Please help me identify these songs!

March 5, 2009 4:02 PM

So I recently came to the end of correcting all the ID3 tags on my massive music collection. The last 14 or so took me more time than I'm willing to admit to track down information on. But I knew at the end which two would remain. I've had these two songs in my collection for at least a decade now, and every time I've tried to find any information on the song titles, artist, or even lyrics, I've turned up nothing. I've tried all kinds of tricks I know for finding even the most obscure information on the internet, but still nothing. As a firm believer that anything which exists can be found on the internet, I find myself troubled that these songs, which clearly exist, apparently do not. Help me out, and try to cure my madness?

What info I've gathered thus far:

2 songs, both by a band called "Zoediac" (intended misspelling?) with a sort of 90s pop sound (?). Female vocals:
"Birdie" 4:04
"Am I Getting There?" 3:31

The information I'd like:
Year recorded/published
confirmation/correction of the band/song names
albums?
any additional band history

No additional info in the ID3 tags, and MusicBrainz fingerprinting software just turned up false positives.

Download and listen to them here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A9RR7BSP

posted by monkeyagent to media & arts (9 comments total)

After a moment or two, I found this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010215110425/www.lysator.liu.se/~fape/zoediac/index.htm

I'm still lookin'.
posted by dinx2582 at 4:06 PM on March 5 [1 favorite]

From Västerås Sweden, the young rock band Zoediac, since 1991 self-composed plays heavy pop. Annika Grönberg, which also sits behind the drums, sings with impressive melodic voice sharp rock songs. The press compared her singing with Anouk and Alanis Morissette.

This is Annika Grönberg now, but it's by no means clear whether it's the same Annika Grönberg. She looks too young to have been making music since 1991. Maybe you could ask her.
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 4:55 PM on March 5

Tiny bit of info on the What's Wrong With You EP (CD, 1997)
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 5:03 PM on March 5

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch with internet access, download and install an app called Shazam. Then start the app and start plaing the songs, have it "listen" for music, and after a few seconds it should be able to tell you everything you need to know about these two songs.

Trust me, it works. I had a couple of songs in my playlist that I couldn't identify but Shazam did.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:24 PM on March 5

Shazam works but it has to be in a database and something this obscure very well may not be. I've seen it stumped many times.

Sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious but the guy with the defunct website from the internet archive page dinx linked had a Swedish email so BSL's Swedish link is more likely to be correct.
posted by nanojath at 7:40 PM on March 5

It's looking that Annika Gronberg is probably the right person - the music on her Myspace page sounds very similar to me. Also, three of the songs listed on that page at archive.org are also listed on the referenced EP which also ties Annika to the songs (as well as what I'm guessing is the Swedish spelling of "Zodiac"). I'll see if I can get in touch with her via Myspace (she also seems to be on facebook and linkedin) as BSL suggested.

As for Shazam, that's not an option for me as I don't own either of those devices, but I'm guessing that if MusicBrainz couldn't find anything, Shazam probably wouldn't either. Still, if you have an alternative program, I'm willing to give it a try provided it runs on windows or ubuntu.

In any case, if anyone finds out any more information, please post it here - I'll will do likewise. And thanks for all your help thus far!
posted by monkeyagent at 5:48 AM on March 6

if you have an alternative program, I'm willing to give it a try

I'm not sure I understand what Shazam could tell you that you don't already know - the band is Zoediac, from Sweden, featuring Annika Grönberg on drums and vocals, Staffan Living on bass, Martin Englund and Mattias Persson on guitar. They formed in 1991, Birdie was released in 1997 (catalogue number ZOEDIAC-01), lyrics and music by Annika Grönberg. They used to have a website, www.zoediac.com, but presumably split up and let the domain name lapse. Likely outdated contact info for Annika on the Alexa page. Or else try the email address on the demoteket.nu page.
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 10:46 AM on March 6

I'd still like to find a place to buy/download the music, but yes, you're right, I have all the basic info I was originally looking for.
posted by monkeyagent at 11:13 AM on March 6

I got a response back from Annika:
http://www.myspace.com/annikagronberg

"Hello there
You've found me - I'm the former drummer and singer in the swedish pop band Zoediac.
Unfortunately Zoediac broke up in 2002 and since 2003 I've been doing my own stuff, still under the name Zoediac though. Nowdays I don't use that name anymore. My songs today are published on this myspace profile and more will be added soon.
"Am I getting there" is from 2003/2004 and is my own project - after the band split up. "Birdie" is from the "old" Zoediac time and is recorded with the band in 2001 I think.. (depending on the version you have..we have recorded this song 2 or 3 times I think)
I'm glad to hear that you like the songs - they are all written by me and so I hope you like my "new" songs on this page and "the soon to be added".
Take care
All the best,
Annika"

Yay! Thanks for all the help everyone!
posted by monkeyagent at 10:31 AM on March 9