There’s an ever-growing amount of music available today, a few taps (or clicks) away. I for one feel like there’s a lot of great music in many genres and styles, coming from many countries, and in many languages. And there’s always new, interesting stuff coming out regularly.
Whether a new release from an artist you like, or an old one you want to go back to, there are so many options to choose from at any given point in time. Yet we can only hear one at a time, so we must choose. So…
How do you choose what to listen to, and how do you keep up with everything you want to keep up with? Do you manage to listen to everything you want to on a regular basis? Do you instead choose to articially limit yourself to keep sane? Or is your music taste narrow enough this is of no worry?
The best music is from when I personally was in high school and the genere has never been improved on.
- 90% of people
If you filter out only what you like, you are left with perhaps 1% of music.
By being picky and only actively seeking out my favorite genre.
I use the streaming service qobuz, which have curated playlists and “albums of the week”. It allows me to discover new styles or artists that I never thought much about. Sometimes it’s a miss, but that’s depending on taste. Also, the sound quality is really good if you have the hardware required.
By ignoring about 99% of it.
I really like the Discover Weekly queue on Spotify. I’ll find a track I like, then listen to the album, and if that’s good, I’ll listen to the rest of the discography. I’ve found quite a few Most Favourite Bands Ever this way.
I tend to dislike the music of the day, only to really like it a decade later.
When I grew up I hated Eurodance music, but now it is one of my favourite genres.
I listen to the same ~30 songs, over and over and over again.
Today is the day you find out that you’re not a person but instead an iHeartRadio radio station.
It is the same thing with all other media. You have to realize and accept that you simply will not ever have all of the time in the world, to enjoy every single piece that is released. When you’re gone, that wheel is going to keep turning. So you’re probably best just getting what you can when you’re able.
I listen to a lot of songs over and over because I never know when it’ll be the last time I’ll ever hear it. I explore music sometimes through others and if I just happen to get enough of a hitch to go on my own. It would be mentally taxxing for me if I had to spend every waking minute, desperately reaching for new stuff, especially if it isn’t something I’m going to like.
Oh and people should also check out https://everynoise.com/ to get a very staggering amount of genres and artists for you to listen to.
I artificially limit myself to Creative Commons music. Never been particularly convinced of digital ownership, so I prefer stuff that I can re-download at any time. I do also like a lot that I can share the music files freely.
Well, and a very personal reason for limiting the selection, is that I’m a hobby musician myself. It helps convince my brain that my own music is worth creating, if I’m not constantly bombarded with an infinite selection of amazing music…
I acquire music either through saving what I hear being played around me (if like it), by recommendations from people, by using Spotify’s recommendations algorithm, or by saving all the music from an artist that I’ve found and filtering later by shuffling my library. The last one can become a little overwhelming as I’ve found that it can quickly balloon the size of one’s music library, and the size can be daunting for me to filter through, but it does help me find some obscure music from artists that I like.
Yeah for about twenty years now it’s been like this:
- hear new song
- hate it
- try to remember who or what it was to avoid it in the future
- try not to be in a position to hear new pop music
I have been trying some Classical stuff since I don’t know anything so it’s like new music, but a couple hundred years old.
Well that and the entire Prince discography. Plus those nice English chaps, uh, Richard, Louie, Harry and Bongo.
I am fully involved with the music algorithm. I like that song!, clicks radio on it. Oh, this song is nice, clicks radio on that and so on.
I discover music from whatever service has the best algorithm to find what I enjoy. Sometimes it’s from amatures, sometimes it’s from unheard of artists. I rarely ever hear a song with over 100,000 plays, and I believe nobody but my mom thinks my music taste is good…
I use Plex for my music, which has a lot of mechanisms that help me process new stuff.
For example, I have a smart playlist that only plays things I haven’t heard in a year. This is my “Frontier” playlist to hear new things. As I listen, I rate stuff with stars.
From there, I then have smart playlists that only play highly rated things I haven’t heard in a week or two. Depending on my mood, I’ll either listen to my frontier playlist, or my liked playlist… with other playlists further scoping on genre as desired.All these playlists filter out things that are lowly rated if I’ve heard them more than X times.
I generally shove anything/everything anyone recommends into the pot, which then naturally folds into my frontier playlist which then fold naturally into my liked playlists. I’ve discovered quite a lot of stuff I never would’ve predicted I’d like this way. From there, I’ll look at recommended artists from the bands I have and like and add those as well.
In the old days, Last.fm was good for discovering music I might like based on what I listen to.
Nowadays I have this method (hear me out) that consists of drinking a bit too much, listening to favorites on YouTube and opening multiple tabs with what I suspect are good suggestions. This leads me into multiple rabbit holes where I occasionally strike gold.