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Podcast Episode

The B-Side Economy: How Throwaway Tracks Accidentally Rewrote Music History

The Second Track··28 August 2026·26 min

About this episode

Before streaming flattened everything into an endless queue, the B-side was music's pressure valve — the place where artists buried experiments, jokes, and half-finished ideas they didn't think the world was ready for. Except the world was ready, and those throwaways became cult obsessions, genre blueprints, and sometimes the most important thing an artist ever recorded. We're cracking open the hidden economy of the B-side: who buried gold there, who got lucky, and what it tells us about how the music industry accidentally funded its own revolution. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.