Music

Every so often I'll put on some of the old jams. But man, I'm just not angry enough anymore to listen to the old hardcore punk stuff I used to be into. Every so often I'll put on a few albums though and think about those old times. Lately though I've gone down some crazy rabbit holes from jazz, ambient new age stuff, lots of lo-fi and lo-fi adjacent stuff. I recently discovered Macroblank and Monodrone, those two artists have taken up a lot of my time lately. I went through a pretty heavy vaporwave and futurefunk phase a few years back when I was trying to find more eletronic/funk style music like Breakbot. So all the stuff I listen to now is a far cry from the punk and metal I used to listen to back in the day!

Is it just me or is the process of finding new music also succumbing to the forces of enshitification? Like for me the sources went like this:

1. Old forum-style/niche internet sources (userbase died out)
2. Internet radio (ate by Pandora)
3. Pandora (ate by other music streaming sites, enshitification of algorithm)
4. Spotify (enshitification of algorithm, bad treatment of music industry creators)
5. Google music (rip... But tbh wasn't ever really good at finding new music)
6. Music publications?? (Pitchfork is the best I guess??? Npr maaaybe? That's sad, and also all of these are prone to enshitification)
7. Local underground music scenes (lots died with covid, hope they come back, but now I live in a more rural place)

Like... How do we find new music now? If it's up to an algorithm, it's enshitified. If it's up to people's suggestions, idk where a userbase would even exist.

I literally used to run charting for a radio station and I STILL don't know where to find new tunes. I'm still a baby, too, so some of you that think it's harder just because you're older... I have bad news lol

I used to be that way, but recently I've been only listening to bands I'd never heard of before. I've had Spotify for about 10 years and only recently started using the Discovery Weekly playlist. It was only ok at first, but now I heart about 50% of the songs each week.

I’d say my music listening hasn’t changed in the past ~5 years, but that’s mostly due to changes in my life. In college, I’d listen to music walking between classes and while working in the library; college friends also exposed me to new stuff (largely prog / metal). In my early twenties, I worked in a small retail store where I often chose what music played, so I’d put on a local indie radio station and learn about new music that way. Since music played all day in the store, I’d seek out new stuff to play fairly often too.

Now that I’m in an office job where I’m doing stuff that requires more focus, I basically just listen to lo-fi and soundtracks. I also only listen to music I’ve loaded to my phone, which I haven’t bothered to add new stuff to in… over a year. I think adding more diversity to my listening will improve when I get around to tackling self-hosting my whole music library, haha.

More varied taste for me, plus I make more of an effort to seek new music outside of algorithms. Hello Mary, Spiral Drive, and Chat Pile are three new-ish bands I love

I was guilty of this until very recently (my phone is still loaded with all my 90s/00s favourites). But I got back into playing music and then started to want to listen to more folk music as inspiration. Now I hardly want to listen to anything else, and I was largely into metal before. Sometimes you just need to try something new.

Mostly the same stuff. I'll occasionally find a new band/album that I like, but it's always by chance. I've been missing a good place to find new music ever since what.cd got shutdown.

Listen to a heap of new stuff, as well as a lot of old stuff.

Picking up the guitar to learn start of last year has put me on a journey of exploration into several areas and a lot of new music

I sometimes go and search for lists of new artists of the music genres I like to listen to, but most of the time I just end up listening to the same band, composer, etc I've been listening since my teens.

I'm not closed to "new" music, but I rarely get attached to anything new, so I end up listening to the same things almost every day.

There are bands that I will always listen to, for sure. But I listen to a much wider selection of music these days.

all the time. I have a problem. I'm always seeking the next mindblowing album experience. gotta go back to the trieds and trues occasionally!

i listen to the same genre of music i listened to as a teenager, which is, music for teenagers (receipts in profile links)

I still discover new music, there is plenty of good music nowadays, i like fontaines dc, wet leg, squid, mac Demarco, Altin gün, the chats, la femme, parquet courts, lcd soundsystem.

Which are all active today.

I also started making an effort to discover new music to me, no necessarily new music, simply because my tastes shifted quite a bit and I realised it by noticing I almost stopped listening to music. I just started following some very nice YouTube music album channels that introduced me to some great music that I'd never learn about otherwise.

Another thing I didn't realise I was doing was that I wasn't keeping up with the artists I enjoyed, I kept listening to the old stuff, but I didn't listen to the new material to see if liked where they were going.

I'm more focused on new releases by bands I've listened to for a long time. Mostly rock, folk, and pop from the 80s/90s.

But I also got into EDM a little while ago and added a lot of new and old stuff to my frequent plays.

I don't want to be the old grumpy guy, but the current pop music is very rarely pleasant for me... Queue the struggle for control when I'm in the car with the kids: We found that Yacht Rock is safe territory for all :p

Yes I definitely try and seek out new bands and sub-genres. Just the act of searching is fun.

Also, Reign in Blood on repeat for 35 years