Out of Obscurity

About Out of Obscurity

OoO highlights great but under-appreciated music albums, mostly from the 21st century, as selected by host DJ Poseur and a rotating brigade of fellow obsessives. Each co-host chooses an album pick to discuss at length, including consideration of why we think it’s awesome but woefully unknown to the listening public. All picks meet stringent criteria for obscurity (Under 50 user reviews in All Music Guide, Under 100k streams on YouTube). Features include games for the listener to play along with, like “The Obscurity Quiz” (in which albums are ranked by a contestant from most obscure to most famous), “Score the List” (in which cohosts compare their knowledge and music collections to online “Top 10” lists), “Stump the DJ” (in which the cohosts challenge one another’s knowledge of obscure bands), and the occasional “Scheduled Digression” (in which we tackle a specific topic in music or the music industry). See also the companion subreddit (www.reddit.com) for links to all the albums featured in OoO episodes if you'd rather skip our yakking: r/MusicNobodyElseLikes Who should listen to OoO? Anyone dissatisfied by contemporary pop music. Anyone unfamiliar with but interested in independent music of the 21st century. Fellow obsessives who want reviews of beloved but obscure albums and find existing online resources limited. People who want something totally out of left field to spice up their music listening experience. Anyone who enjoys a contentious dialog about art. Rather than being the kind of podcast whose any given episode will be of general interest, it is hoped that with time, with an accumulated body of work, we will hit upon an album or at least a very specific style of music that is beloved by potential listeners as much as by us. Welcome to the wild, weird, and wondrous world of OoO!

Category

leisure · music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Sept 2020

Latest episode

10 Jul 2022

Latest episodes

37 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   10 Jul 2022

   Obscurity Quiz: Female Vocalist Hard Rock

   Welcome back idiotprogrammer, Robert Nagle, to OoO’s longstanding mini-feature. In it, he mentions an article from 2000 by Courtney Love and follows up, “https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ Courtney Loe  wrote this long screed in 2000! Re-reading it, I see that her take was on the mark. I'm in the publishing business and face some of the same issues (sort of). A lot of older authors have a hard time getting their rights back  (It's called rights reversion), but there is a process for doing so. The labels grabbed a bit too much in the 1990s especially before digital sales was a significant chunk of their sales. But it all depends on your contract; if musicians got legal representation, they could know these things in advance, but labels signed people very quickly in the 1990s without musicians getting legal advice.  labels used to be  a little too controlling of the small number of ubercelebrities they signed on.”

2. 

   4 Apr 2022

   EI4: Doleful Lions “Out Like a Lamb” ; Savath & Savalas “Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey”

