I'm definitely an edge case for music. I've been obsessed with metal since the mid-90s, and have downloaded quite literally every release. Unfortunately, the st

I'm definitely an edge case for music. I've been obsessed with metal since the mid-90s, and have downloaded quite literally every release. Unfortunately, the streaming services don't seem to care much about having a complete (or even particularly good) catalog of metal, so some of my favorite bands and albums don't exist on those platforms. This is made worse due to a significant portion of metal bands being off the grid, with little-to-zero web presence outside of a Metal Archives[1] listing. This obsession has led to developing a system for filtering releases into lists of albums that I actually enjoy, so I don't miss anything good. I download 100% of releases and throw all of them into Winamp, then play the second track -- there are a lot of atmospheric intro tracks in metal. If the first 1s doesn't grab me, I skip to about 0:30 and give it another 2-3s. If nothing grabs my attention or it's a sub-genre that I'm not interested in, the album gets removed from the playlist. Anything remaining at the end gets a full track 2 play, and if the whole song meets my approval, I'll listen to the whole album. If the album is something I'd listen to more than a few times, it goes on the permanent playlist -- currently at ~450 albums and another ~500 random tracks. [1] https://www.metal-archives.com/ https://www.metal-archives.com/