There's lots I could think of, but one that stands out in particular is "Somebody's Baby" by Jackson Browne.

It was one of my mom's favorite songs back in the day (and just one of many I associate with childhood and early Elementary school). She'd recorded it off the radio in the late '80s on one of our family mixtapes, and that was the ONLY copy of it that we had. I guess the Fast Times soundtrack went out of print not too long after it came out 'cause I can remember mom always looking for it in stores to no avail, lol. A few years later that mixtape bit the dust too, so I didn't have it again until like '98ish when I got my own copy of the soundtrack. They must've reissued it 'cause I just casually noticed it in a music store one day when I was in high school.

It was so cool for me to be like "Holy crap I haven't been able to listen to this song for like 5 years" (back then). ;) It's great to have stuff way easier to get ahold of now, but it kinda takes the magic away from experiences like that. In a way it made you appreciate it more...that would never happen today with YouTube, downloading and all.

Did something like that ever happen with anyone else here, and do you miss the "adventure" of things like that? Even as far up as high school in the late '90s, there was lots of music (or other things) which I liked but didn't own. Now it's like I'm almost spoiled 'cause there's less I can surprised by now.

^^"Somebody's Baby" was one of those songs I had a hard time finding, too, until I found a used CD copy of the "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" soundtrack at a secondhand music store about 7 years ago. I think the soundtrack was reissued for a time, but I haven't seen it since.

Three I had a hard time finding were:

Yo Little Brother by Nolan Thomas, I finally found it on a freestyle CD a couple years ago.  And now it's on youtube

Captain of her heart by Double was a hard find for me

as was, a song called "Immenene Front" by The Who.  I loved it when it first came out, but forgot what it was called or who did it (ironic isn't it...Who did it...well they DID!)  Finally, I asked the folks over on the imdb message boards, and they found it for me.

^^"Somebody's Baby" was one of those songs I had a hard time finding, too, until I found a used CD copy of the "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" soundtrack at a secondhand music store about 7 years ago. I think the soundtrack was reissued for a time, but I haven't seen it since.


Oh wow, I wonder if it's gone out of print again? It's a really good soundtrack, and I'm actually surprised Browne's song was the only one that was a hit (at least from what I know).

In retrospect it's weird that such a popular song was so hard to find! At least around here, it was on the radio quite a bit (one of those '80s songs that kinda had more longevity) and lots of people seemed to still like it.

As a kid, my mom had these K-Tel collections.  One titled 'High Voltage' (from 1981) had a song called 'If You Should Sail' by a duo called Nielsen/Pearson.  Another one titled 'Night Flight' (also from 1981) had a cover of 'The Sun Ain't Gonne Shine Anymore' by that same duo Nielsen/Pearson

I don't exactly know the critera K-Tel used for choosing songs for their compilations, but neither of these songs were hits in Canada, but according to these tapes, they were popular.  One day, I found a complete listing of every song to chart in the US Hot 100 during the 80s, and these two songs were in there, the former actually reaching the US Top 40 so I knew that these songs existed, but getting good quality copies?  I never expected to, but ...

On a previous 80s messageboard I once belonged to, I decided to post a topic asking if anyone had these songs.  The response I got led me to some guy from Texas who apparently had an mp3 of every single song to chart in the US Hot 100 during the 80s.  So I e-mailed him asking if I l could have those two songs, and he sent them to me over e-mail :)

At the time, he told me that he could send me individual songs, or if I want, he could snail mail me a complete set of CD-Rs with all the songs on it.  Unsure of whether or not I trusted that, overtime I just e-mailed him asking for certain songs, which he sent me.  Eventually I decided that it would be awesome to have all those songs, so I gave him my home address, and for free, he mailed me a 26 CD-R set with every single US Hot 100 hit on it (over 4126 songs) which I still have.  To this day, they are the most valuable CDs that I own

Oh wow, I wonder if it's gone out of print again? It's a really good soundtrack, and I'm actually surprised Browne's song was the only one that was a hit (at least from what I know).

In retrospect it's weird that such a popular song was so hard to find! At least around here, it was on the radio quite a bit (one of those '80s songs that kinda had more longevity) and lots of people seemed to still like it.


Hmmm....I don't know for sure. It's pretty hard to find these days. There were so many terrific songs on that soundtrack, too!  8)

I did see a double vinyl copy of the soundtrack at a thrift store some time ago, but the album cover sleeve was very dog-eared and the LP's itself were pretty scratched up. If it were in better condition I probably would've bought it.

As a one time pseudo-collector and general nostalgia music-phile, seeking hard-to-find songs is a continual quest, as I often go "hunting" for specific songs.  Hmmm, maybe even a hobby...  ;)

If there's one thing that's great about downloading songs, it is being able to occasionally find a hard to find gem.  One such song for me is Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home".

