I used to love searching for new music. The thrill of stumbling on a new artist, a sound that tingled my ears and stimulated my mind was worth the journey. In the early years of streaming I used Rhapsody and Soundcloud to search out the latest “meaningful” tunes, the really interesting music, genre-stretching music, evocative or thought-provoking lyrics. I might not like something immediately but if it was truly “good” music it would grow on me. And it was worth that wait.
But now the algorithms are decidedly stuck in a rut. The listener’s rut. It thinks it knows you, that it can tell what you would like and then shoves it out to you. I usually use Youtube Music nowadays. I’m getting exasperated, though, at the “sameness” machine. It’s boring my musical ears to despair.
What has happened in the past fifteen years? Surely not all artists are copying each other. Well, perhaps they are now. Maybe the drive to be successful has cast a spell on musicians and made them blindly believe that they should follow the “formula”. Make everything palatable for the largest audience. Use a short intro, verse, chrorus, half-verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, outro. (I have followed the same structure but mostly because the song seemed to call for it. It fit.) And transposing the chorus up an octave the second time through? This is laziness, lol!
I’ve tried signing out of Youtube and browsing as a guest. But the wizard still thinks it knows what I want. Maybe it’s reading the location of my IP address and assuming that I want country, or R&B. Jazz, classical and world music are never suggested. And certainly nothing truly genre-bending will ever pop up. Does anyone else fight this battle?