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How do you extend your Musical Universe ?

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How do you extend your Musical Universe ?

When we have an eye on the charts all around the world, it seems that we live on a very sad planet, as the majority of people, from north to south, seem to listen, almost, to the same things.

 

What kind of listener are you ?

 

Are you stuck to the main stream releases ? Do you listen always the same genre of music ? Do you reject what you don't know or what your parents listen ? Do you reject what you consider as 'old music' ?

 

Are you curious of new music ? Do you listen to different genres ? Do you think you have to learn from the past ?

 

So, musically, who are you ?

 

twitter.com/soundofus

www.soundofus.com

 

SoundofusSpotify Star
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You make such awesome threads, @Soundofus! I love 'em!

 

To answer vaguely - I've gone through various phases, from listening to radio (and therefore only hits) to listening to specific stuff and/or very underground music, oblivious to what's going on in the charts. I also have gone through some phases where I listened to only one band/artist and a few others closely associated with the act.

 

For now, I'm not stuck to mainstream. Quite the opposite, I don't know most of the acts that are in the charts. I've never listened to Post Malone or Childish Gambino (probably I should?). In fact, I've been very busy broadening my music taste with the help of Spotify, Amon's excellent taste and some friends and when I finally decided to take a look at the charts... "oh, things have changed. Quite a bit!"... "What are you, guys?"

 

My parents and grandparents have introduced to some nice stuff. Not gonna lie, some of the material didn't click 'til I was older. I was really stiff-necked when I had the period where I listened to only EotS, considering them the alpha and oomega of music. lol :')
About old music... There is no expiration date for music. I know some (mainly teenagers) only listen to the freshest beats possible and tunes from last week are 'old' (stupid stance imho, sorry), I don't do that. Even very old tunes are new to me, especially when I have never heard them before.

 

I try to keep an open ear for everything, but I am really selective. Most of my preferred musical acts do electronic music, but I try to find nice bits from every corner.

The thing I've learned from my past is not to get too attached to a certain musician and thinking there is nothing quite as excellent as this. It's sad, you're going to miss so much when you are this closed-minded.

(... although I do have a big favourite and he's Amon Tobin, but his music taste has guided me out in the open finding new music. Thanks, Tob'!)

 

I broaden my musical taste slowly, but steadily.

That's about it. 🙂

SebastySpotify Star
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I'm always on the lookout for new music to broaden my perspective. I found a great playlist created by Brian Mansfield - check it out 🙂

https://open.spotify.com/user/brian_mansfield/playlist/2BGn6INTbvxCWha7kcIoLv?si=5GVmXoQ3SGW7-D4BwUw...

 

All the best, Mazo

I would add to the original questions :

 

- Do you collect physical records ? if yes, what kind ?

 

How are you creating your playlists ?

 

- Do you try to copy what other people are doing ? Same kind of playlist ? Similar words in description ? Almost same content ?

 

Are you creative ?

 

- Do you try to find original themes almost never covered previously ? For that, do you make researches to try to find out if there is already playlists about the same subject ?

 

twitter.com/soundofus

www.soundofus.com

 

SoundofusSpotify Star
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The admin of Amon Tobin's social media loves Bowie as well as HEALTH's new release.

Whenever I see Bowie, I'm reminded of this guy now. 🙂

 

I do collect physical records when I have enough money to do so. Lately I've been buying digital releases only, partly because they are available as digital only.
Most of my physical releases are CD's, because vinyls are rather expensive.

I rip in all the CD's as .wav

 

I don't try to appeal to other listeners with my playlists. They are all personal; if someone besides me likes them, it's cool. 🙂

To be honest, I don't really listen to playlists that much. Sometimes I do, but most of the time I go through albums and queue music for playback.

 

Lots of interesting music to recommend, but playlists are all chaotic.

SebastySpotify Star
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I used to mostly listen to the same pop songs all over again, but I just started to discover new music.

I didn't listen to music from Brazil at all and now I'm in love with many recently discovered groups from here.

My library just increased a lot and now I have many different types of songs coming up all the time, I mostly listen to it on shuffle.

 

Old music is always cool, especially the ones with meaningful lyrics but I confess that I don't listen much due to the quality of audio.

 

Basically, I just love to discover smaller and new artists by checking what my friends are listening to and I use a lot the section "The Fans Also Like" to find new similar songs 🙂

What kind of listener are you ?

- I listen to both mainstream and non-mainstream music. I'd say that I'm a "middle ground' listener.

 

Are you stuck to the main stream releases ? Do you listen always the same genre of music ? Do you reject what you don't know or what your parents listen ? Do you reject what you consider as 'old music' ?

- I'm not stuck to mainstream since most of my favorite songs aren't even in charts. I have multiple genres that I listen to. I love what my parents listen, they love rock and songs from 70's to 80's. I don't reject old music since some of them have great music than music nowadays (example: my personal favorites are Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Scorpions)

 

Are you curious of new music ? Do you listen to different genres ? Do you think you have to learn from the past ?

