Spotify’s Weirdest Albums

So you’ve just logged onto Spotify, armed with nothing but a half-remembered song title, which you type into the search function and BAM! there’s a hundred possibilities right there for you. This alone makes it great, but the more you use it, the more you realise how similar it is to Wikipedia in the way that you can get sidetracked, say, from looking for an MGMT song, and end up listening to Primus b-sides whilst reading a Teenage Fanclub biography.

But the main reason Spotify is great is because, apart from all the brilliant and forgotten albums, it plays host to hundreds of very weird records. Take, for instance, the ‘Make Money With Real Estate’ album I’ve just spent five minutes listening to. I came on here looking for that awful piano cover of Guns N Roses’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ that’s being used on a TV advert at the moment; instead, I’m now empowered with a false sense of know-how and convinced I can make a 100k profit on my flat. In a recession. Spotify’s no place for the impressionable, that’s for sure.

It is, however, a place for the Spanish and the up-the-duff. The excellent Musica Prenatal – ‘Esperando Tu Llegada’ is an album of soothing keyboard instrumentals designed to relax the heavily pregnant Senorita in your life. Basically, it’s a confused collection of rubbish keyboard backing tracks. “WHAT IF IT’S CHRISTMAS THOUGH?” I can hear you bellow. Well calm down, because it does indeed include a killer rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’, for that essential festive gestation sensation. Plus, the last track is a parpy’n'chirpy version of ‘Yellow Submarine’, presumably included as some sort of jolly extended metaphor about waters breaking, vessels popping up from down below, and babies born with jaundice. Probably.

Now I’m listening to ‘Make Money Dropshipping’, which is being presented by a reedy-voiced man who sounds absolutely terrified. If this is what you become once you’ve made your fortune dropshipping, I think I’d rather be poor. He sounds like he’s hiding under his desk, constantly expecting his door to be smashed in by a gang of bike-chain wielding maniacs. Plus, I’ve listened to the first track three times now and I still don’t really understand what dropshipping is. Not sure this one’s for me…

I will keep reporting back on the world’s oddest albums though. If you have any in your garage/loft/bathroom cabinet, or you’ve seen a few knocking around online, just drop me an email here: jj.dunning@channelfly.com.