I suppose it probably wouldn't be considered "obscure" amongst us
but I always play this.

I suppose I'm a bit of a Shack evangelist.

...people didn't believe me when I said I loved Neutral Milk Hotel, because they assumed I was making up a piss-take schmindie band. But they're wonderful, and here's the track I play to convince people of that:

I've been trying for years to convert at least one of my friends to the joys of wigged-out acid psych folksters Comus...

Without, it must be said, much success.

For some reason I cannot embed but it's either Les Papillons Noirs by Michele Arnaud, Inkpot by Shocking Blue, Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind by Vashti or Confusions About A Goldfish by John Kongos.

...to drop Shadows & Reflections by The Action

The majority don't like the vocalist, but I love it. Mellotrons, violins, acoustic and electric guitar, more keyboards... what's not to love?

No chorus, not much of a tune, mad words (The flora oughta equal the fauna, but priest equals aura) but utterly delightful

Edit: Huh! Can't post the vid from here. You'll have to trust me on this one.

Anita O'Day - starts about 5 mins in, but it's all good.

Very little is known of the man behind this gem

.

I bought this at Musik City, a shack buried in a corner of Lewisham Market that played this astonishing music at blistering volume, through a real tannoy system clearly pilfered from somewhere or other.

Reggae was the first music that I ever really, really loved and at school I was very clearly in a minority of one. Forget this modern nonsense of cross-over genres: in those days you couldn't like reggae and rock. Reggae was music for thugs and dunces (Of course, this was Bexley Grammar School).

It was from Musik City that I discovered Duke Reid, Dennis Alcapone, Byron Lee, Lee Perry and the wonders of 'Version'. I also got heavily into BlueBeat, which my mum loved and my Dad hated, and it was from there that I bought Prince Buster's Greatest Hits.

From 1972 onwards I got more and more into Rock but I always kept up the love of Reggae and of course when Punk came along and doffed its cap in my direction, I was overjoyed to see the white/black crossover finally happen.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when The Specials flashed up on my TV screen preforming Gangsters. Oh no it isn't, I thought: the watching masses may not know this but here is a rewrite of Al Capone, by Prince Buster. I own this record!

Having decided there and then to investigate further, I headed thus to Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic, 1979 - 1982.

But I digress. Midnight Confessions is wonderful. Check out the totally out-of-tune bass. One of the few records that can genuinely make me cry.

Psychedelic, tripped out road music from Germany that sounds like it's being sucked backwards.

I couldn't find it on youtube, but you should be able to stream it on the myspace link below.

http://www.myspace.com/locustfudge/music/songs/song-to-philippe-4102251

I’ve recently developed an evangelical zeal about Ms McKee’s work. I can’t believe she isn’t more widely recognised as a terrific song-writer.

In particular I’m taken by her “Panic Beach”. An inspiring tale of struggling Vaudeville performers and their resilient optimism or perhaps of sad show-biz-wannabes who won’t face how far they are from achieving their dreams? Their fates teeter between that of the Felice Brothers’small-time losers and Springsteen’s heroes redeemed by escaping their small town limits.

“Well the dog act got drunk again last night
And the King and Queen of the waltz clog team had another fight.
The King was careless with his tango grip
Nearly lost his Queen in a dip.
She righted her self, straightened out her slip
And kicked him in the shins.”

This was a hit in Australia about 12 years ago (though I think she's Kiwi). I love it and it seems to invade every playlist I make.

I saw her live at v Festival once, in a mostly empty tent. She was wonderful.

What happens is I say "You know he did the original of Everybody's Talking? Well this is even better and it wasn't even released!"

What happens next is, if I'm playing it to a woman she generally wants to sleep with me, if I'm playing it to a man, he generally wants to be my mate and I bask in the warm knowledge of having spread a little happiness in this cold world of ours.

Then I wake up.

Whenever I bump into my old box of singles from the 80's this is the one that always gets played first - mainly to blank stares. No sure why as I think its a great Sparksy tune...

and it's not Stackridge. It is Spirogyra and I fell in love with this track 40 years ago. As a result I started Myspace sites for both Spirogyra and Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin to promote their old records, which they eventually took over to run themselves to promote new material.

Spirogyra - Love Is A Funny Thing

The Land Of Chocolate

that had it on some sort of hits compilation at my house when I was a kid. Something reminded me of it in the past year, I dug it up on iTunes or eMusic and now its a regular on my missus's car playlist. I agree that it's thoroughly engaging.

