"You probably haven't heard of it"

[Jordy Hartog]

the only band i know anything about, is nightwish. Now, whenever someone asks what kind of music i listen to, all i can say for 100% certain, is videogame song remixes (via ocremix. Good stuff, all free, check it out), and Nightwish. When they say they haven't heard of the band, i find it hard to explain that they aren't very popular in the US, without saying something akin to "not surprised you haven't heard of it, they aren't really popular in the states", which sounds too much like the "hipster" saying so mentioned in the OP

And meanwhile, everyone and their dog's sister reaches for Ghost Love Score when they want to have some "epic" sounding background music for their video

though of course, not knowing the name and/or origin of a song is not uncommon at all.

how many recognize any number of classical tunes (eine kleine nachtmusik is the only one i can remember off the top of my head).

True, it's more of a humorous observation than anything. I'm one of the people who can actually recognize quite a few pieces of instrumental (not necessarily classic, but stuff like movie scores as well) music by ear.

Not that I'm all that proud of it, I just have a brain that's freakishly good at remembering minute details and otherwise pointless, almost trivial information that only really have a use if I were to ever find myself on a game show.

 

[Jordy Hartog]

My ipod is mostly full of female-fronted European gothic and symphonic metal... most people I meet have never heard of (or care for) any of them, and I've heard "Is this Evanescence?" more times than I can count. A lot of people online seem to have at least heard of Nightwish if nothing else, so it's not so bad here. In either case, I tend not to say "You probably haven't heard of them" because it sounds douchey. I just ask "Do you know X?" instead.

Ironically, back when Evanescence were virtually unknown over here (before they released My Immortal, basically) I would actually recommend them to people as "sounding a bit like <Epica/Within Temptation/After Forever/Nightwish>" depending on who the person I was talking to would know (usually telegraphed by their choice of t-shirt or their reaction to my having Tarja Turunen's face on my longcoat).

 

[Furbyz]

Well, the only relatively obscure music I listen to is John Frusciante's solo work and Voltaire. Voltaire used to be fairly unknown, but more and more lately I'm finding people that actually listen to him. Perhaps my constant posting of Happy Birthday My Olde Friend has finally paid off?

And yeah, the solo music of a long time member of an incredibly popular band...not really obscure, but I've yet to meet anyone else who actually listened to it. Mostly just people who are academically aware that it exists, if that.

 

[MorganL4]

Friend: Hey Shadow. What are you doing after school?

Shadow: Going to play some Magic the Gathering with a couple guys.

Friend: What the hell is that?

Shadow: 0______0

BULLSHIT!

no Bullshit is a different card game all together....

OT: Yeah, I tell people that my favorite comedy is Coupling ( a British show, and I live in the USA), or explain to older people that there is more to anime than Astroboy and Voltron (I swear I have had to have this conversation more times than I can count) And I even tried to get my folks to sit down and watch Avatar the last Airbender but they wont give it the time of day. (by the way this is after my dad and I went to see the M Night Shamalan thing the day after it released, which he loved by the way and still asks me every once in a while when the sequel is coming out)

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

I'm watching Angel Beats now (on episode 3, looks pretty promising) solely because one guy said something about it on a recommendation thread. THE OPENING IS SO HYPE!


It's literally just Angel playing a piano... HOW IS IT SO GOOD?!

Personally, I think it's absolutely beautiful. Everything from the animation to the song just has so much soul in it. One of my favourite parts begins at about 1 minute in, with all of the motion, then clips of Otonashi, the main character. And to put the cherry on top, the lights at the end just look wonderful.

Fun fact: that particular intro was taken from the second episode. The opening changes very slightly to showcase a couple clips from the episode it accompanies.

OT: JRPG fans are uncommon where I live. Pretty much every time I bring up the Tales series, Recettear or any Nippon Ichi or Atlus game, I have to explain what they are. Considering they're some of my favourite games, this gets annoying quickly because I bring them up frequently.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

I don't usually say that very often... I'm rather boring...

Although, if it counts, I have had to explain people that their were, Silent Hill games before the movie, and that Christopher should be Harry, his wife shouldn't be there at all, his daughter should die, it's actually his real daughter, her name is Cheryle not Sharon and she isn't Heather!

