Outlier here (musician, spend hours per week trying to find new music) - some thoughts:
- The search space for music is really large and noisy. Most of the stuff out there isn’t very good, and the stuff that is good isn’t always discoverable with a single strategy
- The best strategies almost always exploit human connections
Some strategies I use:
- Spatial locality, who is performing with or near artists that I like?
- Publishing locality, who is on the same label as an artist that I like?
- Artist locality, what other projects has an artist I like contributed to?
- Fan locality, what other artists does a fan of an artist that I like enjoy?
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Note that none of these strategies are as effective as “relinquish control”. For example, there is a freeform radio station near me that I listen to all day at work. I have a rule that I won’t turn the radio off in the middle of a DJs set, even if I don’t like a song. This has helped me “break through” to interesting artists I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
To the article’s question, I think the main factor here doesn’t have much to do with music. Cultural production has exploded, and it’s really hard to navigate any cultural space in a non-obsessive way.
I thought it was interesting that the effect of “generational preference for music released when teenaged” seemed to wane around Gen Z. I wonder if this is just exhaustion, perhaps with tendencies towards pastiche as a consequence.
- The search space for music is really large and noisy. Most of the stuff out there isn’t very good, and the stuff that is good isn’t always discoverable with a single strategy - The best strategies almost always exploit human connections
Some strategies I use:
- Spatial locality, who is performing with or near artists that I like? - Publishing locality, who is on the same label as an artist that I like? - Artist locality, what other projects has an artist I like contributed to? - Fan locality, what other artists does a fan of an artist that I like enjoy?
——
Note that none of these strategies are as effective as “relinquish control”. For example, there is a freeform radio station near me that I listen to all day at work. I have a rule that I won’t turn the radio off in the middle of a DJs set, even if I don’t like a song. This has helped me “break through” to interesting artists I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
To the article’s question, I think the main factor here doesn’t have much to do with music. Cultural production has exploded, and it’s really hard to navigate any cultural space in a non-obsessive way.
I thought it was interesting that the effect of “generational preference for music released when teenaged” seemed to wane around Gen Z. I wonder if this is just exhaustion, perhaps with tendencies towards pastiche as a consequence.