Playlist of the Week – 3/22/2019
Are you someone with obscure music tastes? Do you enjoy flexing how underground the bands you listen to are? For this week, we’ve created a playlist just for you appreciators of the underappreciated. Enjoy a selection of five songs mined from the depths of Spotify, each of which have not been streamed as much as they should.
Tell Me Heaven Is Here – The Buoys
This song feels a bit like a throwback, which fits well with the aesthetics of the album cover. It’s got nice vocal harmonies, bongos and a bridge with a tempo-changing guitar solo. The Buoys weren’t very big when they were around in the 1970s, but you might be able to say they were overlooked. This song feels and sounds like a number of classics from the era, but that may have worked against them as they tried to carve out a niche for themselves.
Is it just me, or does this song sound like it belongs on the demo DVD for a plasma TV from the early 2000s? As you could guess from my specificity, this is exactly what this song is from, or at least, what a staff member recognized it from. It’s highly computerized, with industrial-sounding drums and synthetic guitar and vocal melodies. The song never really goes anywhere, but it remains interesting due to its obscure origins and history.
Devil’s Down and Out – Lifeseeker
This is where we’re getting into the stuff that has few plays for a reason. Brockhampton popularized emo rap once again, but Lifeseeker appears to have been 15 years ahead of them. This song has the same drums used throughout the album, but the vocals are much less muddled and easy to understand. There are elements of Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine here, but it is also pretty clear why Lifeseeker didn’t blow up as much as their influences. Nonetheless, it’s still an entertaining listen and is bound to make your friends who are active on Soundcloud happy.
Woolymammoth is one of these most underappreciated producers around right now, as most of his albums are filled with high-quality beats. He’s good at mixing samples with wobbly synths and muddy drums, creating a unique and unorthodox sound that sets him apart from most mainstream electronic producers. Of all the artists on this list, he’s the one with the most talent and is the most deserving of more hype.
“Restless” is a funky and inviting track, with nice production, synth work and harmonized vocals—that sound vocoded—that keep it interesting. With good headphones, this song especially stands out, as the mixing shifts throughout and engages the entire sound spectrum. One of the best parts of the undercurrents of Spotify is that you stumble upon artists that easily have the chops to make it big, and Yeo definitely falls within this category.
Jackson Rudoff is a fourth-year student studying political science and cognitive science, and a French minor that he keeps forgetting to fill out the form...