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

To be fair, I think this kind of thing is relative to who you're talking to. I mean when talking to my middle aged parents who don't know Darkthrone from Deftones, or a cousin of mine who's never heard of the Isley Brothers, then a phrase along the lines of 'you probably haven't heard of it' is something that would apply to about half of my collection. Not that I'm saying that kind of phrase in a provocative or condescending matter; it's just if they're giving me blank looks after I drop a fairly big name within a certain genre, then realistically there isn't much point in rattling off the more esoteric ones. At any rate it's not the kind of thing I'd say unless I had some idea about the kind of music they normally listen to/what constitutes obscure in their eyes and while I might be surprised every now and again (I'm amazed that my dad's heard of Comus seeing as he didn't know of King Crimson) chances are they'll be predictably oblivious. And it's not like the majority of my tastes are particularly obscure within context; I mean among old school metal crowds I'd probably be considered something of a pop-tart, but if you don't know what my avatar is (replace with something equally significant/well known for respective genres of bands below) then listing off shit like Anglagard, Beyond Creation, The Chasm, Darkspace, Exivious, Master, May Result, Oranssi Pazuzu, Panopticon etc. will surely elicit nothing more than a perplexed stare. Hopefully, I'm not coming off as a smug prick here, but I'm not really sure how to qualify this any further; it's something I say relatively often and the vast majority of the time my assumption is correct, though unlike the elitists I'd be delighted to be proven wrong in this scenario. People who are into weird/experimental music are pretty hard for me to come by outside of the interwebz, although that could just be a sign that I need to get out more.

Captcha = white bread

Apparently the Captcha thinks I'm too mainstream. Kvltist bastard. >.>

 

[NoeL]

My ipod is mostly full of female-fronted European gothic and symphonic metal... most people I meet have never heard of (or care for) any of them, and I've heard "Is this Evanescence?" more times than I can count. A lot of people online seem to have at least heard of Nightwish if nothing else, so it's not so bad here. In either case, I tend not to say "You probably haven't heard of them" because it sounds douchey. I just ask "Do you know X?" instead.

Ironically, back when Evanescence were virtually unknown over here (before they released My Immortal, basically) I would actually recommend them to people as "sounding a bit like <Epica/Within Temptation/After Forever/Nightwish>" depending on who the person I was talking to would know (usually telegraphed by their choice of t-shirt or their reaction to my having Tarja Turunen's face on my longcoat).

A Tarja coat? Interesting... but yeah, the ironing is delicious with the Evanescence thing. I guess the main difference between them and the Euro bands is that Amy tends to write typical pop lyrics about love and heartache and crap while the other guys write mostly about fantasy stuff. Probably why a lot of nerds tend to dig that kind of music.

 

[Jordy Hartog]

A Tarja coat? Interesting... but yeah, the ironing is delicious with the Evanescence thing. I guess the main difference between them and the Euro bands is that Amy tends to write typical pop lyrics about love and heartache and crap while the other guys write mostly about fantasy stuff. Probably why a lot of nerds tend to dig that kind of music.

Yeah, I'd bought the coat because I thought it looked wicked and found this back patch with her face on it.

Yes, I did have eyes in the back of my coat for years

And I do agree, that's one of the major differences (and probably the reason why out of the bands I mentioned, only Evanescence and Within Temptation got some popular acclaim)

I'll always keep a special place in my heart for Epica though, there aren;t many bands where I can say that I once walked in on their singer changing backstage (I worked at this music festival and got lost, then heard someone and decided to ask for directions. And then she turned out to be in her underwear :/ )

 

[esperandote]

I have said that but not because im a hipster but because im old

(compared to my cousin whom i was telling about the music i listened to when i was his age)

 

[NoeL]

I'll always keep a special place in my heart for Epica though, there aren;t many bands where I can say that I once walked in on their singer changing backstage (I worked at this music festival and got lost, then heard someone and decided to ask for directions. And then she turned out to be in her underwear :/ )

O_O You saw Simone... in her underwear...

I have never been more jealous of anyone than I am of you right now.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Seeing as I happen to be an Internetter, a Paragon of nerd culture living in Middle of Nowhere, TX, I run into the problem...basically for everything. So I simply revel in obscurity.

I play Magic, I listen to Progressive Rock, watch Sci-Fi, reference Classical philosophy and ancient literature next to Scott Pilgrim, I can diatribe on everything from transmissions to superheroes to quantum physics, and I wear an N7 hoodie and/or SR2 hat everywhere that are never recognized, with shoes bearing Stephanie Brown colours just because I like it.

