The Ten Sea Shanty Records on Songs of the Sea by Dekoningtan, Where Randy Dandy Oh Ranks Highest on Spotify
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The Ten Sea Shanty Records on Songs of the Sea by Dekoningtan, Where Randy Dandy Oh Ranks Highest on Spotify
A Theatre Practitioner Builds a One-Person Shanty Crew in a Home Studio, Ten Songs Long
Randy Dandy Oh is the highest-ranked song from Songs of the Sea on the Spotify page of Dekoningtan. It sits third among the artist’s top tracks. Its instrumental version sits fourth, and both rank above The Wellerman. The album holds ten sea shanties, made in a home studio by a one-person crew. It came out on 1 September 2024.
Dekoningtan sails into the playlist below with Hoist the Colours from Songs of the Sea, and the full run of coverage sits on the Dekoningtan profile. The album arrived here through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Hear it on deck first, then keep reading.
Shanty Fans, Pirate Film Viewers and Black Flag Players Are the Audience for Songs of the Sea
The audience is easy to name. First come sea shanty fans, who know these work songs and want them sung with conviction. Next come film fans. Track two, Hoist the Colours, is the song from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Spotify credits it to Hans Zimmer, Gore Verbinski, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Dekoningtan has loved it since the film came out.
The third group is gamers. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the 2013 pirate game from Ubisoft Montreal, put shanties in the mouths of a ship’s crew. This album is pitched straight at the players who still hum them.
The rest of the running order is traditional ground. Bully in the Alley opens it at two minutes. Then come Fish in the Sea, Dead Horse, Randy Dandy Oh, Blow the Man Down, My Mother Told Me and Forlorn the Horn. An instrumental take of track five follows, and The Wellerman closes the set. In total, the ten tracks run to about 22 minutes.
Randy Dandy Oh Leads the Early Response to Dekoningtan’s Songs of the Sea on Spotify
The ranking explains itself once the credits are read. Four of the artist’s top ten tracks on Spotify come from this album. The album’s top song is third and its instrumental is fourth. Further down, The Wellerman is eighth and Dead Horse is ninth.
That song has one advantage over the rest. It is the only track on the album credited to a second artist, Philleann. So it sits in two catalogues at once. The instrumental version also gives playlists a shanty without words, which suits background and gaming lists.
The older songs still hold the top of the page. The Clock Man, a single from January 2022, ranks first. Lightning Strikes the Upper City from July 2022 ranks second. That fits the wider catalogue, which runs back to 2013. It leans on video-game, ambient, cinematic and folk storytelling, including game soundtracks such as Burn the Witch in 2023.
So Songs of the Sea entered a catalogue that already had listeners. Its strongest song also arrived with a partner attached. The YouTube side followed a month later. A Hoist the Colours video went up on 1 October 2024, labelled as part of the album series.
The ShantyTok Community Around Songs of the Sea Runs From Nathan Evans to Dekoningtan’s Patreon
The community for this music formed in public. In early 2021, a cover of The Wellerman by the Scottish singer Nathan Evans went viral on TikTok. His version, credited with the remixers 220 Kid and Billen Ted, then reached number one on the UK Singles Chart. The trend became known as ShantyTok.
The ground had been laid earlier. The Longest Johns, an a cappella group from Bristol, had recorded a well-known Wellerman in 2018, on Between Wind and Water.
Dekoningtan joined that wave early. Leave Her Johnny, an early shanty single, came out on 1 June 2021, the same year ShantyTok peaked. Songs of the Sea is the full-length answer three years later. It takes the opposite approach to The Longest Johns. Instead of a group singing together, one person plays the parts and stacks the harmonies a crew would normally sing.
That choice comes from the stage. Dekoningtan is a theatre practitioner, and shanties are work songs meant to be told as much as sung. So the delivery leans on storytelling.
The community that keeps it going is direct. The YouTube channel carries the album videos, a Patreon supports the work, and an online store sells the merchandise. For a one-person crew, that is the whole ship.
BestMusic.News’s curator team: “Start with Blow the Man Down, the longest track at 3:44. It gives the call-and-response room to build. It also shows how far one person can stretch a song written for a whole crew.”
Stream Songs of the Sea on Apple Music. Follow Dekoningtan on Spotify and YouTube, and on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X. Support the project on Patreon, or find the full catalogue on the official website.
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