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The useful metric with these sorts of things is to ask yourself, when was the last time you tried something that you didn't like? For expensive experiences, sa

The useful metric with these sorts of things is to ask yourself, when was the last time you tried something that you didn't like? For expensive experiences, say, going to the theatre, it's hard to see shows you don't think you are going to like, as the price pressure makes you choose 'safe bets' as the cost/reward is somewhat weighted in one direction. For something like music, the above used to be the case, as typically we find our tribe in our early teens, and money is tight so again, you buy what you know you are going to like. I imagine though that streaming may change this, since you can dive into just about anything. We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. I'm lucky, my musical taste has always been broad, and if anything, it's got broader as i've got older. I do find myself reaching for older stuff that i've not heard for a while rather than new music, so when I catch myself doing this too much, the 'i've not heard something I don't like' alarm goes off, and I track down something that a session player I like has played on that i've never heard before, and try and find something new.

eloisius 2y ago
> We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. I agree with this so much. We've had about a decade of this kind of robo-curation in every single aspect of our media consumption. Read books like the ones you like, listen to bands like the ones you listen to, more videos like this one, etc. I'm so sick of it. The way to branch out of your rut is other people. Some band I'd never have listened to, and if I accidentally had, would have skipped it 30 seconds in, have become my favorites simply because someone I had a connection with played it or recommended it. Movies I wouldn't have picked, but watched with someone else, are often better than anything I'd have picked based on my past preferences. These days, more and more, I am realizing how rewarding it is to read a book or try a new restaurant based on nothing except that a friend with completely different taste likes it. If it turns out to be a dud, it's worth it for when I find something completely new that I do like.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  I suspect it's the notion of a "feed" that's at fault, but then again I'm an old codger who likes to rummage in the cupboard and actively search for my content instead of being stuck in the high chair and passively waiting for somebody else's algorithm to feed it to me. (in another domain, at some restaurants it's possible to order dishes which don't appear on their menu)
  - KineticLensman 2y ago
    > in another domain, at some restaurants it's possible to order dishes which don't appear on their menu I've experienced this in Italy. Our host took us to a restaurant where he knew the manager and looked at the menu. He then asked 'but what have you really got?'. After a long very Italian debate (which I didn't understand) with a lot of gesticulation etc we were brought a multi-course meal that was absolutely delicious and involved various things that had just come into season, things that the manager kept back for friends, etc.
  - sim7c00 2y ago
    the joy of discovery is lost. its discovered for you and fed to you. where did the journey go? :D if you have more content, but someone filters it for you to 'your taste', you will end up with less content, and no more exciting discoveries. you'll learn what to expect from the feed quickly and everything becomes boring. hence the required upward spiral in ridiculousness, to counter the natural encroaching boredom. the last maybe a little grim take, but i dont think invalid.
  - antifa 2y ago
    I think feeds are practical, it's just that pretty much all mainstream non-RSS feeds are designed to take control away from you and stand in your way, rather than let you be free to explore and discover.
- vidarh 2y ago
  I'd skip less if I could trust that the algorithmic playlists followed "reasonable" paths. But all to often the transitions are really jarring. (Also, big pet peeve: they need to take into account time of day and factors like weather to do well, as well as habit; I will not respond the same way to a track on a rainy grey winter evening as on a sunny summers day)
licebmi__at__ 2y ago
>We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. I wish we had something like /mu/ flowcharts[1] but in a more general way. So after playing a song you can get a question or a prompt of what you liked and get some suggestion based on the input. But IMO, music recommendation peaked 10 years ago with Last.fm and it's only been downhill since then, which is a shame because we had a lot of cool music in the last years, but the exploration is getting harder. But who knows, maybe I'm just getting old and I don't hang around the hip places anymore. 1: https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Flowcharts https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Flowcharts
- tyrust 2y ago
  last.fm is still around, although I don't use it for recommendations. I've recently enjoyed using RYM to find music. Start with an artist/album I like, click on the genre, and try out the top-rated artists/albums. It's a manual version of the flowchart, you're right that it'd be neat to automate that. I haven't even tried using RYM tags, but they'd probably be useful input, too.
  - licebmi__at__ 2y ago
    Yeah, when I mentioned last.fm I meant last.fm radio, a short lived service that if I remember right, it was only supposed to be available on the UK, although with the easily bypassed checks of that time. The description you make about rym sounds similar, so maybe i’ll take a look.
- dlivingston 2y ago
