Last year in a blog post titled Recommended For You I talked about how I prefer human recommendations over ones made my machines. Today I saw a post shared by Nick Heer over on his blog about music discovery stagnation which linked to this post by Daniel Parris which made think about what I said in that blog post and how it applies to music discovery.
Table of Contents
The Problem
For the last couple years I’ve had occasional bouts of falling into a rut with what music I listen to. I would listen to the same album on repeat over and over again until I got sick of it and then do that with another album I liked.
In my experience it is quite easy to fall into this trap of stagnation. As Daniel Parris talks about in their post, the algorithmic recommendation engines of major streaming sites make it very easy to just stay in the bubble of what you already know and love. There is also another major contributing factor to this problem which is: time.
Discovering new music takes a lot of time. Time spent actively listening to music, going through albums, discographies, new releases. All of this takes significant amounts of time which one may not have or may not want to spend.
The Solution
Only a few months ago I found a solution to this problem that works reliably and without too much effort on my part. Better than any algorithmic recommendation engine or even just recommendations you get from friends. The solution is radio. Now you may be asking, what year is this? Radio? Well not just any radio station, I am talking about human curated radio. Yep, I am once again here to sing the praises of KEXP.
Listening to the KEXP live broadcast over the last few months I have discovered more new music than I have all of last year. Every day I listen to the station I can find at least one new song or artist that I find myself enjoying. And those little bits of discovery add up and I found myself in different music genres some of which I had never seriously considered I would even enjoy.
Some Other Solutions
If you prefer podcasts over live radio, there are also some fantastic music podcasts that I can recommend:
I’m sure there are others, I would love more recommendations from y’all! I can’t get enough of music focused podcasts!
What I’ve Discovered
If last month you had told me that I would be enjoying a American folk music album to the point I ended up buying it on Bandcamp I would have laughed at you. But here I am thinking that Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood is going to be one of my albums of the year. Some other such examples include – Sanguine & Cardamom by Day Soul Exquisite and My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks.
That’s just the albums I’ve listened to in full and greatly enjoyed. There are others I haven’t gotten around to. Here are some:
- I Promise by SLOTHRUST
- Before It’s Gone by Salt Cathedral
- Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
- I Hear You by Peggy Gou
- Standing On Giant Shoulders by Seafood Sam
- Lighthouse by Francis of Delirium
- Face Your Fear by Curtis Harding
- Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom by Meatbodies
- Fearless Movement by Kamasi Washington
- The Past Is Still Alive by Hurray For The Riff Raff
That’s a whole lot of very different kinds of music from different artists. That’s just over the couple of months. I am very much looking forward to whatever else I’ll discover in the future. The thing about this kind of discovery is it is exponential if you want it to be. One artist or album can open you up to an entirely new genre which opens you up to even more artists and albums.
Why It Works
The big thing that the humans over at KEXP can offer over streaming service recommendation engines is context. Why they like this track, how its related to other tracks in the genre, who the artist is, nuances of the song like what is sampled and interpolated.
These are the kind of things that a human who knows the music is better suited to surfacing and it is the kind of detail that can really get you invested in a new artist or song.
Ending On A Bit of a Rant
To be brutally honest, I think the whole idea that one naturally becomes stagnant as one hits a certain age to be a whole lot of absolute bullshit. No, I don’t care what any study says on the matter. Its the same level of bullshit as the saying that “people get more politically conservative as they get older”. Yeah, well in my case, it seems to be the opposite. Such platitudes are increasingly tiresome.
Getting back to music: there is no natural force that is suddenly going to make you the kind of person who only listens to music they already know they love forever. If you want to be that way, knock yourself out but you don’t have to go down that road. There are other paths and they aren’t even all that arduous to be on.
The next time you find yourself reaching for the “AI” DJ dial on Spotify, open your web browser and go to kexp.org and click play there instead.