Even guns only connects with half the audience.

So I've been doing this a long time.


Something being popular doesn't mean it's good. Something being popular doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that perceptions of it are exaggerated.

You might want to tone down the elitism in future posts, never turns out good. Also, where in Texas are you, I wear an N7 hoodie all the time when it's cold, or I'll wear my Legion shirt and a bunch of people know what it is. Hell, I wear a "Keep Calm and Don't Blink" shirt and people still recognize it. Please explain this, though.

Even guns only connects with half the audience.

That wasn't really a sentence, and there's absolutely no context, so it makes no sense.

OT: I've never really said this, mostly because I have somewhat similar tastes as my friends and none of us really feel like we're better than the others. The only time I've said that was when I was recommending some games to a couple friends, and even then it was because they don't really know much about what's available on Steam.

 

[pikmaniac]

Try explaining why you like Animal Crossing to someone who's never heard of it (read: pretty much everyone)

Hell, I'm still not quite sure why I like it myself, to be honest.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

On an unrelated note, have you heard of Sparklehorse or Doctor Steel? I like those guys, it'd be nice to find someone else who knows of them.

Wow, I haven't heard Doctor Steel in AGES! I used to listen to "Fibonacci Sequence" and "Build the Robots" like every day. I assume you watch Jacksfilms too from saying "Owaddafuq?"

I just googled Dr Steel out of curiosity.
Thank you. So much.

 

[Angie7F]

This happenes to me often, and I just wonder how people can live with not knowing anything.
How is it even possible to go through the day with out being curious. I am missing out on something or is it that most people are just boring and bad at holding a conversation...

 

[FalloutJack]

It's nothing I did. It's just I have seen a few obscures in my time. The above is a Konami game talking about a much-more-obscure Konami game. (The pic was edited on request to say that, but it's still the truth.)

 

[Yopaz]

Yeah.. pretty much in the same boat as the OP being a JRPG fan in Australia.

Random: "What's your favourite game?"
Me: "tales of symphonia"
Random: "What the fuck is that, it sounds gay"

I have yet to meet anybody, friend, aquaintance nor stranger, that has played or even heard of tales of symphonia (or the tales series for that matter).

If I ever meet a girl who knows who kratos aurion is I will marry her on the spot.

What's even worse is that I am going to distant world's on the 24th of this month by myself because when I asked my friends to come to an orchestra playing final fantasy music they all just stared blankly and then said no, not that I really mind, I do have a front row ticket

So as of late I have been saying "You probably haven't heard of it" quite alot lol.

"I can't next weekend, I'll be in adelaide"
"Why?"
"uhh... it's a thing, you probably haven't heard of it"

Liking Tales and trying to explain that is futile. Even among gamers that series isn't very well known. I don't know any series it could be compared to in order to explain how it is unlike most games I like. Tales of Vesperia or Tales of Symphonia is my favourite and I intend to get a PS3 just because it got Tales of Graces F and will get Tales of Xilia.

Back on track, this happens with almost all of the music I like. It's not that I like music no-one has heard of, it's just that I like music which doesn't have widespread popularity where I live. Rise Against and Thousand Foot Krutch are both fairly popular mainstream bands so don't try to claim I'm a hipster for liking those two. However regardless of their fame and success I rarely encounter someone who has heard of them. I don't know how many times I have told somoene that my favourite band is Rise Against and have the person ask "Against The machine?" No, that's not their name. You are thinking of Rage Against The Machine.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

None of my friends seem to know what Metroid Metal, the movie Moon, and to a lesser extent, the Metroid series are.
These things are hardly obscure, I just happen to be the one guy in my circle of friends that knows about them though.
My friends *know* about Metroid but among my friends I'm the only one who's played them.

 

[repeating integers]

We should do Synchtube one day, I imagine it'd be beneficial to the both of us.

I don't know what that is.

Synchtube allows people to gather in a room and watch youtube videos synchronised. It's great for music. Me and a guy from another forum called Tiresias do it all the time, sometimes with individual songs, sometimes with full albums.

'Course, we don't go on any shared IRC or insta-message things, so for it to work we'd have to arrange it ahead of time.