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Ever thought of all the songs that have never ever been heard or played by anyone, falling deep into a Spoitfy void that everyone has forgotten about?

One little-known app won’t forget, though. Rooting for the underdog of music, Forgetify lends an ear to all the songs that nobody – not even one person – has ever played by compiling playlists from Spotify’s neglected realm.

If you believe that popularity is usually the hallmark of mediocrity, then this music app will do it for you.

According to data Spotify released back in the day (even before Apple music was a thing), well over four million songs in its catalogue had never been listened to – not even once, not even by fans of the band or band members themselves.

Upon hearing these sad stats, Lane Jordan, J. Hausmann and fellow co-founder Nate Gagnon started their Spotify-based programme that puts a spotlight on those unsung heroes of music. The app has actually been gaining traction since 2014 and I’ve just seen it mentioned all over TikTok now, too.

Forgotify scans Spotify’s API for songs that have never received a single play and puts them in the library to be heard – the rest is up to curious listeners. Imagine them as vinyl records just gathering dust in Spotify’s endless virtual stock room – your inner music snob loves that idea, hey?

Image: Forgotify

When VICE tried out Forgotify, the listener was treated to ‘Trouble in Paradise’ by Romanovsky & Phillips – a song that starts, “This is the story of two gay lovers” – before being thrown into the world of Czech lute gospel.

The possibilities are endless, though:

 

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Most of the music you’ll be exposed to will be ages old since newer music at least gets a few plays from friends of the bands, or the bands themselves.

 

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Then, once you listen to the song and its play count goes up to one, it will disappear from Forgotify’s site (although of course, it’ll still be on Spotify). This means two things according to TechRadar: “First, you have given that artist or act a very small $0.003 – $0.005 streaming fee; and second unless that track suddenly takes off in a big way, you may be the only person in history ever to stream it”.

It also means that if the app skyrockets, it will self-destruct:

“If it’s successful, it shuts itself down,” Gagnon said. “We heard somewhere that it would take 200,000 people listening for an average of an hour to knock out all the songs—which makes it sound more attainable than we thought.”

Now you can release your inner hipster and brag about knowing the most unpopular, obscure songs out there.

Enjoy exposing unknown music groups over here.

[sources:vice&techradar]