Certain 70's soul can be very hard to find.  A couple years ago I discovered some outlets that sell vinyl 45's on line, and I found some stuff on my wish list.  For example, Johnnie Taylor's "I Believe In You (You Believe In Me)" arrived on a 45.  Plus, sometimes you don't want an artist's entire greatest hits album, only one or two cuts.  Thus I acquired Nilsson's "Coconut" and Don McLean's "Driedel" around that time as 45s.

Used record stores can be a gold mine.  Also "various artists" compilation CDs and/or vinyl, both domestic and import...  :)

Yes, things have really changed over the last couple of years with the internet. Now finding a song you want can be done at the touch of a button, unlike even 9 or 10 years ago for most people, when you either had to get lucky and find the album with a song your looking for on it in a record store or hope they randomly played it on the radio. Not really sure which way I like better, even though it is nice to have the ability to get songs easily today.

Back in the days before I got the internet, I had the hardest time trying to track down albums by alot of the lesser known '80s alternative bands like The Pixies, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Temple Of The Dog, etc.

Also, songs on lesser known albums by the likes of AC/DC, Van Halen, and Aerosmith were darn near impossible to find even up to 2000 or 2001. Ironically, recently alot of those artists have come out with re-released 'master series' of all there albums on cd, so there not nearly as hard to find today.

Google and You Tube have been a godsend when it comes to tracking down lost songs that have only survive in your head for 10-20 years. The hardest for me was "Addicted" by Dan Seals that came out in 1988. I had forgotten most of the lines and melody except for a couple of scraps. It took me a couple of years but I finally found the song. Although I was probably too young to pay attention to the lyrics, I did remember the song having a moving melody. It wasn't until I finally heard it again that I realized how powerful the song was.   



Heck, Dan Seals is still hard to find today, not much of him even on the p2p networks. That's kind of a shame though, he is very under appreciated. I love "Addicted" and "Love On Arrival" as well :)

  If I didn't know the name of the song or couldn't identify the artist I would to walk up to the check-out counter and sing the dad blasted song to anyone within earshot and I didn't care how it sounded...

  It worked about 60% of the time....

  Yeah but now, thanks to the net, I am not required to publicly humiliate myself...

Yes, things have really changed over the last couple of years with the internet. Now finding a song you want can be done at the touch of a button, unlike even 9 or 10 years ago for most people, when you either had to get lucky and find the album with a song your looking for on it in a record store or hope they randomly played it on the radio. Not really sure which way I like better, even though it is nice to have the ability to get songs easily today.

Back in the days before I got the internet, I had the hardest time trying to track down albums by alot of the lesser known '80s alternative bands like The Pixies, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Temple Of The Dog, etc.

Also, songs on lesser known albums by the likes of AC/DC, Van Halen, and Aerosmith were darn near impossible to find even up to 2000 or 2001. Ironically, recently alot of those artists have come out with re-released 'master series' of all there albums on cd, so there not nearly as hard to find today.

Yeah, it's really a tradeoff in the sense that I wouldn't want to go back to the way it was before about 2005 when youtube and limewire started really getting big (the late '90s until then was transitional), but I kinda miss the old ways at the same time. It did make finding songs feel more of an accomplishment when you got lucky enough to tape it off the radio or found it in a used music store.

You know what's weird about AC/DC? They STILL don't have any kind of greatest hits compilation and they've been around over thirty years! Limewire is great for that. For instance, I love the song "Who Made Who" off that Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive (it's like typical for them, with an '80s pop feel, almost like it could've been out of a video game). That and a couple other smalltime hits like "Let's Get it Up".

Yeah, it's really a tradeoff in the sense that I wouldn't want to go back to the way it was before about 2005 when youtube and limewire started really getting big (the late '90s until then was transitional), but I kinda miss the old ways at the same time. It did make finding songs feel more of an accomplishment when you got lucky enough to tape it off the radio or found it in a used music store.

You know what's weird about AC/DC? They STILL don't have any kind of greatest hits compilation and they've been around over thirty years! Limewire is great for that. For instance, I love the song "Who Made Who" off that Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive (it's like typical for them, with an '80s pop feel, almost like it could've been out of a video game). That and a couple other smalltime hits like "Let's Get it Up".



Yeah, I have noticed that too. The closest they have ever come to a greatest hits album is a few 'live' albums that have songs from the the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson era's. It would be nice if they came out with at least one, but the upside is, alot of groups sort of overdue the whole 'greatest hits' concept. It seems like Aerosmith has at least 10 or 11 GH compilations.

P.S. when did the p2p sites like Limewire start to appear anyway? I don't have much knowledge of what the net was like before we finally got access in 2000, and I had only used it a few times before that. As far as I know, Napster was the first in 1998 or '99. 