  I really enjoyed 8tracks back in its prime: it was a social network for user-created playlists, and it made finding cool new music really easy. The playlists were often very well thought out; nothing like the playlists you'll find on Spotify. There is rateyourmusic.com, which is positioned as sort of a Letterboxd for music, but I haven't used it much. Music discoverability is a big problem I'd like to solve, especially now that I'm in my 30s and don't really have the sort of social circle these days that would expose me to cool new music. I've toyed with the idea of making an 8tracks-like service, where tastemakers can create playlists to share, and the streaming happens via the API of whatever streaming services you're subscribed to (Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, whatever). If anyone is interested in a project like this, feel free to reach out.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>I imagine though that streaming may change this, since you can dive into just about anything. my theory is maintaining a single complete playlist as the best way to not get stuck with only the safe and boring. https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-complete-playlist-e8eb33d41133 https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-complete-playlist-e8eb3...
wodenokoto 2y ago
I think it is the reverse. 20-30 years ago, you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more. They would introduce you to music outside "your tribe" of virtue of having to play a little bit of every genre that's popular. Back then, I'd say investing in a album was always safe, not because you went to the record store and asked for a new rock album, because you had heard 1 or 2 singles (unwillingly) and read a review (willingly) Now, you can just ask the algorithm to play "something I like".
- yobbo 2y ago
  > you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more The selection in these channels was the tribe back then. They were the "bottleneck" of pop culture. From around 2000 with broadband etc, "payola" (broadcasters being coerced by record companies to play their flagship songs "in heavy rotation") is less and less effective. As a consequence, I think the "current fashion" of music seems less defined.
  - suoduandao3 2y ago
    I believe this is the origin of the '90s kids' meme. Not too long ago there was one culture. Then the internet came along and there was a gathering place for fans of every obscure anime and political system. I don't miss the restrictiveness of a single culture and the expectation to fit into it, but with the benefit of hindsight I can't say it was a terrible culture, given all it had to do.
    - cthalupa 2y ago
      There have always been multiple cultures. This is such a weird statement I don't even really know how to argue against it since to me it seems so self evident, but I suppose I'll try. Since the subject is music, I suppose we can start there. The sort of people you found at, say, a metal show in the 80s and the sort of people you found at a dance club playing the early era of house music were wildly different. Even if you keep it within rock, the overlap of the audience seeing The Cure would be wildly different from those seeing Judas Priest. Anime? Even before the internet became what it is today, you could go to a comic book store and hang out. There was significant overlap between the comic book/dungeons & dragons/anime crowds. There have been social spaces and places to meet people within specific cultures for forever.
killerstorm 2y ago
I started with a very narrow taste as a teen: pretty much just metal, and mostly just black & death. But it grew broader over time, so that's possible. Now I might dig pretty much any kind of music. I feel like trying to understand new types of music has an effect beyond just getting familiar with them: brain adapts to process a broader range of stimuli, so that also helps to understand other unrelated genres in future. I experienced biggest change with Autechre: it was rather difficult to listen to (and I specifically took it as a challenge), but after Autechre I can listen anything :) And in teens I had to listen something at least 5 times to start enjoying it. Now I can dig it right away. So it feels like brain processes music differently now
aidenn0 2y ago
> The useful metric with these sorts of things is to ask yourself, when was the last time you tried something that you didn't like? 100% the case. I keep telling my kids that, but they don't seem to get it. > I imagine though that streaming may change this, since you can dive into just about anything. We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. So much so. Spotify became really popular when I was in my 30s and I tried it, listening to the "Discover weekly" for about 6 months. It was 10 weeks before I heard a track I had not heard before and the closest it came to playing an artist I hadn't heard before was a track from a 1-album super-group with two frontmen I was familiar with from their other groups. Doing the math: I didn't play the list religiously so figure about 20 weeks worth of songs would be 600 songs. I had heard over 80% of the songs before. I had heard nearly all of the artists before. It played a single digit number of songs that I didn't like. If I'm liking 99% of what I'm hearing, something is wrong.
lesostep 2y ago
>> We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. For me almost all of the music I discover is through the personal recommendations or AMVs (are they still called AMVs if they aren't anime related?) or video memes. Finding new music is easier if people aren't penalized for using it in their own artistic pursuit. [[placeholder for a rant about current implementations of copyright laws being stuffling for artists. There are a lot of those out there, so pick any rant you are comfortable with]] All artistic works categories should intertwine more, imo. But that's hard when we have one site for music, another for art, and another for video. Social networks like facebook or twitter almost solved it (although, I prefer to think that blogging platforms like tumblr or myspace solved it better). Common creatives is a very good license for this very reason (relatively easy artistic borrowing), and we should propagandize it more. That's to say, many people have no good reason to engage with new anymore, having found the stuff that they like and other things they prefer doing. Which is cosmic, in my opinion. Not only they do what they like to do listening to the things they like, but also if everyone was always seeking out the newest thing, it would be a neck-breathing horse race between artists.