- Yes, I'm curious and that's why I'm in this Community :). I listen to different genres and yes I have so much to learn from the past.

 

So, musically, who are you ?

- I'm a passive listener since I can't play any instruments but I do love to listen to many songs and different music.

@rossi1911

 

Thanks for this very detailed answer. 🙂

 

That's exactly what a Music Chat is made for. Talk about Music.

 

twitter.com/soundofus

www.soundofus.com

 

SoundofusSpotify Star
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Back to the "do you reject what your parents listen to?" question:

I introduced Spotify to my mom. Well, not directly, I just installed Spotify on her computer for troubleshooting purposes since she's on Win10 and I'm Win7.

She found it anyway. : )

 

She has created some really cool playlists that I sometimes revisit. Music she remembers hearing from various old movies, 'listenable songs' (which is kind of an omnipresent playlist title among all estonians - 'kuulatavad lood'), all sorts of stuff. Her music taste is a different universe and not venturing into that would be a mistake most grand from my end.

 

I think there is a lot to learn from some music listeners too. There was this user on youtube (TopEDM) who loves EDM, so he expanded his knowledge on the music classified as such and created really educating and fun videos showcasing all kinds of various genres, frenchcore, psytrance, dubstep, house, more obscure stuff, everything.

There isn't a lot of people who would bother venturing deeper into the genre, and most of those who do are more into a specific (sub)genre and discard everything else.

 

But for so long, everytime someone shows their edm playlist, I am prepared to see the likes of Marshmello, Martin Garrix, Skrillex, Zedd and so, perfectly ignoring the fact this term does not limit itself to popular electronic dance music only.

 

Or maybe I am just annoyed by people blindfolding themselves and going "edm is *bleep*" without giving any of it a chance. : )

SebastySpotify Star
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I'm far, far, away from mainstream releases. Here's one of my playlists.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3QfmUmPI5LZlgimwk7XNOQ

This is a great thread, @Soundofus!

 

I’m not sure what to call my type of music listening. However, I think that I tend towards listening to non-mainstream artists, as the genres that I’ve been listening to the most in recent months (stoner rock, psychedelic rock, and doom metal according to last.fm; or space rock and psychedelic doom according to Spotify Wrapped 2019 and 2020) don’t seem to be represented well among trending music. I think that the artists with millions of followers or monthly listeners that I know that I enjoy listening to are for the most part classic rock or old-school metal bands that have been around for a long time, rather than trending modern bands.

 

I don’t always listen to the same genres of music; however, I am definitely biased towards listening to genres that I already know that I usually enjoy. It seems that music by artists in the more popular genres nowadays (e.g. pop and rap) usually doesn’t sound good to me, so I often avoid these genres; if I find an artist that interests me, I usually check their “genre tags” on last.fm or the playlists on the “Discovered On” section of their artist page on the desktop Spotify app in order to see if they represent a genre that I know that I tend to like. However, I think that I ought to be more impartial when selecting music to check out; after all, there are sometimes exceptions where I enjoy songs that represent more popular genres of music.

 

I don’t reject what my parents listen to, though my parents don’t talk about music with me very often and mainly prefer different genres themselves, so I’m not usually listening to music that I know my parents like. A couple of times they’ve recommended Spotify playlists to me, though, which I was glad to check out.

 

I also don’t reject old music, either; however, I think that my “genre bias” applies to older music as well, and I don’t typically listen to genres that seem popular today, even if the music is from decades ago. In the same way, I don’t reject new releases, and rather look forward to new albums by the bands that I follow on Facebook, or that I find on Release Radar; however, usually when I listen to a new release, it represents one of my favorite genres.

 

I don’t think that I necessarily have to learn from the past, in order to appreciate music; however, I remember really enjoying a “History of Jazz” class that I took in college; I thought it was great to learn about how jazz has evolved and branched into different styles over time. Similarly, I enjoyed learning about the the history of heavy metal from a book that my brother gave me last winter; and I also sometimes enjoy reading on Wikipedia about other subgenres of music that interest me and their stylistic origins.

 

Cheers!

AdamDamSpotify Star
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Reading my first response to the thread regarding not listening to mainstream acts...

Well, I am now often forced to listen to stuff outside my taste if I want to join the events of a specific community. Flash playlists, weekly playlists, personcores, you never know what you're going to get until you hear it. Always a wild selection too : )

 

I feel it's quite a healthy place to be, even when I'm forced through things like kawaii metal or a whole playlist of Ariana and Taylor. At worst, it will simply make me appreciate my favourite music more, at best I find something new and great.
But most of the time I'll get to listen along and discuss.

(I did say today that a particular kawaii metal track felt like "I overdosed on caffeine")

 

My own playlists are not catered for other people and probably will never be.

SebastySpotify Star
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Hi again @Soundofus,

 

I noticed your reply earlier in this thread, and thought I’d reply to your additional questions as well:

 

I don’t collect physical records, though I’d like to. I’m not particularly high in funds currently, being a graduate student, so I haven’t been buying records or merch very often in order to support my favorite bands (though I did buy new Elder and King Buffalo t-shirts recently). I used to have a record player and some records, but unfortunately, I didn’t bring them with me when I moved to where I live now.

