should remember that Last FM statistics aren't in any way a concrete way of telling who is more "obscure". For example, on my list, Deerhoof have just under 400,000 listeners, while Fela Kuti has just under 200,000.

I highly doubt Fela Kuti is more "obscure" than Deerhoof. But Deerhoof score higher because the majority of people who listen to Deerhoof are gonna be hipster - indie - types who use Last FM. Meanwhile, I doubt 1% of Fela Kuti's listeners have even heard of Last FM, and therefore the comparison is invalid.

While a fair point, you should also keep in mind that Deerhoof are an active musical outfit with an increasingly large fanbase purely by dint of being in the public eye. Fela Kuti, while widely respected and fairly well-known, does not have that luxury.

Also, while this applies to bigger artists with fanbases outside of the usual Last.fm user base, I can't imagine that it would be too much of an exaggeration if an artist is obscure or rare enough. Even if I assume that at least ten times the number of people listed on Bügsküll's page actually listen to that group, all of the Bügsküll fans in the world would just fill Madison Square Garden. By contrast, Radiohead fans? Divide the listed listeners there by ten and you still have a decent-sized town, if not a small city.

A town full of nothing but Radiohead fans...*shudder*

I don't think that a town full of mere Radiohead fans would be much of a problem; it's just a large collection of people who like Radiohead, nothing more, nothing less.

Now, a town full of Radiohead fangirls, on the other hand...