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When do we stop finding new music?

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Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#151

Post by readingnews »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #106

I must be some sort of freak. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s listening to classic rock, and a lot of it I can’t even stand any more due to the incredibly small playlists that most classic rock stations use. In my 20’s I started listening to a lot of classical and then jazz. In the 90’s a lot of grunge which’s I still love. After that was trance in the 2000’s, then ambient, techno and IDM after that. I still listen to…

I find this very interesting, as my path is nearly identical, with the added note (like some other replies) that I just can not stand 60s-70s rock any longer... but I find my musical interests are much wider, and I am listening to more new music than ever before (trance, IDM, experimental, jazz, classical).

I do know people who turn on some streaming service and basically listen to the same genre all day long. I am not sure how they do it. Maybe we are in some small demographic that goes nuts if we do not discover new music?

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#152

Post by qwertox »

jonathankoren wrote: post #87
ryandrake wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable, because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is often a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the occasional standout track that you probably toss into your own personal playlist. Yea, I tried streaming for a while, and found exactly that. When I play some genre-specific stream with a goal of discovering new music, I find it's basica…

You’ve discovered the Pareto Principle. It’s true about literally everything.

So now I was on the German and the English Wikipedia entry of the Principle and noticed a noteworthy difference:

English: While it is common to refer to pareto as "80/20" rule, under the assumption that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine 80% of problems, this ratio is merely a convenient rule of thumb and is not, nor should it be considered, an immutable law of nature.

German: The 80-20 distribution in the Pareto principle often leads to the false assumption that a sum of 100 is mandatory. In fact, however, any other distribution is possible, in which, for example, 50 % of the efforts lead to 90 % of the effect, and again 50 % of the efforts lead to the remaining 10 % of the effect. This is easy to see in the trivial case that 100% of the efforts are the cause of 100% of the success. [0]

It's interesting how this explanatory information is lacking in the English version. Should be a cool project for an LLM to transfer information between the different language versions of a Wikipedia entry.

[0] Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#153

Post by bsder »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #106

I must be some sort of freak. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s listening to classic rock, and a lot of it I can’t even stand any more due to the incredibly small playlists that most classic rock stations use. In my 20’s I started listening to a lot of classical and then jazz. In the 90’s a lot of grunge which’s I still love. After that was trance in the 2000’s, then ambient, techno and IDM after that. I still listen to…

> I can’t even stand any more due to the incredibly small playlists that most classic rock stations use.

That's every bloody station nowadays. It doesn't matter if its radio, SiriusXM, Spotify, or whatever they all degenerate into a small number of repeated songs.

I loathe this pigeonholing. It makes finding something new you might like REALLY hard.

For example, I don't want an "80s station" with the same old crap. How about a station that plays all the songs released since 1990 by those 80s artists? Nope. Nada.

Or, how about just the other tracks from the same albums. Sure, you've heard "Faithfully" from Journey's "Frontiers" album a zillion times and hate it. Have you heard "Chain Reaction", "Edge of the Blade" or "Frontiers" from the album? Bet you haven't and if you hate their sappy ballads you're likely to enjoy those tracks.

Or, God forbid, brand new artists that sound like what you want. Try coughing up Blossoms from liking 80s. You might get there if you really work by starting from the very specific "jangle pop" angle.

Ever heard anything from "Blackstar" out in public? I know I sure haven't.

However, I would also argue that music is simply a LOT less important to today's youth. It's background noise while doing some other activity and not an activity in and unto itself.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#154

Post by tripdout »

resource_waste wrote: post #97
harles wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve wondered for a while if Spotify skews playlists in favor of cheaper songs. I have no evidence of this, but it’d make business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music (even if that just means outsourced to a cheap agency) for generic study music playlists and such.

I noticed Google Play do this with Soundcloud Rap. Their amorality has caused me to enjoy SoundCloud Rap at a formidable age, now I cannot shake it. My kids listen to it, swear amorally, and the cycle continues. All because Google Play didn't want to shell out an extra 60 cents per year for paid Rappers.

What???

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#155

Post by grujicd »

bigirondba wrote: post #23

I’m not convinced that we stop finding new music, we just become less zealous or outward about it as we get older. When I was young, I was all about talking music, having the right DJ list for roadtrips, etc, etc and now? I just hit play and don’t think too much about it. Probably because it’s harder to attend shows, less relevant to my social life, etc. I’ve also found as I’ve gotten older that I just care less abou…

> Probably because it’s harder to attend shows

This is maybe true if we talk about superstar kind of show. But I think it's now easier than ever to find out about little gigs, which were hard to find before social networks.

I live in medium size capital city (Belgrade), there are options to listen to live music every single day. Sometimes it's just classic music, sometimes there are cover bands, but quite often there's a chance to listen to original music. And these small gigs are quite cheap or even free. I very often listen a song or two (Spotify or youtube really help with this!), then if it looks promising I listen to some more while walking to the show.

Sure, sometimes it's not good. But very often I like it a lot and you can bet I listen to it much more focused then if that same music came on autoplay at home.

If you're in big enough city or have something bigger nearby - find a way to discover new gigs, follow venues, event organizers, local cultural institutions, festivals, etc. That's my main use of Facebook.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#156

Post by TedHerman »

Not being a user of Spotify nor other services, I can only say that I continue to find new music in each decade. And I like much of newer music better than the old classics (which is saying something because I started listening in the 1960s). Thus what Parris says doesn't speak to me.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#157

Post by eterm »

082349872349872 wrote: post #72
havblue wrote: post #32

It doesn't seem like the article makes much of a distinction between newly released music and music that you haven't listened to yet. Personally, as I get older I've lost the ability to listen to the same Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc albums for the 100th time. I cringe every time I hear the opening of Don't Stop Believing. So I've kept trying to get deeper into prog and other genres lately as I'm just burnt out on th…

> Pink Floyd etc albums for the 100th time If you can risk a 101st time, have you tried "Dark Side of the Moonshine" (2009) yet?

Dub side of the moon (2003) is an absolute masterpiece of alternative covers.

Sometimes I forget their version of Breathe isn't the original.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#158

Post by divbzero »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #22

Spotify has financial incentive to obfuscate their UI to tilt people toward mindlessly consuming playlists. This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists, and Spotify knows playlists are a good habit to push onto their users. Radio was used to discover new music decades ago, but paying a radio station (directly) to play a song is illegal (payola), so DJs had to break new songs, styles, an…

The old school way still works too:

5. Listen to the radio.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#159

Post by llsf »

Funny, when I was maybe 10yo, I got scared when I realized that given the number of notes is finite, the number of different melodies would be too, and so we would have one day to put new lyrics on old melodies.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#160

Post by [deleted] »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #147
domador wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm listening to some Amapiano now... and loving it. Care to share some of the other genres you've tried before this one?

My previous genres were dozens of Techno subgenres. Check out the 2023 Coachella lineup. That year had a strong focus on 'World Music'. I went last year and that's how I discovered Amapiano. If you like Amapiano, check out a song titled 'Ungowami' by Sha Sha Check out 'Big Flexa' by Costa Titch. Awesome music video too. Huge dance culture in South Africa. Also check out 'Abo Mvelo' by Daliwonga (this song gets me hyp…

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