 

I’m admittedly not very creative when it comes to making playlists. I mostly create public playlists for genres of music that I enjoy and for which I have added a decent number of tracks to my library that I can place in these playlists. This idea was inspired by when I joined last.fm at the end of 2018 and noticed the genre “Tag Timeline” that appears in the weekly reports that last.fm generates for its users. I find that these genre-themed playlists are a good way for me to more easily remember which genres an artist’s music represents, as well as to get an idea about which genres of music I enjoy the most (based on how many tracks I’ve added to these playlists), and to provide a way for me to listen to my favorite songs within a particular genre that I might be wanting to hear at a given time. So, for the most part I manage these playlists for my own purposes; however, I limit the number of tracks per artist in these playlists to three, so as not to bother other potential listeners who might not enjoy a given artist in my playlist.

 

I’m not trying to copy what other Spotify users are doing by managing public playlists that are primarily based on specific (sub)genres that I enjoy listening to; however, genre themes are not very original and I’m sure that there are many similar playlists to my own, for each individual genre that I’ve represented in a playlist. I would guess that the public playlists that I’ve made that are more unique are the ones that combine similar genres; even then, though, I would guess that there are probably other Spotify playlists with similar combinations of genres. However, the content of my playlists is likely not nearly identical to similar playlists on Spotify. I do often find songs that I enjoy listening to from playlists created by Spotify or by other Spotify users, and sometimes I add songs from these playlists to my own; however, when this happens, I usually find a few tracks at most from a given playlist to add to my own. Also, whenever I check out another playlist that represents the same genre(s) as mine, it nearly always has a good number of artists that aren’t in my playlist, and vice versa (probably because there isn’t someone who has the exact same preferences for the same artists within a given genre as myself). I don’t usually put words in the descriptions of my playlists, since in most cases I think the titles of my playlists (usually genres of music) are sufficient for other Spotify users to know what they are up for if they choose to listen to them.

 

Cheers!

AdamDamSpotify Star
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That's a really nice topic @Soundofus, glad it's bumped again!

 

Let me see if I can answer some 😄

 

What kind of listener are you?

That's a thought-provoking question, this is a great start!

I like listening to mainstream songs now and then but I way less than I used to. I think as I've grown up I found a better understanding and love for certain genres that I enjoy but are not mainstream enough to be in heard in radios or charts.

One of the things I love with Spotify is that I found out a huge variety of instrumental songs and that in turn allowed me to explore them more and discover that it's my favorite genre. I highly doubt I'd have found that out if I'd simply continued just listening to charts/mainstream tracks so I'm very happy.

 

Are you stuck to the main stream releases ? Do you listen always the same genre of music ? Do you reject what you don't know or what your parents listen ? Do you reject what you consider as 'old music' ?

I grew up in when streaming wasn't a thing - you had to rely on the radio. I often found myself gravitating strongly towards mainstream foreign songs. My parents listened to mainstream Greek songs and for some reason (probably the repetition and the fact that lyrics didn't seem to be very meaningful at times :D), I started growing out of them to the point that I don't listen to that music at all. Now that I'm homesick, I might listen to a song I remember from childhood but that's all.

Streaming opened the doors to music discovery for me - I like more indie and instrumental tracks which are def not mainstream.

 

Are you curious of new music ? Do you listen to different genres ? Do you think you have to learn from the past ?

Yes, recently I noticed how lacking my music knowledge is haha so I'm starting to go through recommendations from other folks to get to know at least some more classic tracks.

 

Do you collect physical records ? if yes, what kind ?

Not really, I only ever bought the one CD in my life. I love that one of the benefits of streaming is the vast library of tracks you can access from anywhere in one device. I remember adding .mp3 tracks to my mp3 player and it was such a hassle finding them and manually adding them in, then deleting older stuff cause the memory wouldn't allow them all....

 

How are you creating your playlists ? Do you try to copy what other people are doing ? Same kind of playlist ? Similar words in description ? Almost same content?

I agree with @Sebasty here: "I don't try to appeal to other listeners with my playlists. They are all personal; if someone besides me likes them, it's cool. "

 

I make playlists in yearly folders for my own enjoyment. Every month, I'll start a brand new playlist with the tracks I heard during that month and give it a fancy cover cause I enjoy the creative process of that. If someone follows it, that's awesome but I don't mind having no followers at all. They're my way of organizing what I hear and a great way to do throwbacks and see how my taste evolved over the years.

 

Are you creative ? Do you try to find original themes almost never covered previously ? For that, do you make researches to try to find out if there is already playlists about the same subject ?

I'd say here that I don't pay that much attention to playlists unless it's a curated one for me like Daily Mix for example. I like finding out new tracks/genres but when I'm actively looking for them. The rest of the time, I enjoy listening to tracks I liked.

KaterinaModerator
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