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Re: [microsound] death of monoculture



On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 12:10:09PM +0200, Damian Stewart wrote:

> (and if you say, what about the podcasts, i say to you - how many thousands 
> of podcasts are there out there? how do i know which ones are going to be 
> worth the download? and even if i do download one that a whole bunch of 
> people tell me is the best, there's no guarantee i'll even be able to find 
> purchase on it, because i don't have a musical context in which to place 
> it. at least within a monoculture, if i hear a new piece of music i have a 

The implied expansion to that is: which ones are going to be worth the download *to you*.

What's worth a download to you may not be worth a download to me, or millions of other people. And what's worth a doanload to millions of people is almost certainly not worth a download to me (and probably not to you either).

This is where monoculture falls down. Monoculture would work great if humans were a monoculture too. But we're not. Tastes are as varied as individuals. A monoculture assumes-- nay, demands-- that we all like, or at least tolerate, the same things.

Indeed, many people who don't care much about music are perfectly content to hand over their listening choices to some monoculture-like heuristic (Clear Channel, etc).

Me, I'd rather listen for myself, or rely on the advice of friends and other musicians whose work I enjoy and/or whose opinions I respect, and use that to filter through the enormous amount of material out there.  To answer your question directly: I've had good luck with the "sounds like" tags in last.fm, and the DJ's at SOMAfm.com, and the stuff on em411.com, and of course stuff posted here on this list. Netlabels are also good filters in some genres. For other genres, Archive.org is also good.

It's amazing how much great music is out there, freely available, and I'm very rarely if ever disappointed with the random stuff I download, and am often astounded and amazed.

Happily wagging his long tail,

-ken

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