   OoO did not intend to take a three-month hiatus, but we’re glad to be back with idiotprogrammer, Robert Nagle. DJ Poseur claims that DL is the best rock band to have its whole discography on Bandcamp on a “name your price” basis:  https://dolefullions.bandcamp.com/ Find S&S’s debut on Discogs:  https://www.discogs.com/master/107485-SavathSavalas-Folk-Songs-For-Trains-Trees-And-Honey STRUCTURE:  War in Europe for Ukrainian & Russian Music (to 9:25) Doleful Lions “Out Like a Lamb” (9:25-16:00) Other critics & genre, Lazarus as a song premise (16:00-24:00)  Being tame —> longevity? Bandcamp’s future in licensing.  Downsides of consistency (24:00-27:52) Doleful Lions “Look Homeward Angel Numbers,” Ratings, RIYLs (27:52-31:17)  Comparison of very different album picks & Robert’s thoughts on Savath & Savalas, how excited to be about mellow music (31:17-44:08) Savath & Savalas “Folk Songs for Trees, Trains and Honey” electronic music around the turn of the 21st century (44:08-48:45) AMG & Pitchfork on S&S & what ambient is and is not, elderly electronic listeners, live music & instrumental music, unpredictability in repetitive musical styles (48:45-1:00:30) What we listened to that our parents couldn’t stand, DJ Poseur goes racist to describe styles of music he doesn’t like in misinterpretation of a question about Thai musical tastes, Trip-hop & downtempo versus jazz & lounge music, RIYLs (1:00:30-1:06:25) Rating S&S (1:06:25 to conclusion). In the Ukraine war intro, Robert does a great job with examples of how musicians on all sides are responding.  UKRAINIAN MUSIC FOREVER!! Robert's "Ukraine Pop Music is Cool" Playlist on Spotify. https://spoti.fi/3MnVNTn Also a Youtube playlist: https://bit.ly/3vMpeIL   As always, check out his blog for more media.  http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/ We also mention “Russian folk singers with a message” such as Alexander Rozenbaum. Album reviews for “Out Like a Lamb”:  https://chicagoreader.com/music/local-indie-rockers-doleful-lions-have-long-been-overlooked-but-theyve-never-lost-their-spark/ , https://chicagoreader.com/music/local-indie-rockers-doleful-lions-have-long-been-overlooked-but-theyve-never-lost-their-spark/ .  AMG thinks very highly of them but hasn’t updated their discography https://www.allmusic.com/artist/doleful-lions-mn0000141712 .  Two others get the Pitchfork treatment https://pitchfork.com/artists/1261-doleful-lions/ . DJ Poseur can’t take psychedelic folk rock revivalism very seriously due to Spinal Tap’s “Listen to the Flower People” “Out Like a Lamb” is RIYL:   The Beatles, The Beach Boys, His Name Is Alive, "Kumbaya", Junip/Jose Gonzalez, Simon & Garfunkel, Mamas and the Papas, Paul Simon, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Papas Fritas. “Look Homeward Angel Numbers” is RIYL:  The Faint, Caesars, Many Birthdays, Dandy Warhols, Gentlemen DJ Poseur owns most of and recommends the entirety of the Hefty Records catalog for fans of instrumental, post-rock, experimental but still accessible downtempo electronica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefty_Records . The cohost and DJ Poseur disagree on whether DL would be RIYL or overall sounds similar to Of Montreal for their psychedelic chameleon rock discographies that vary over decades from the 1990s to the 2020s. “Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey” is RIYL:  Bonobo, Boards of Canada, Thievery Corporation (& full stable of ESL Music in Washington D.C. = Eighteenth Street Lounge Music), DJ Farina’s “Mushroom Jazz”. The rest of S&S’s discography is RIYL:  Devendra Banhart, Junip/Jose Gonzalez, Cass McCombs A very old Pitchfork review of it:  https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7007-folk-songs-for-trains-trees-and-honey/ Robert’s favorite mellow music comes from Polly Scattergood & Goldfrapp, both comparable in his view to Stevie Nicks.  Also Australian singer Princess Chelsea . .

3. 

   27 Mar 2022

   Obscurity Quiz w/ idiotprogrammer 60s Psychedelic Rock Revival

   It’s been a long, unscheduled hiatus for OoO, but here’s a morsel of what we’ll talk about in OoO EI4, currently being edited.  The albums up for arrangement from most to least famous in this quiz are as follows: A. Dandy Warhols - "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia" (2000).  B. The Apples in Stereo - "Fun Trick Noisemaker" (1995).  C. The Vryll Society - "Course of the Satellite" (2018).  D. Doleful Lions - "Out Like a Lamb" (2002).  E. Gentlemen - "Secret Memories" (2020).  F. The Everly Brothers - "Roots" (1968).  G. Guided by Voices - "Bee Thousand" (1994). By the guest’s request, I cross-checked the number of reviews on AllMusic Guide with the number on rateyourmusic.com .  Impressively, the rankings were exactly the same in terms of comparing the number of user rankings for each album.  Furthermore, the most-ranked album for each artist (which is usually the one chosen for the Obscurity Quiz) was also the same as on AMG.  Let’s hear it for intercoder reliability or at least internet statistics generally!  Woo consensuses! On Discogs, it’s much more labor-intensive to find out which of a band’s albums has the most ratings.  The albums in this quiz differed slightly there, with The Dandy Warhols more popular relative to GBV &  The Everly Brothers more popular relative to The Apples in Stereo.  I probably won’t do this much follow-up after every Obscurity Quiz going forward, however fascinating these subtle differences may be.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

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