eloisius 2y ago

> We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. I agree with this so much. We've had about a decade of this kind of robo-curation in every single aspect of our media consumption. Read books like the ones you like, listen to bands like the ones you listen to, more videos like this one, etc. I'm so sick of it. The way to branch out of your rut is other people. Some band I'd never have listened to, and if I accidentally had, would have skipped it 30 seconds in, have become my favorites simply because someone I had a connection with played it or recommended it. Movies I wouldn't have picked, but watched with someone else, are often better than anything I'd have picked based on my past preferences. These days, more and more, I am realizing how rewarding it is to read a book or try a new restaurant based on nothing except that a friend with completely different taste likes it. If it turns out to be a dud, it's worth it for when I find something completely new that I do like.

082349872349872 2y ago
I suspect it's the notion of a "feed" that's at fault, but then again I'm an old codger who likes to rummage in the cupboard and actively search for my content instead of being stuck in the high chair and passively waiting for somebody else's algorithm to feed it to me. (in another domain, at some restaurants it's possible to order dishes which don't appear on their menu)
- KineticLensman 2y ago
  > in another domain, at some restaurants it's possible to order dishes which don't appear on their menu I've experienced this in Italy. Our host took us to a restaurant where he knew the manager and looked at the menu. He then asked 'but what have you really got?'. After a long very Italian debate (which I didn't understand) with a lot of gesticulation etc we were brought a multi-course meal that was absolutely delicious and involved various things that had just come into season, things that the manager kept back for friends, etc.
- sim7c00 2y ago
  the joy of discovery is lost. its discovered for you and fed to you. where did the journey go? :D if you have more content, but someone filters it for you to 'your taste', you will end up with less content, and no more exciting discoveries. you'll learn what to expect from the feed quickly and everything becomes boring. hence the required upward spiral in ridiculousness, to counter the natural encroaching boredom. the last maybe a little grim take, but i dont think invalid.
- antifa 2y ago
  I think feeds are practical, it's just that pretty much all mainstream non-RSS feeds are designed to take control away from you and stand in your way, rather than let you be free to explore and discover.
vidarh 2y ago
I'd skip less if I could trust that the algorithmic playlists followed "reasonable" paths. But all to often the transitions are really jarring. (Also, big pet peeve: they need to take into account time of day and factors like weather to do well, as well as habit; I will not respond the same way to a track on a rainy grey winter evening as on a sunny summers day)

licebmi__at__ 2y ago

>We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. I wish we had something like /mu/ flowcharts[1] but in a more general way. So after playing a song you can get a question or a prompt of what you liked and get some suggestion based on the input. But IMO, music recommendation peaked 10 years ago with Last.fm and it's only been downhill since then, which is a shame because we had a lot of cool music in the last years, but the exploration is getting harder. But who knows, maybe I'm just getting old and I don't hang around the hip places anymore. 1: https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Flowcharts https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Flowcharts

tyrust 2y ago
last.fm is still around, although I don't use it for recommendations. I've recently enjoyed using RYM to find music. Start with an artist/album I like, click on the genre, and try out the top-rated artists/albums. It's a manual version of the flowchart, you're right that it'd be neat to automate that. I haven't even tried using RYM tags, but they'd probably be useful input, too.
- licebmi__at__ 2y ago
  Yeah, when I mentioned last.fm I meant last.fm radio, a short lived service that if I remember right, it was only supposed to be available on the UK, although with the easily bypassed checks of that time. The description you make about rym sounds similar, so maybe i’ll take a look.
dlivingston 2y ago
I really enjoyed 8tracks back in its prime: it was a social network for user-created playlists, and it made finding cool new music really easy. The playlists were often very well thought out; nothing like the playlists you'll find on Spotify. There is rateyourmusic.com, which is positioned as sort of a Letterboxd for music, but I haven't used it much. Music discoverability is a big problem I'd like to solve, especially now that I'm in my 30s and don't really have the sort of social circle these days that would expose me to cool new music. I've toyed with the idea of making an 8tracks-like service, where tastemakers can create playlists to share, and the streaming happens via the API of whatever streaming services you're subscribed to (Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, whatever). If anyone is interested in a project like this, feel free to reach out.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>I imagine though that streaming may change this, since you can dive into just about anything. my theory is maintaining a single complete playlist as the best way to not get stuck with only the safe and boring. https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-complete-playlist-e8eb33d41133 https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-complete-playlist-e8eb3...

