Here are my semi-obscure songs.  Admittedly there is a fine line between non-obscure and too obscure.  I hope that you'll like some of these.

01 Valerie Dore - Bow And Arrow.mp3

I was introduced to the music of Valerie Dore by chance.  I was in Israel in 1986, and recorded an hour of music from the radio there for listening when I get back.  This tape introduced me to Eurodance.

Eurodance is what happened to disco in Europe after it died in the US. Outside the US it continued evolving, from Abba and Boney M to Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, acid house, techno, and other things.

The first song on the tape was Valerie Dore's song "Lancelot", which was to be one of my favorite songs for a long time.  For many years I'd searched in vain for any mention of her, including Usenet.  Finally a DJ friend of mine (who I'd given a copy of the tape to and also got hit by the bug) had a penpal in Italy who located a vinyl LP of her album "The Legend".  It was a concept album with the King Arthur theme, and the songs are nice.

About a year later I found her "Best Of" album on CD at a Vietnamese record store in San Jose.  I believe it's still in print.  It contains "The Legend" in its entirety.

What's interesting is that now thanks to the Internet some of the mysteries have started to reveal themselves.  Apparently "Valerie Dore" was two singers - Monica Stucci (who sang this song).  The 12" singles that initially made "Valerie Dore" somewhat well known in Europe were sung by Dora Carofiglio (of the Italian group Novacento, known for her nice voice) while Monica was the pretty face on the album cover.  In "The Legend", she sang the songs herself.

This song is my current favorite song on the album.

02 Hubert Kah - The Picture.mp3

Here's another of my favorite 80s Eurodance songs.  I was introduced to it by acct catseye@ucscb.  It does not appear on any of their U.S. albums, but it did make it to the movie "Once Bitten".  It has the essence of what I like about Eurodance, and is one of my favorite works by the producer Michael Cretu.

This song was from the period where Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave) (Peter Schilling, Nena, Falco) had passed and the synthesizer crowd were trying new things.  Michael Cretu produced for many different musicians during that period including Hubert KaH, and a few years later formed the well-known group Enigma.

03 Desireless - Qui Sommes-Nous.mp3

Another Eurodance song, this one from France.  They're best known for the 1987 song "Voyage Voyage".  Even this song made it for a short time to Live 105 in San Francisco.  I was happy to find the album at a used record store in Paris, though the cashier was grumbling about how French music is crap.

04 Sandra - Children Of England.mp3

Sandra is the wife of the aforementioned Michael Cretu.  She started her career as a teenage pop singer in Germany with the group Arabesque, which mainly had a following in Japan.  A few years later she became as well known as Madonna in Europe, particularly with her song "Maria Magdalena" in 1985. 

This song is from my favorite album of hers "Into A Secret Land" from 1988. It shows some hints of what later became Enigma, in which she is the female vocalist.

05 Bananarama - Trick Of The Night.mp3

OK, this might not be that obscure in the UK.  However, I only heard this song for the first time last year.  :-)

06 Pale Saints - Babymaker.mp3

Now you know about my 80s Eurodance obsession.  My other one involves groups on the 4AD label, known for their dark, swirly synth-laden creations (so did a lot of other people in Santa Cruz it seems).  Probably my favorite song of the whole genre is "Nothing Natural" by Lush.  I'd considered putting that here, but decided instead to put a more obscure song that I also like.

07 Cocteau Twins - Summerhead.mp3

Nothing by the Cocteau Twins is that obscure in this crowd.  Here's one of my favorite songs by them, even though it's from one of their later albums after they had left 4AD.

08 The Primitives - Dreamwalk Baby.mp3

A nice song by a Britpop band whose songs I like.  I'm very surprised this did not make it to their "Best Of" collection.

09 Pandoras - In and Out Of My Life (In a Day).mp3

This song I'd heard one time back in 1991 or so, and then spent several years looking for.  Thanks to Napster, I finally found a copy.  I believe it's still out of print.

10 Shonen Knife - Top of the World.MP3

This is one of my favorite cover songs.  After deciding this list of songs, I found that this song might not be as obscure as I'd hoped, thanks to Microsoft. Maybe I should have put instead Weird Al's version (?) of "Windows 95 sucks".

11 X Mal Deutschland - Matador.mp3

Another 4AD song found thanks to Napster.  I could never afford to try their music when it was still possible to find them in stores.  :]

12 Speed The Plough - Hemlock Tree.mp3

A nice song that by a band that had the same lead singer the Feelies.

13 Buckner and Garcia - Pacman Fever (vinyl 45).mp3

Not sure why I put this here.

14 Beat Happening - Other Side.mp3

A nice song from a band with good lyrics.

15 Aqua Velvets - A Day in the Life of a Private Eye.mp3

This one I'd have never heard of had it not been for Napster.

16 Yehuda Poliker - Trans Orient.mp3

An Israeli song to round out the list.  In such a small country, it's hard for anyone to be considered obscure there.  This song is from the early 90s when Israeli musicians started getting interested in Middle Eastern sounds. I was introduced to this song thanks to Ido, who had a show on KZSC called Unfiltered Camels when I went to UCSC.

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