Suggest one obsure album we all should hear

I personally wouldn't call Pink Martini obscure but there you are.

I'm not even so sure about Genevieve Waite or the Incredible String Band being obscure either. I'd hope not.

So my nomination would be Talulah Gosh, purveyors of 1980s pretty pop, which some might call twee, and with an image that might not be to everyone's taste.

Great music though.

Here's one track off their album Rock Heroes vol 69 (or the more complete and  readily available compilation Backwash).



Talulah Gosh

https://youtu.be/ZxY4Q2TmQAw

There's a couple mentioned so far that I'm going to check out. 

Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake is  an album that I've often seen mentioned but the lack of a single probably resulted in it not getting much radio play.

The other is the Moody Blues In Search of the Lost Chord by the Moody Blues. It's a little wordy and metaphysical but sometimes that's not a bad thing.

I gave Van Dyne Park's Song Cycles a quick listen earlier, it's got great sonics but that voice was a bit of a struggle.


Anyway, Richard Hawley's Truelove's Gutter is my favourite album of his. Very playable with nothing there that makes me want to skip tracks.

Here's the relaxingly hypnotic Remorse Code off the album with an odd video.

https://youtu.be/xF3lD_0OTKQ

@dayglow,

"IMO any recording that sold over 100k copies is not obscure regardless of when it was recorded."


That’s the great thing about music - worthy albums eventually tend to become less obscure over time.

By the time I got into music the Velvet Underground were a well known band and yet there were many stories that this near legendary band had broken up mainly from lack of commercial success.

Wasn’t it largely through the promotional efforts of David Bowie that the Velvet Underground gradually attained their deserved current status?

I’d also agree that it’s difficult to call the Nightly an obscure album nowadays, but for me it certainly was about 20 years ago. Same for Nick Drake, who’s lack of commercial success definitely contributed towards his suicide.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that genuinely great obscure albums are a threatened species especially nowadays with such easy access to them.

Anyway here’s one that might still be obscure for now and might not qualify for being great either, but it might be of interest to fans of high energy Pop.

Especially those who aren’t too bothered about foreign language lyrics.

Cola Jet Set - Guitarras Y Tamborres

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lmx-AnQLZ9MFcMyNyDZi2pzw0865Hbby8

50 years on after the breakup of the Beatles and no one ever seemed to  capture the same magic.

Or maybe they did. 

What about the group that featured Stig O Hara, Dirk McQuickly, Ron Nasty and Barry Wom? 

Collectively known as the Rutles.

With songs penned by Neil Innes their self titled album was recorded in a mere 10 days. Innes was even taken to court some time later over copywright infringements by the owners of the Beatles catalogue. 

It's certainly an album any Beatles fan should be familiar with.

The Rutles - The Rutles (1978)

Of all the songs perhaps I Must Be in Love gets closest to that of the fab four.

https://youtu.be/54KBPA20b9Q

Always Heavenly: The Paris Sisters Anthology


Apart from I Love How You Love Me the rest of this very listenable collection was unknown to me.



Here’s a great 2016 write-up courtesy of Kris Needs at Record Collector Magazine.


"Girl group dream-pop has rarely sounded so exquisite as when San Francisco sisters Albeth, Priscilla and Sherrell Paris, who had been performing and recording since childhood, saw their supernatural harmonies hotwired by Phil Spector and sent to new levels of sensual heaven on 1961’s sublime I Love How You Love Me.

As this fabulous collection (unbelievably their first due to the number of labels they recorded for) shows, the sisters recorded many more gems through the 60s – the desolate What Am I To Do epitomising their rare depth and billowing maturity.

From Priscilla’s spectral sigh to the time-stopping starbursts realised with producers Jack Nitzsche and Terry Melcher on outings such as He Knows I Love Him Too Much and their stellar version of Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover, there’s much here to savour."

https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/always-heavenly-paris-sisters-anthology

Roy Orbison - In Dreams : the greatest hits (1987)

It's not obscure but I don't see this record mentioned anywhere close to enough as to what I feel it should be.

In my experience this is one example where digital and analogue virtually coincide.

If there is a better sounding Roy Orbison album out there, then I haven't heard it.