How TV Pirates Accidentally Pushed a 25-Year-Old Indie Song to the Top of the Charts in Japan (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on Sunday February 17, 2019 @07:16AM from the algorithm-gods-at-work dept.

Last week, an alt-rock mystery puzzled the music press. Almost 25 years after its release, the Dinosaur Jr. song "Over Your Shoulder" appeared at number 18 on Japan's Hot 100 chart, beating out major new releases like Ariana Grande's "7 Rings." Here's what drove the popularity of the old song: More than 15 years ago, it was used on a Japanese reality show about boxing bad boys. Six years ago, Billboard started counting YouTube plays. And just days ago, YouTube apparently began recommending pirated episodes of that reality show to Japanese users, who seemingly binged it in the thousands, playing "Over Your Shoulder" over and over again in the process.

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Re:Or perhaps modern pop music just sucks ass. by sound+vision · 2019-02-17 08:51 · Score: 2

After listening to the Dinosaur Jr. track, I couldn't call it either "modern" or "pop". It's in the general vein of 90s alt-rock, which is a space that I dig, but this particular track Over Your Shoulder is pretty boring. If I'm picking obscure B-sides from that era I'd rather go to something from the Pixies, Modest Mouse, Toadies, the Flaming Lips, etc...
Because by ThurstonMoore · 2019-02-17 13:10 · Score: 2

Dinosaur Jr is fucking awesome!