But 2 that a great response are these

By The Troggs.
Not an obscure band but a song that few know. A grippingly sad tale of after hours second-party incest. Beautiful. They 'ave played it tonight!

Hidden track at the end of his 1989 album Big Daddy.

but a hit. Sound familiar ?

is usually enough to convince people that it was The Sound, rather than U2, Joy Division or The Bunnymen who were the best post-punk rock band of the early 1980s.

It was only Adrian Borland's shyness, a librarian drummer, and an early outing by Synthesiser Patel that stopped them from being the biggest band of their kind in the world.

For a bunch of plain-looking shyboys that don't move much, this is about as smokin' as you can get...

Has anyone else never heard of ANY of the bands mentioned above??

Class

I often play my friends Sarah, Your Boyfriend's Outside by The Egos.

I always try to convert people to artists they claim not like (by the way this never works). 'Meet me on the other side' by springsteen off 'born to run' and 'West End Blues' by Louis Armstrong. Not exactly obscure but seldom heard by the average joe.

paralytic with laughter at this.

Drink may have been taken:

Still livens up the most tasteful of soirees today

I think this was written by the same person that wrote 'I Will Survive' but it's a much better song

I think I've had my quota on this thread

From the worlds most deranged movie trailer

This is the Word forum after all: there's a song by Richard Thompson which I think is one of the greatest songs ever written about war; and one of the greatest songs ever, full stop. It's called Woods of Darney; sadly I can only find half of it on youtube, but it gives you the idea. My other half was indifferent to RT until she heard this song - it might convert you too...

for people who don't "get" classical music and think it is something of the past, like Latin or good manners, or something that is difficult and obscure. This never fails to make people listen and reflect, particularly when I tell them it was composed in 1990 and commissioned by the BBC. Suddenly it's a part of life and not of history*.

* Unless you're 18 and think Sky invented football

The Teardrop Explodes' finest hour. Usually good for a polarised discussion:-)

Jerry Burns - IIRC she featured on the first CD that came free with MOJO. She's a sort of female The Blue Nile. Great voice.

But I love it...

On which Daniel Ash proves himself to be the Hank Marvin of Goth and creates surf rock's signature tune for the first post-Apocalypse Friday Night Student Disco (half price entry for those in winklepickers)

Psychedelia at it's most psychedelic. Daevid Allen's glissando guitar and Tim Blake's synth, Pierre Moerlen's drums and Mike Howlett's bass. Steve Hillage & Didier Malherbe...
This proves that Gong were far more than just a hippy novelty act (although I was never entirely happy with Gilli Smyth's "Space whispering" which, happily, is nowhere to be heard on this track).

Mancunian elaborate chamber-dreamy-electro-rock-pop

Disappeared from view, unless anyone can tell me any different

First album was more electropop

This from their 2005 second album, bit more guitary

Reading through this thread has cost me £7.31. Oh well, iTunes needs the money more than me! Thanks for the stimulating posts.

Dion (& the Delmonts) are regarded as a bit of a 'bubblegum' band.

I adore his song "King of the New York streets" from 1989.

(I will try & upload something from you tube when I get home)

from my favourite LP ever; here's Ariel Ramirez and Jaime Torres playing El Nacimiento Del Charango.

Fantastic, but not even the best track from that album.
I also like to play ( not too obscure, but to my friends all songs seems to be ) Colin Blunstones Let Me Come Closer To You to people, but I couldn't find it on YouTube. Lovely song, stunning voice.

I had this single, bought from a charity shop, because I was intrigued by the song titles. It's hilarious and I played it to many people.

"Ayatollah" was, essentially, My Sharona with different words. Directed at the late Ayatollah Kohmeni, it is three minutes of vitriol recorded at around the time of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. "You're already gonna die - a - tollah" was one of the lines.

And then the B side "Unhappy New Year" was a spoken word/sermon thing from the point of view of someone being executed on an electric chair at midnight, 31 December 1979. As the speech ends, we hear the buzzing of the chair as he screams his final words.

One of his lesser known songs - pure blue eyed soul

I'm one of those people who find it hard to summon up enthusiasm to listen to anything new. But somehow in the context of this post I am curious and have found some stuff I've really enjoyed.

Specifically where does one start with Gong? I never listened to them and I'm intrigued

Great as it is, if you've heard 'Dock of the Bay' one too many times, then Peggy Lee does a brilliant different take on it: