The last album that came my way via a DSP algorithm was VOWWS‘ ‘Under The World,’ back in 2018. For real, two years since and Apple Music nor Spotify has really surfaced anything for me.
These days I just go to Bandcamp, pick a genre that I’m interested in at the moment, then look for album art that intrigues me. It’s how I found these amazing albums:
If you’ve been listening to music for years, and buy albums, you know shit that looks good most of the time sounds good. It’s how DJs source music from local shops – finding shit that looks cool is a great place to start. And now with Bandcamp, it’s even easier.
Compare with this Spotify playlist, one of the biggest for “Dark Ambient,” with almost 7,000 followers.
It may has well be a fucking Google Sheet. No artwork, no branding, no vibes.
Same with Apple Music. Sure, it’s got the cool Apple playlist branding, and while it has album art, you have to use binoculars to really tell what looks good.
Of course, this is all a ploy to get you to hit play. Just trust them, and don’t worry about that album art, I guess.
All that said, nothing is black and white. I still use Apple Music for streaming a playlist on my runs. I also stream NTS radio via Apple Music, and some DJ sets via the MixCloud app.
There are so many ways to listen and consume music. Bandcamp, though, is the closest we got right now to the local record shop, and the feeling of digging through the used CD bins (my favorite).
Above I just outlined how I dig, and maybe you have better luck than me with the big streaming services. So keep digging, friends. Support artists and musicians when you can and buy their music.