common's "invocation" is his top track on spotify. it was a single b-side for like the third single from the album it originally appeared on. it's a sick jimmy ponder smooth jazz guitar loop + the one where he says 'on a quest for love like the proceed drummer' but otherwise - HUH!? how did that get to be so popular??
(i mean i used to put that beat on at least 90% of my mixtapes back in the day, so maybe that affinty has carried over? it's not a song i'd quite call a deep cut, but again: it wasn't even a single and it's beating out stuff like "the light" and "go")
― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin), Wednesday, 22 May 2024 20:22 (four weeks ago) link
it's on Spotify's I Love My 90s Hip-Hop playlist
― jaymc, Wednesday, 22 May 2024 20:54 (four weeks ago) link
(although these days all Spotify-branded playlists seem to be "made for you," so I have no idea whether other people are seeing what I'm seeing)
― jaymc, Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:03 (four weeks ago) link
I really wish there was a way to turn that 'made for you' feature off (perhaps there is?!) as it means probably 60-70% of those playlists are now populated by stuff I already know/listen to
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:08 (four weeks ago) link
Just searched that playlist and the only Common tracks on it for me are Resurrection and The Bizness (with De La) xp
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:10 (four weeks ago) link
― jaymc, Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:54 PM
see but this is what i mean -- how would it have ended up there in the first place? other than it just being an old school fan favorite of much larger significance than i would have thought?
― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin), Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:20 (four weeks ago) link
(it does appear on my version of that playlist upon looking, but i don't think i've ever actually played it from there)
― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin), Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:22 (four weeks ago) link
How do Spotify playlists even get made, is it just one person, do they have meetings, rough drafts?
― brimstead, Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:22 (four weeks ago) link
remember that scene in _the show_ where russell simmons is on the treadmill listing off which songs are to be on the def jam 10th anniversary box set?
it's kinda like that, except daniel ek isn't on a treadmill. he's in an underground war room somewhere carrying out his process to world domination.
― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin), Wednesday, 22 May 2024 21:27 (four weeks ago) link
just noticed a satisfying example... in the 90s, i'm pretty sure i wanna be sedated and sheena is a punk rocker were played on alt radio more than blitzkrieg bop. i remember a key moment in my so called life when the edgy girl's band covers sedated. at college i certainly heard the ramones a lot more than most first wave punk bands, songs ranging from teenage lobotomy and pinhead to kkk took my baby away, bonzo goes to bitburg and pet sematary, a band sort of always in the background with a stronger legacy than the dolls, pistols, damned, even iggy.
the ramones' highest selling single was the 1980 reissue of sedated, which didn't chart but was apparently a steady seller. the highest charting song (top ten in the UK) by the band was their terrible cover of baby i love you, supposedly demo'd at gunpoint by phil spector and recorded with session musicians... so it's pleasant to see that blitzkrieg bop is now firmly well ahead of sedated in the streaming list, and baby i love you is down to #5. perhaps the turning point was 1994 when bop was included on jock rock volume 1.
― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, 22 May 2024 22:05 (four weeks ago) link
The Fabulous Thunderbirds' cover of Slim Harpo's "Baby Scratch My Back" (from their first album in 1979) is their top Spotify track, with almost 4 million more spins than their sole US Top 40 hit "Tuff Enuff."
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 3 June 2024 12:16 (two weeks ago) link