I personally love my collection (records, CD, digital) and enjoy sharing the experience with friends. I don’t use streaming unless you count soma fm at work. Sure, I’ll use YouTube to listen to some albums I don’t own, but if I truly like it I’ll buy or download it, usually on bandcamp or direct from artist if I can.
For me, I don’t believe the human brain was ever made for this level of stimulation (we shouldn’t really have 24/7 access to social media either. Go back to the “family PC” model). People have very little connection to music anymore becuase there’s too much and its too easy to access. I can barely remember all the members names in my favorite bands or all their albums. There’s little chance anyone even knows the artists of the millions of songs they’re streaming, or the story behind them.
Local > Streaming, but I’d prefer to have a large, eclectic library: My musical preferences are all over the place.
Oh me as well. I just dont like the aspect of unlimited. Unlimited anything is not really a good thing and it cheapens art, IMO.
Plus, how many people now listen to albums multiple times (yes, I’m an unc, I realize no one has listened to albums since the 90s)? I’m willing to bet 98% of them are a 1 and done. They never get the experience of hearing it again and listening for things the artist may have subtly placed there, or really understanding the lyrics the 3rd time around etc.
Aren’t albums still called albums even when they’re electronic? Has that changed? Am I that old?
Nah they are. But I don’t know anyone who listens to albums that isnt a musician.
Now you do! Hi.
I have some instruments I fuck around with casually once in a while, but I am most definitely not a musician.
No that hasn’t changed lol Artists making cohesive albums has changed though. I don’t mind a compilation project but I never hear any newer artists doing concept albums other than Tyler the Creator.
Hmm, you should probably check out Deltron 3030’s 2 albums: If you like hip-hop, compilations, and concept albums, this one is pretty great IMO (not new though). It’s Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Dan the Automator, and Kid Koala (a turntable genius) along with a bunch of guests.
I’ll give it a go. I’ve listened to Del the Funkee Homosapien before so there’s some familiar ground there.
IMO it’s some of his best stuff
just download all of it? i got like 2tb of storage on my phone…soulseek + that = all the music i could want
Yep, sounds pretty ideal!
One of the primary appeals of early streaming platforms (first via MySpace and then later through services like Napster and Pandora) was the opportunity to explore outside your normie musical tastes. For folks who weren’t living in some major metroplex with an active indie music scene, this was a reliable way to find new music and get outside whatever your parents had on repeat in the car on the way to school.
The modern scene has exploited a desire for “newness” in the abstract and stuffed everyone’s feeds with AI slop. But there is still a demand for media broadcasts outside the ClearChannel “Top 3 Pop Songs on a Loop” and Oldie “Mandatory Metallica” stations that go beyond what you have already listened to.
How do you fill your local collection if you aren’t listening to stuff outside your local collection?
I’m always finding new music. I just dont do it using “recommended playlists”.
I got tired of hearing the same stuff from the 80s 90s and early 2000s so I just subscribed to spotify for a few months to explore some new music without ads.
I’ve tried to get back into cds but it’s the old there’s two tracks I like on this one, so switch. I believe in listening to albums in their entirety unless you absolutely can’t stand a song. Streaming is just to convenient and the old way is to limited. Plus it’s far cheaper.
I havent found much modern new music I’ve loved, there’s a few here and there. But I have rediscovered bands I completely forgotten about on streaming or was unaware of from way back then that I now enjoy.
Also some bands who I never cared for their radio single so I just dismissed them and didn’t give them a chance like sum41 and Volbeat. Recently listened to all of princes albums in full for the first time.
stuffed everyone’s feeds with AI slop.
Before there was AI slop there was auto-tuned slop.
There’s a certain authenticity that comes from learning to actually play an instrument (including vocals) uniquely - imperfectly, rather than digitally perfect synthesis of perfectly timed notes from a composition score.
Before there was AI slop there was auto-tuned slop.
And it ultimately flopped. The market became saturated with a product that people associated with flat, tinny, overly-electronic music. People scrambled to get away from it, and we got a mini-folk revival with lots of acoustics and more traditional instrumentals as a result.
In the same way, we’re seeing a scramble to get away from AI music saturation. I don’t think it’ll ever go away (any more than auto-tune did). But it creates a demand for something distinctively not-AI as a result.
In the before times you would buy a new album and listen to it from start to finish, several times. It was Tuesday.
I still enjoy listening to music in album form. I can think of many songs that are not discrete pieces of art without the track(s) before and after.
A local radio station once played “Golden Slumbers” without also playing “carry that weight” and they apologized for it the next day.
Metallica’s ride the lightning cassette got played in my car from beginning to end so many times
In the before before times, teenagers didn’t buy albums, they bought singles…
I don’t believe the human brain was ever made for this level of stimulation
Before recorded audio, every song was unique. Every play of every song was unique. Non-Variable stimuli is actually the weird situation.
Since streaming became a thing, I could probably only name a handful of artists I’ve discovered. I just pick a genre and let the algorithm decide.
About 6 months ago, I started self-hosting my music, and it’s a game changer. It feels like much more intentional consumption of media.
Hats off to you using your own brain!! Wish i could say the same for others…
Yeah, its really become “put on “rock mix” playlist (that Spotify made for you, probably using stolen ai music) and listen to that for hours with 0 thought” which is fine for some stuff I guess. I don’t believe thats healthy for humans or music.
I mainly listen to my music collection from my Plex server, but I’ll also pop in a CD on occasion and listen from start to finish. It can honestly be so refreshing to have the music experience be so physical without a screen in the way. I agree with your feelings on mainstream streaming services. You have access to a lot of music but it really discourages you from traveling deeper.
How about a bigger personal collection?
Is there some music database that lets me put in an artist I like, and why I like them, to get recommendations?
I ask because often what I like about a band is specific and different from the norm in their genre. I like Pink Floyd in large part because of Waters and Gilmour’s vocal styles, whereas I don’t listen to Rush because I can’t stand Geddy Lee’s vocals. But if I put in “I like Pink Floyd” I get offered Rush because they are adjacent, genre-wise.
Being able to say “I like Band A for their recording production and bass guitar” and get recommendations for other artists with similar (or even opposite if I could invert the search!), that would be a dream! “Artists like Rush but with vocals not like Rush” 😅
(Rush is a great band and I have lots of respect for them and Geddy’s talent as well, I wish I could like it. This is purely a me problem)
Biggest rush fan here.
Try Riverside(shrine of new generation slaves is a great album). Or crown lands (very similar but you may prefer his vocals, high as they are still.)
Something like that may exist but I’m guessing it would be ai slop based and I wouldn’t use it.
Also, you could just ask people !
Thank you for the recommendation! I agree on the AI slop, not interested in that hell 😆
