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What songs are there about computers?
...or using computers as a communication medium? (Take a letter Maria -> Send a text, Maria...?)
Not obscure songs; it'd be nice to have at least heard of the artist.
...or using computers as a communication medium? (Take a letter Maria -> Send a text, Maria...?)
Not obscure songs; it'd be nice to have at least heard of the artist.
Does Weird Al count? It's All About The Pentiums
To say nothing about “Virus Alert” or “EBay”.
a.k.a., the greatest song Allen Toussaint ever wrote, Computer Lady
Damnit you beat me to it! Possibly the first song ever written about catfishing.
Hmm... I guess Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator", "Home Computer", and "Computer Love" all count, although the lyrics to the lot of them would fit comfortably on a Post-It.
Also I guess "Computer Aided Design" by They Might Be Giants, but jeeze.
Honorable Mention to Ras Kass & Coolio's "Drama" for being the only song I can think of that mentions the Sega CD.
How about Jonathan Coulton's Code Monkey?
Grimes just released We Appreciate Power which is about computers, AI, and the internet.
Maybe 'Computer Love', by Kraftwerk, also 'Yours truly 2095' by Electric Light Orchestra is sort of about technology/the future woven into some sort of love song thing.
Was waiting for someone to reference Kraftwerk! Pocket Calculator is another great song about computers from them.
All of Computerwelt is essential if you want computing-themed music!
I thought about "Yours Truly, 2095" as well, that's such a wild song. Getting sent to the future and sending a letter back through time to your girlfriend in the 80s about falling in love with and being rejected by a robot who only acts nice toward you because she's programmed to do so. Or not rejected, really, but she'll only let you get close if it's a command, not something genuine.
A universally relatable situation, really.
Computer Love by Zapp & Roger as well.
Prince recorded a few.
Computer Blue from 1983 uses computers as a metaphor to talk about relationships and loneliness, with lyrics like "Where is my love life? Where can it be? There must be something wrong with the machinery" and "Narrow-minded computer, it's time someone programmed you, it's time you learned women are not butterflies, they're computers too, just like you Computer Blue. Chauvinistic computer, it's time someone programmed you, you fall in love too fast and hate too soon, and take for granted the feeling's mutual. We're computers too, just like you Computer Blue."
About a decade later in 1996, a somewhat similar metaphor of lust and loneliness is developed in the song Emale.
The same album also includes the song My Computer, a collaboration with Kate Bush. It's interesting that all three songs associate computers with loneliness, although at least in My Computer the device offers the opportunity for a better life, to find like-minded people.
The mid-90s also had other computer related releases from Prince. The story in the Beautiful Experience film revolves around an experience that starts through a computer and includes songs like Interactive (the first one in the film and recorded in 1993), which ponders about what role that the internet will have on music: "Picked up my paper today, give you one guess what they say, now we got to learn how to play interactive".
"Interactive" was also the title of Prince's 1994 video game, which is a Myst-like experience where you roam around a building partly modelled after Prince's Paisley Park studios and solve some puzzles in order to collect the five pieces of the O(+> symbol while also listening to various video and audio clips.
It's also safe to say that Prince was something of a pioneer with web distribution. He began releasing songs online in 1996 and had his own subscription service running long before Spotify and others. One of the songs released online (exclusively so) was the spring 2000 track Cybersingle, which I guess is also computer-related.
Darkstar - Aidy's Girl's A Computer
Virtuality by Rush is kind of amusing for me to listen to. It was written in 1995 when the internet was still a novelty.
My dad wrote a song called "Amor de Modem" (Modem Love), which is a silly song about dating through the internet. It's in Portuguese though.
We are fast approaching the 20th anniversary of the release of Britney Spears's E-Mail My Heart.
WHAT CHU SAY (what chu say, what chu say).
I have been making fun of that song for nearly two decades now.
OpenBSD has a tradition of making parody/cover songs to go along with releases, usually incorporating recent events relevant to the project.
https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html
How do you convert PDF to JPG? (Umlala - My Pdf Files)
I know you said no obscure songs but where's the fun in that ;)
Arco Iris - Flavian Berger
Yeah, I'm In Love With An Android by Say Hi To Your Mom
Edit: So I had completely forgot about this band until this post. I used to listen to them a lot.. here's a couple other songs by him (not computer related).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFcfbUq2Jjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcCB223RV9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bs5LFlbVn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdJ2qhU17tg
Edit 2: Sorry about posting them as this would probably qualify as 'obscure', I didn't read your whole post before replying.
She - Computer Music
Late to the party but Boten Anna was everywhere 10 years ago. It's a bout an IRC where the bot Anna rules.
But she's not a bot! She's a girl. Anna is her name! (That song was my jam.)
P.O.E.'s song "Hello" references Phiber Optick's hacker group Masters of Deception who were famous for the AT&T take down in the '90s in the lyric "M.O.D. are you out there?" along with other computer-focused lyrics such as "down a data back-road" etc.
Lyrics:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/hello-lyrics-poe.html
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EI3oJ7uE0g
Wiki about MOD:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Deception
The Pet Shop Boys did a song called 'E-mail'.
“Obscure” is a very relative term though.
There is “Selfie” by The Chainsmokers. I mean, a smartphone is technically a computer, right?
“Lithium Flower” by Scott Matthew, from the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST might fit. Unless he sings about a literal surfer girl, and not about a girl that surfs the internet. Great song either way.
Scandroid has a lot of stuff with cybernetic tones, like “Datastream”.
Several popular Russian artists have songs with lyrics about Internet, but they probably fall under the “obscure” category.
VengaBoys - Cheekah Bow Bow (That Computer Song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld9ikLYQSWc
You asked about communication, and we need to remember that pervasive Internet communication is a relatively new thing. Here are some songs about telephones:
Yazoo - Bad Connection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB8TKitUtr0
Blind Alfred Reed - Telephone Girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-ve583_SM
How has nobody posted Basshunter yet! Boten Anna is about a chatroom bot named Anna that can ban you really hard, and kicks people for spamming. It's nothing short of amazing.
There's also Web of Lies by Ayreon, featuring Simone Simons of Epica.
A song related to computers is about computer programming language C: Write In C
While this goes against the "Not obsure" request, I would have to say some of the best computer-themed music came from Futuristic Sex Robotz. https://futuristicsexrobotz.net/
Of particular interest would probably be "Welcome to the Internet" and "Back in the Day".
Mr. Roboto by Styx and The Humans Are Dead by Flight of the Concords are opposite ends of the same dystopic take on the impending computer overlords.
And while this may qualify as "obscure", Are you fucking kidding me by Kate Miller-Heidke is about an ex-boyfriend trying to reconnect through Facebook.
Mechanical Angel by Sunday Driver is about a woman who falls in love with a robot.
Honeybee by Steam Powered Giraffe is about a robot who falls in love with a person.