You've at least made me realize that I for too long have approached music like incels approach the other gender: why won't it just come to me, I'm over here doing nothing right.

I used to be much more into music when I went to college, listening to indie and college radio stations. Actively seeking out new music for my own music collection on Google Play Music. But the radio stations became worse over time and my [favourite (government funded!) music site](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3voor12) had a few bad years drowning in the social media algorithms and shittier writing. Then they deleted their weekly curated playlist and moved to a weekly radio show and they lost me completely. My usual avenues of exploration didn't work for me anymore so I mostly gave up. And I think that's what that author's capital sin is, too.

At some point when Google shat the bed on GPM I finally capitulated and moved to Spotify. That transfer was rough enough that I still feel like I'm missing at least a third of the music I used to listen to. Spotify allowed me to listen to more music (without user-ripped mp3), but The Spotify algorithm had been absolute shite at finding new music for me. Discover Weekly for years would serve me either music I already knew ("hey do u liek Fleetwood Mac?") or music that didn't stick. I only found out the other day that Spotify has an internal KPI for the licensing cost per million streams. They heavily favour their algorithms to push you to music that you might like that is also the cheapest for them to stream. I feel like it explains why I dislike their playlists so much, but it's hard to prove.

And you know what? It's fucking easy. Find a podcast you like. Find a Mixcloud DJ you like. Find a Soundcloud DJ you like. Find someone to follow on Spotify. Find someone to follow on Last.FM. ASK YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS.

The underlying mistake both that author and I were making is holding on to the idea that there is some common, shared Good New Music that will just come to you without being active. Our feed-wired brains have been gradually eroded to the point we're now thinking "but what do you mean you seek OUT things??!??"

I think it also doesn't help that whatever music media landscape there was is now well and truly dead. You can't just sit back and let the zines decide your taste for you, because there's almost zero chance that your friends will find the same bands in the same way. Curation isn't centralized anymore, and that's great! But it means lazy people have it harder.

I just spent a good hour going through a few of 3voor12's recent articles and new music. Already found more new music today than in the past weeks. whoddathought!