Oban music lovers hit Spotify with crazy collaboration
Constrained from his usual musical endeavours by lockdown measures 4below’s Andy Bruce has taken to Spotify in a bid to put together an eclectic collaboration of like-minded Obanites.
His euphonious venture is proving to be a huge hit.
After sending out a request through the Oban Musicians Facebook group for people to send him their artist links he was staggered by the response. The collaborative playlist, simply entitled Oban, has accumulated so much material that Andy has had to limit it to a maximum five tracks per artist.
Talking about the inspiration behind the project, the bassist said: ‘I was bored on Sunday and started with my own songs and some performed by my mates’ bands and others that I was aware of. ‘I then put out a request via social media groups for any others that would like their music added and was overwhelmed by the response not just from musicians themselves but from music fans.’
The crazy cross-genre playlist now has 100s of songs in it, mostly from little known independent artists, including rap, rock, folk and trad.
‘I’ve not tried to moderate it in any way,’ added Andy.
The only criteria is one band member must live or have lived in the Oban area and that there is a five-track limit on each artist/band.
‘It is collaborative but I did remove one band that someone added to it as they were from Skye... But I let Tide Lines slide as one of their members is from Mull.
Although his own musical preferences veer towards the alternative rock/grunge sounds, Andy’s main aim for the playlist is to bring all the local under-the-radar artists to people’s attention.
‘If you start letting personal preference dictate what goes on the list then it becomes a bit of a dictatorship,’ he conceded.
‘I was pretty astounded at the amount and the diversity of music from Oban. I have kept my personal music tastes out of it and the only rule I have was one member of the band had to live or have lived in Oban.
‘I started off by putting in all the tracks by lesser known artists but as it grew some multi-album ones were appearing too, so I decided to just use five tracks from each in line with Spotify’s strategy of featuring the top five popular tracks when you visit a artists profile.’
Artists include Citizen9, Little Bay, Atlas Run, Stephen Skinn, Elissa Conway and the Signal Fires, with K9 Kev, Crackin Craic and Angus MacColl among many others making an appearance. Andy has made the playlist public and collaborative so others can add to it too.
Search for Oban on Spotify or message Andy through his Facebook page to add your songs.
Or simply visit this link on the internet: https://bit.ly/obanandy