Culture "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" has been found! The song is called Subways Of Your Mind by FEX.

Featured on Nov 4, 2024 by Null: The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet has been found: "Subways of Your Mind" by FEX from Kiel, West Germany.
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fex tape.jpg
So here's the story in short:
About two weeks ago I came across an old newspaper article in the Nordwest Zeitung archive, while researching Hörfest bands. The article was about a band called FEX from Kiel, who won a talent contest in Bremen in Sep 1984 and their music was described as Rock with Wave and Pop influences. It also mentioned their members and one of them I recognised from a Hörfest 83 band called Phret. I managed to get in touch with him and asked him if he still had some old material from those bands. He then sent me some of the songs he made with FEX and Phret... and lo and behold, one of them was titled Subways Of Your Mind. It's a slightly different version from the one we know: https://vocaroo.com/19NFyeqYi7Zj
After I emailed him back that the song is actually quite a famous "lost song", he asked me not to go public with it until he spoke with his old band members. In the mean time though the song did get registered at GEMA and people found out about it. But I'm happy to say that the band members agreed for me to go public with it. So here it is.
I'm sure there will be a lot of questions and I hope the band can answer these themselves in the future. I'm just glad and relieved the search is over :)
EDIT (additional information):
https://preview.redd.it/x6lslr53jvy...bp&s=5d699794d26d8a0d998c3f9b7bee1a28b205ef7b
Heart In Danger: https://vocaroo.com/1kAK2RMZMO3T
Talking Hands: https://vocaroo.com/15IQ8yYROCAD
fex tape.jpg
 
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MetokurGroomedMe said:
this is a plague across the entire internet; you find a post from 15 years ago of a guy asking some programming question or how to fix an issue he's having, and then you see a bunch of posts saying "nvm i fixed it, thread closed" like no one else will ever have their issue. fucking idiots.
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And then the last post is some unhelpful snarky comment from yet another user, we've all been there.

Reddit is the most toxic place on the whole web with it's draconian mods and hive-minded people who downvote you for no reason
 
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mindlessobserver said:
Yeah, but considering how Good it is and its from an unknown High School Band from West Germany and was on their Demo track for a regional talent contest. Something they wrote, and played all on their own. Not even a cover. It indicates that we were deprived of something special because they got overlooked. Just speaks to the vagaries of fate, and the fact that nobody could figure out where it came from just added to the Mystique. Sure, its nothing special when compared to polished bands like U2 and wat not, but one must wonder what would have happened if they had been discovered in their prime.

Whats really fun is I expect that an industry Lawyer is on the flight to Frankfurt as we speak. Would be pretty epic if the Band got together to do this as an opener for a major act. Assuming their Talent hasn't atrophied over the years which is always possible sadly.
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It's like Panchiko but from the 80s.
 
George Lucas said:
The recordings don’t sound like they’re from a cassette tape. The dynamic range is strangely high (no hiss)
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That's what I was wondering. I kept thinking "was this really ripped from tape?"

I know stuff like Dolby Noise Reduction existed back then to remove hiss with a quality trade off, but it seems weird. Maybe my mind made me forget the actual quality of tape.

Edit: The hiss is way more apparent in the other songs. I'm not sure if that's because of noise reduction stuff.
 
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BTW, this is one of my personal favorites out of all the formerly lost songs:
 
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Adash said:
That's what I was wondering. I kept thinking "was this really ripped from tape?"

I know stuff like Dolby Noise Reduction existed back then to remove hiss with a quality trade off, but it seems weird. Maybe my mind made me forget the actual quality of tape.
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The Article isnt very clear how the band stored their music, so this could have been from some Mastertape.
Also Tape can be very good if its a high quality tape, same for CDs. yes the technological limitations are still there but the quality difference between a late 80s CD pressed in Japan or germany is huge when compared to some cheap 2000s cd pressed in who knows where
 
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"Somewhere, in another dream, the version of myself that winked back is sitting on the real beach, happy and content, knowing life is finite, there is no afterlife, and happiness is found in the small things around us that we can control. Happiness has to be fought for."
-Veddge
 
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Scavenger said:
"Somewhere, in another dream, the version of myself that winked back is sitting on the real beach, happy and content, knowing life is finite, there is no afterlife, and happiness is found in the small things around us that we can control. Happiness has to be fought for."
-Veddge
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Eh. I wouldn't pronounce certainty on something like that. You've got to be careful not to believe things because you want them to be true though.
 
Stoneheart said:
The Article isnt very clear how the band stored their music, so this could have been from some Mastertape.
Also Tape can be very good if its a high quality tape, same for CDs. yes the technological limitations are still there but the quality difference between a late 80s CD pressed in Japan or germany is huge when compared to some cheap 2000s cd pressed in who knows where
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It's not even an article. It's a reddit post lol. But there's a picture of a cassette tape with the three songs. That strongly implies it came off of a cassette tape. It'd be weird for the band to send a picture of a cassette tape and then send out a master tape recording.

Having some experience in the industry, if they were doing a demo, it's not likely they'd be doing it on 1/4". It'd be mastered onto one or more demo tapes that are easy for DJs to play anywhere.
 
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Stoneheart said:
The Article isnt very clear how the band stored their music, so this could have been from some Mastertape.
Also Tape can be very good if its a high quality tape, same for CDs. yes the technological limitations are still there but the quality difference between a late 80s CD pressed in Japan or germany is huge when compared to some cheap 2000s cd pressed in who knows where
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In some of the other posts by the OP and later the babd member he got into contact with's daughter, it's confirmed that he just happens to still be in the music industry and even has a recording studio. If anyone was going to store and back up this stuff properly, it's that guy.
 
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It's a fun story to see come to a conclusion. This wouldn't have existed if some kid in the 80s wasn't obsessive enough to track down the mystery song on his mixtape.

Despite being Reddit, there was a faction of people organized into groups tracking down credible leads for a long time. Some "lost media" enthusiasts can try to dredge up the most deplorable filth imaginable, but searches for lost music like this are always wholesome. Unknown artists become niche celebrities overnight for work they thought wouldn't amount to anything.
 
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Ilikeoreos said:
And then the last post is some unhelpful snarky comment from yet another user, we've all been there.

Reddit is the most toxic place on the whole web with it's draconian mods and hive-minded people who downvote you for no reason
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Like early imgur, it runs on normies thinking they found a "tiny cute niche community" so they overdose on comments and attention before realizing "oh, nobody reads anything past comment #3"
 
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