Yeah, I have noticed that too. The closest they have ever come to a greatest hits album is a few 'live' albums that have songs from the the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson era's. It would be nice if they came out with at least one, but the upside is, alot of groups sort of overdue the whole 'greatest hits' concept. It seems like Aerosmith has at least 10 or 11 GH compilations.

P.S. when did the p2p sites like Limewire start to appear anyway? I don't have much knowledge of what the net was like before we finally got access in 2000, and I had only used it a few times before that. As far as I know, Napster was the first in 1998 or '99. 


First I knew of Napster was in 1999 I believe.

P.S. when did the p2p sites like Limewire start to appear anyway? I don't have much knowledge of what the net was like before we finally got access in 2000, and I had only used it a few times before that. As far as I know, Napster was the first in 1998 or '99. 


non-Napster P2P started shortly after the RIAA lawsuits that brought down Napster.  The technology was fundamentally the same, it was just a matter of using the same protocols, but decentralizing the bit about "I have file XYZ" to the individual peers, rather than using a centralized (Napster's legally-fatal flaw) server to advertise song availability.

Obligatory Rarity:  Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Kiss Me (Mixe Plural)".  I'd had the 7", the 12", and the Razormaid mix, but the one I heard on radio in 1984 was the Plural Mix, which was the only one that started off with the lyrics "Cosmic Forces! Sex! Trash! James Joyce! Sex!" at 0:10-0:40, and featured the weird backwards-masked (reminds me, I gotta play that backwards someday) chirpy vocal sounds from 1:20-1:40 and so on.

The annoying thing was that the Mixe Plural was 7:57... the same length as the 12" mix.  I didn't find the Mixe Plural until 2006, and that 22-year hunt is probably my longest successful hunt. 

I still have a couple of tracks that could beat it, though.  Speaking of which, does anyone recognize the Moog-esque samples in the background of the "The information he gets" and "And, it changes" samples in Consolidated's Our Leader?  I'm sure I could find that track, if I only knew what it was, but it's an instrumental, and so it goes...

I still have a couple of tracks that could beat it, though.  Speaking of which, does anyone recognize the Moog-esque samples in the background of the "The information he gets" and "And, it changes" samples in Consolidated's Our Leader?  I'm sure I could find that track, if I only knew what it was, but it's an instrumental, and so it goes...


   Consolidated?!  Wow, that's going back awhile.  Karma for even mentioning them.  I thought I was among the only four or five people in the universe who used to listen to them...

   But I'll be damned if I can remember much about them.  Carnac the Magnificent moment, here: It's sometime in 1990, It's late at night, I'm in Norfolk, VA, I'm sitting in my load in some parking lot somewhere, I'm eating Taco Bell and I'm cranking Consolidated in the tape player...

   Yup, that's it...

  Consolidated?!  Wow, that's going back awhile.  Karma for even mentioning them.  I thought I was among the only four or five people in the universe who used to listen to them...


They were pretty obscure.  As a Reaganite, I was diametrically opposed to most of their politics, but I loved their mastery of sampling. One of the best sampler-based industrial groups of the early 90s.  They sampled so much stuff, including rants from their audiences at their live shows, that trying to track down every sample source would be well-nigh impossible.  Everything from John Carpenter's They Live to samples from McDonald's commercials to readings from wacko fundamentalist vegan-feminists, all on one album.  Freaky stuff.

As great as the internet is to find something, it's equally frustrating when you have something in your sites but can't quite get a lock on it!

My case in point:

There was a song, used in an episode of the television series Dead Zone (episode "The man who never was" - season 2- aired 2003) called "Winter Snow".
They released the song as a one song cd single, and sent it around to alot of Jazz-programmed radio stations and at the same time, USA (the website that belonged to the television network that ran the series) also had the song on it's website (but not as a download).  So you could go there and listen to the song...Until they redesigned the website and poof the song went bye bye. 

I've been in search of it ever since.  What makes it even more harder is, I found it here http://wc02.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jcfrxqraldfe  but have no way of getting it.  :\'(

The one CD that stands out for me as one I had a hard time tracking down was a classic Old School Rap Album...Boogie Down Productions first release "Criminal Minded".  I looked in every record store I could across the country.  I finally found it for the first time in Niagara Falls.  I just remembered that it was released and the co-leader of the group was killed shortly after that.  I finally did find it though and I still have it to this day.

