DJ Algorithm: The Best of YouTube's Weird Music Recommendation AI

Most of the time, the algorithm for suggested videos on YouTube can be a real annoying bastard. There you are, minding your own business, just trying to watch a video of a Japanese man making a knife out of pasta, and YouTube has the audacity to recommend you something like UK's Scariest Debt Collector (Full Length), or Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is A Complete Cinematic Failure.

It's all so tiring.

But then, possibly in an effort to redeem itself, the invisible, time-wasting hand of YouTube also manages to take us to places of ancient musical wonder. A world of forgotten J-pop hits, smooth '70s jazz numbers, early progressive electronics, bizarre vaporwave rappers from the distant past and so much more. With no one truly knowing how the recommendation algorithm works or why it continues to bring us these obscure gems, we've decided that it's a mystery best left unsolved.

Not all recommendations are created equal, however. So next time you sense you're about to go down a recommendation wormhole, we recommend you click on these classics instead of that Mac Demarco imitation horseshit that YouTube also keeps trying to push.

Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love (1984)

In the world of Youtube algorithm-core, no song is a bigger meme than Mariya Takeuchi's Plastic Love. With over 12 million combined views, it's a perfect example of the internet's weird power to resurrect dusty and forgotten pieces of media for our present enjoyment. We've even heard it playing at H&M! A slick piece of Japanese city-pop, a fad genre of '80s Japan, Plastic Love easily could've been the theme song to a Tokyo spin-off of Miami Vice. This one is definitely best heard while cruising through the city in a classic Supra on a rainy night.

Ryo Fukui - Scenery (1976)

Turtlenecked jazz gatekeepers will tell you there are much better hard-bop albums out there than Ryo Fukui's Scenery. And they're right, but that doesn't mean that this '70s Japanese piano LP isn't worth your time as an uplifting piece of background music. An album of covers and standards, the main appeal of Scenery lies in just how charming these classics have been arranged and performed. With only six years of self-taught piano experience under his belt (that's six months in jazz years), Fukui's melodic yet modest playing is what makes this such an appealing entry point into one of music's more inaccessible genres.

Mort Garson - Plantasia (1976)

A quietly influential album of whistly electronic tunes, Mort Garson's Plantasia sounds like the soundtrack to a Super Nintendo RPG that never was. Unlike the cold and futuristic soundscapes that haunted the work of his early electronic peers, Garson used the synthesiser to craft a warm and colourful album that feels like getting a hug from Mother Nature. Listening to it now makes you wanna replay EarthBound and start a vegetable garden. Basically pornography for people with a fetish for Moog synths, rarely do bleeps and bloops ever sound this earthy and comforting.

Lonnie Smith - It's Changed (1977)

Talk about smooth, baby! A buttery work of easy listening and jazz fusion, a song like this is probably what plays on loop when someone with mutton chops dies and goes to '70s purgatory. Though written by American jazz organist Lonnie Smith, it's the guitar playing of the legendary George Benson that really makes this so enjoyable in a The Sims 1 soundtrack kind of way. Of course, it's been sampled to hell and back by hip hop producers ever since it popped into the YouTube sidebar a few years ago. Why go crate digging like one of the Amish when you could just disable auto-play and let the algorithm find a new beat for you?

Spooky Black - Without You (2014)

If you muted the audio and just watched the video by itself, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Spooky Black's Without You was just one really long Tim & Eric skit. Dressed in a white turtleneck with gold chains and a durag, the video features Corbin, who used to go by the name Spooky Black, softly singing his way through the pain of a breakup while wandering through the woods and posing on his couch. A visually ridiculous piece of cloudy R&B that can also become genuinely affecting should you ever stumble upon it at 3am in your underpants.