What happens to the lost, forgotten, and unheard songs?
At its core, the music industry thrives on what’s trending. Beyond the mainstream hits, many of us find comfort in revisiting beloved classics rather than diving into unexplored territory. Even when we venture into new musical landscapes, platforms like Spotify offer curated playlists that guide our listening. Yet, amid this accessibility, what becomes of the honestly forgotten, waiting-to-be-treasured unheard songs?
Well, most of the time, these tracks become casualties of time, cloaked in the obscurity of hidden gems. Occasionally, luck may shine upon them, stumbled upon by an avid fan or a wanderer crossing their path. Otherwise, their fate relies on alternative avenues for discovery and appreciation. Granted, many unheard songs stay that way for specific reasons — perhaps the artist lacked promotional know-how or resources to propel their work into the limelight. Sometimes, the music might lack appeal, leading it to stagnate before gaining momentum.
In truth, true hidden gems are rare. Apart from the occasional one or two tracks, songs discovered through curated playlists or found independently often fail to make a lasting impact. However, there are some that not even mainstream streaming platforms can detect — these are the ones that genuinely fall through the cracks, risking complete erasure from any sense of existence.
According to Spotify, over four million songs have never been listened to. Some advancements in tech have sought to combat this issue. For instance, one site, appropriately named Forgotify, collects these forgotten tracks and hosts them for users to find and listen to. Forgotify began to gain momentum back in 2014, predating the existence of Apple Music. Creator Lane Jordan stumbled upon a striking statistic and decided to develop the platform to uncover these obscure tracks.
The team subsequently engineered a database to scour Spotify’s API for tracks with a play count of zero and then deliver these tracks to users. Once you’ve given a song a listen, its play count increments to one, causing it to vanish from Forgotify’s site while still available on Spotify. This action accomplishes two things: firstly, you’ve contributed a nominal streaming fee to the artist or act, and secondly, unless that track suddenly gains immense popularity, you might hold the distinction of being its sole historical streamer.
Interestingly, Forgotify’s algorithm doesn’t consider your current listening preferences. However, it aims to diversify by blending different eras and genres, ensuring you won’t receive an overload of similar-sounding tracks. At the same time, there’s a chance you’ll stumble across things you would never, ever listen to — but that’s all part of the fun. One minute, you’ll be deep into a strangely endearing hip-hop song; the next, you’ll find an entire album made of machinery noises. What’s not to love?
Of course, Forgotify is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s also the forerunner in such technologies — most people don’t know or care about the music they don’t know or care about, while others may seem intrigued in theory but lose interest in reality. The fact that there are so many unheard tracks in the world speaks volumes about music industry hierarchies and the proliferation of content, but ultimately, we can only know what we’re missing once we go searching.