Heck, Dan Seals is still hard to find today, not much of him even on the p2p networks. That's kind of a shame though, he is very under appreciated. I love "Addicted" and "Love On Arrival" as well :)


Dan Seals songs are very challenging to find, even ones he did in the 70s as England Dan and John Ford Coley.  Pretty much just the really well-known ones like "Bop" and "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" are what's most on the p2p networks

The one CD that stands out for me as one I had a hard time tracking down was a classic Old School Rap Album...Boogie Down Productions first release "Criminal Minded".  I looked in every record store I could across the country.  I finally found it for the first time in Niagara Falls.  I just remembered that it was released and the co-leader of the group was killed shortly after that.  I finally did find it though and I still have it to this day.


Speaking of rap stars that got shot before it was fashionable, anyone remember late-80s Miami bass rappers "Worse 'em" and their one-almost-hit-wonder "Triple M Bass"? 

Speaking of obscure rap tracks that nobody'll ever remember, does anyone remember a track that featured Public Enemy's "Terminator X Speaks With His Hands" as the backbeat, but was overlaid with samples from the Apocalypse Now "tiger scene", (namely "f*ckin tiger!", "never get out of the boat", "never get outta the f*cking boat", and "I just wanted to learn how to cook")...

Hard to find because I guess they never released any recordingof it(unless someone puts on the preassure): The soundtrack from THE BLUE LAGOON.

At least the theme was memorable and ran throughout certain scenes...or did I miss any release or inclusion on a Movie Theme Collection cd?

I've found stuff I've been looking for about 25 years on itunes.  Dan Seals stuff is pretty hard to find if you don't have either itunes or Napster.  I found an extended version of the Munster's Theme on itunes.

I have a few 12" singles and tracks that took me a while to find as I didn't buy them when they first came out:

"Boy In The Box" (12") - Corey Hart - found this at a comic book store in San Luis Obispo CA in 2002.  They had a bunch of used vinyl upstairs.
"Dreamtime" (12") - Daryl Hall - Just found this one a few months ago on my trip to Rockzone Records...for $1.00!  :o
"Far Out" - Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era - I never got the name of this track until I stumbled upon an old skool techno site back in '99.  I finally got a copy in 2001.
"Voodoo Child" (Contracted) - Voodoo Child (aka Moby) - Again, didn't know the name of this track because the "Poor in N.Y. Mix" sounds a little different.  This was played a lot in 1991.  I finally snagged it about two years ago.

I'm still searching (not very hard though) for a copy of "Blackjack" by DJ Icey, which is the B-Side to the 12" of "This Is How My Drummer Drums".  Maybe on my next trip to Rockzone.  I'd settle for a clean mp3 copy.

A while ago as I was in Goodwill, they had a bunch of non picture sleeve 45s, and as I dug through them, I was picking out ones that I didn't recognize in the hopes to find some great songs I never knew about.  One such single had the CANCON logo on it, the song was 'Sadness of the Tribe' by Ann Mortifee.  Didn't recognize the name or the song, but one quick listen, and I knew it right away as a song that I loved when I was a kid

Wasn't long after that I found the album, but since my record player doesn't transfer vinyl well to mp3, I was desperate to get a cassette copy of the album.  Not even a few days ago, I found a cassette copy!  Now I just have to get unlazy and transfer the tape to mp3 LOL

Obligatory Rarity:  Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Kiss Me (Mixe Plural)".  I'd had the 7", the 12", and the Razormaid mix, but the one I heard on radio in 1984 was the Plural Mix, which was the only one that started off with the lyrics "Cosmic Forces! Sex! Trash! James Joyce! Sex!" at 0:10-0:40, and featured the weird backwards-masked (reminds me, I gotta play that backwards someday) chirpy vocal sounds from 1:20-1:40 and so on.

The annoying thing was that the Mixe Plural was 7:57... the same length as the 12" mix.  I didn't find the Mixe Plural until 2006, and that 22-year hunt is probably my longest successful hunt. 

I still have a couple of tracks that could beat it, though.  Speaking of which, does anyone recognize the Moog-esque samples in the background of the "The information he gets" and "And, it changes" samples in Consolidated's Our Leader?  I'm sure I could find that track, if I only knew what it was, but it's an instrumental, and so it goes...


Y'know, you'd be surprised at what shows up when you google stuff after a year or two.  F'rinstance, the entirity of Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy's  Kiss Me (Mixe Plural) can be had from like, the third entry of a google search.

For that matter, so's Consolidated's Our Leader (third track of the album), and I'm still trying to figure out who did the synthy backbeat to the words "intelligence briefing", "as President", or "and the world is moving too fast to forecast with absolute certainty", and "and yet the morning news is often overtaken", and "Now, more than ever, you need...", and "ultimately".

The annoying bit is that over the past 20 years, I've even found a transcript of the original Bush speech, I just don't know who did the synth backbeat as sampled, only that I know I heard the backbeat - without Bush I's speech - back in the early (Reagan-era) 80s, long before Consolidated sampled a (political ad?) with the speech and backbeat mixed together.