wodenokoto 2y ago

I think it is the reverse. 20-30 years ago, you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more. They would introduce you to music outside "your tribe" of virtue of having to play a little bit of every genre that's popular. Back then, I'd say investing in a album was always safe, not because you went to the record store and asked for a new rock album, because you had heard 1 or 2 singles (unwillingly) and read a review (willingly) Now, you can just ask the algorithm to play "something I like".

yobbo 2y ago
> you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more The selection in these channels was the tribe back then. They were the "bottleneck" of pop culture. From around 2000 with broadband etc, "payola" (broadcasters being coerced by record companies to play their flagship songs "in heavy rotation") is less and less effective. As a consequence, I think the "current fashion" of music seems less defined.
- suoduandao3 2y ago
  I believe this is the origin of the '90s kids' meme. Not too long ago there was one culture. Then the internet came along and there was a gathering place for fans of every obscure anime and political system. I don't miss the restrictiveness of a single culture and the expectation to fit into it, but with the benefit of hindsight I can't say it was a terrible culture, given all it had to do.
  - cthalupa 2y ago
    There have always been multiple cultures. This is such a weird statement I don't even really know how to argue against it since to me it seems so self evident, but I suppose I'll try. Since the subject is music, I suppose we can start there. The sort of people you found at, say, a metal show in the 80s and the sort of people you found at a dance club playing the early era of house music were wildly different. Even if you keep it within rock, the overlap of the audience seeing The Cure would be wildly different from those seeing Judas Priest. Anime? Even before the internet became what it is today, you could go to a comic book store and hang out. There was significant overlap between the comic book/dungeons & dragons/anime crowds. There have been social spaces and places to meet people within specific cultures for forever.

killerstorm 2y ago

I started with a very narrow taste as a teen: pretty much just metal, and mostly just black & death. But it grew broader over time, so that's possible. Now I might dig pretty much any kind of music. I feel like trying to understand new types of music has an effect beyond just getting familiar with them: brain adapts to process a broader range of stimuli, so that also helps to understand other unrelated genres in future. I experienced biggest change with Autechre: it was rather difficult to listen to (and I specifically took it as a challenge), but after Autechre I can listen anything :) And in teens I had to listen something at least 5 times to start enjoying it. Now I can dig it right away. So it feels like brain processes music differently now

aidenn0 2y ago

> The useful metric with these sorts of things is to ask yourself, when was the last time you tried something that you didn't like? 100% the case. I keep telling my kids that, but they don't seem to get it. > I imagine though that streaming may change this, since you can dive into just about anything. We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. So much so. Spotify became really popular when I was in my 30s and I tried it, listening to the "Discover weekly" for about 6 months. It was 10 weeks before I heard a track I had not heard before and the closest it came to playing an artist I hadn't heard before was a track from a 1-album super-group with two frontmen I was familiar with from their other groups. Doing the math: I didn't play the list religiously so figure about 20 weeks worth of songs would be 600 songs. I had heard over 80% of the songs before. I had heard nearly all of the artists before. It played a single digit number of songs that I didn't like. If I'm liking 99% of what I'm hearing, something is wrong.

lesostep 2y ago

>> We really need music search which follows more interesting routes through content rather than just 'people who like this also like' or 'here's another album by someone you already listen to'. For me almost all of the music I discover is through the personal recommendations or AMVs (are they still called AMVs if they aren't anime related?) or video memes. Finding new music is easier if people aren't penalized for using it in their own artistic pursuit. [[placeholder for a rant about current implementations of copyright laws being stuffling for artists. There are a lot of those out there, so pick any rant you are comfortable with]] All artistic works categories should intertwine more, imo. But that's hard when we have one site for music, another for art, and another for video. Social networks like facebook or twitter almost solved it (although, I prefer to think that blogging platforms like tumblr or myspace solved it better). Common creatives is a very good license for this very reason (relatively easy artistic borrowing), and we should propagandize it more. That's to say, many people have no good reason to engage with new anymore, having found the stuff that they like and other things they prefer doing. Which is cosmic, in my opinion. Not only they do what they like to do listening to the things they like, but also if everyone was always seeking out the newest thing, it would be a neck-breathing horse race between artists.