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Tracking your listening habits

“woman says ‘i love this song’ after every song on her own playlist” (core) i always notice music; music is what feelings sound like. because it has to, the world will change—and people will too. naturally, one of my favorite parts of the year is between late november and early december: spotify wrapped season. keeping track of people’s listening habits (to figure out whose allowed on aux) has always been a nosy pleasure of mine. i never want to lose connections to change; music allows me to sever those relations—“you listen to catherine wheel?”… “i didn’t know you were into fiona apple too!”—it’s a great way to form bonds. music connects people. i for one relish in this understanding. i, unfortunately, am an impatient person and cannot wait until the end of the year. i take this ngenart quiz monthly to record my own listening analytics as i continue to delve deeper into this interest, and share them casually in hopes that others will join in.

@madhearts

Oct 26, 2024

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DETACH from the algo, become an active participant in your own curation, form relationships to music, track your patterns

I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that aren’t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to — which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since you’re listening to something really just because it’s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take what’s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order. so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, it’s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework that’s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether it’s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data. Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so i’m forced to consider its value (usually i’ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as i’ll buy a few releases i’ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they don’t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until i’m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isn’t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music. so how do you know what to order? for me, I’m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether it’s bandcamp daily, y’all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because it’s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences it’s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because there’s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now i’m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. LAST thing i’ll say — because in yappin about this i’m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of “vibes” and “aesthetics” and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship i’m forming with what i’ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didn’t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. that’s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now i’ve actually taken time to consider it, it’s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often i’ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason. aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume

@royallmonarch

Feb 29, 2024

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set yourself against algorithmic recommendation

I don't listen to any AI generated playlists because I prefer to hear ones curated by people. I love sharing music as a human to human thing. It's also dismaying how music streaming services prioritize the songs of artists whose management pay them, etc. It's so fun to simply browse anonymous person's curated lists instead on top of sharing with friends. It's never been easier to peek into someone else's semi-private music preference and walk their landscape. Just today I found a person who's made dozens of playlists for specific beanie babies (!), all with no saves or likes. We don't need AI driven sorting to develop taste and find things we like. Break out of the corral with me and run free. Let's see what's over the hill

@killer

Aug 6, 2024

Top Recs from @deardoveswings

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thinking of u guys as my neighbors

liking ur rec = saying hi when we go to get our morning papers from the end of our driveways (picture me doing so tony soprano style)

@deardoveswings

Aug 12, 2024

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ChatGPT

started writing this a few hours ago when i first saw this ask, then decided against posting but i've since changed my mind. there really is no justification for it outside of entitlement. even from a selfish lens, there's no long term benefit to its usage. it harms the world and culture in more ways than one. a.) the water and energy usage that isn't a secret at this point. "no ethical consumption under capitalism" yadda yadda and yeah corporations are extremely culpable in the state of the environment but there really is no need for chatgpt and the planet is already too delicate at the moment. b.) the exploitation of workers in the global south. this program is not just a computer figuring it all out, there are in fact humans behind it. it reminds me of the acceptance of fast fashion and how people have the tendency to divorce the idea of the garment worker from the garment they wear when all clothing is handmade in some way, shape or form. you need hands to man a sewing machine, you need human eyes to moderate content. also, content moderation can be a thankless job with psychological repercussions. c.) the erosion of social skills, humanity and media literacy...this one is very personal. like, you have a cushy email job but can't write an email? you need a computer and a worker in kenya to get paid a dollar an hour to figure out a daily routine for you? i've seen the program churn out blatantly incorrect information. fine tuning a prompt or chat or whatever to give you the exact (possibly incorrect) answer you need isn't really that much less work than sharpening your research skills by cracking open a dictionary or using boolean search keys in google. again, the main issue with this kind of stuff is the entitlement to convenience, with no thought towards the repercussions within and outside of us. we are losing major recipes (critical thinking and media literacy) here, people! i probably did an iffy job are coherently articulating my thoughts here but i am in fact, human. and that’s the beauty of it all.

@deardoveswings

Oct 1, 2024

7

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oil painting :)

i don’t work w oils often, mainly tempera, collage, and digital but this is the one i'm still most proud of as of late bc it’s way bigger (18x24) than i'm used to working <3

@deardoveswings

Oct 14, 2024

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