mouldypigeon: 1500 ratings... thoughts/recs

JohnnyoftheWell 03.30.24	Yo nice Re. 4, I've definitely had phases where constant discovery feels disorienting and it feels like the number of records I actively care about and want to return to (other than the obvious foundational handful) is thinner than it should be, infinite choice = infinite hesitation, everything lost in the middle distance and all that. Can't overstate how great it feels to reconnect with old favs and often appreciate them in a new light (even if I find I've drifted a little from others), and to cement the keynote albums newish discoveries you binged briefly but then left behind - retrace your footsteps every once in a while, discovery is no fun if you're not giving yourself new touchstones. I try to keep an updated set of playlists that draw from new material while remaining true to what I genuinely want to jam on the reg, but these are so situational and gratification-oriented that stuff inevitably slips through the net. But yeah, discovery rocks and I love being able to navigate a broader range of music, but it doesn't automatically amount to growing your taste or even improving your library unless you do a little extra legwork and reflection I think? Don't have quite the same problem with sput, but I'm ambivalent on rym charts as a discovery tool - they're too useful not to use, but there's something mechanical and joyless to them that makes me wish I spent more time chasing blogposts or following youtube algorithms instead. Most of the best experiences I've had on rym are from niche genre charts of from entering needlessly esoteric search criteria (get fucky searching by specific genre combos, country and year range all at once!), have been pulling up low-to-mid profile artists and combing user lists that contain them more often recently and enjoying that somewhat For recs, you're not getting away with a Susumu Hirasawa OST 5 and then nothing else rated except his fairly middling new record! Hit up everything from Aurora to Kyuusai no Gihou, ideally in order. Will think up some more for you, cool spread of ratings and many options but my mind is blank rn
budgie 03.30.24	wow johnny thats some really great input! so glad to have you around
JohnnyoftheWell 03.30.24	delete your a
Havey 03.30.24	never saw the appeal in charts... for me user lists have been more useful springboards, and then from there it is obv more fulfilling to follow your own ear off-trail i think one can tell pretty quickly by looking at someone's profile if they're a Chart Person - it always gives me the ick!
Havey 03.30.24	>What is your relationship with music like after thousands of ratings? only loving music more each passing year, and i don't see how it could be any other way it's good to take a non-nostalgic approach. the best way to get stuck is to get too attached, maybe. it is completely fine & well to drift away from old favorites. ever come across one of those hyper-active raters on rym whose top albums haven't changed since 2009? don't become a Scaruffian is what i'm saying
mouldypigeon 03.30.24	Sputnik lists have been better than rym ones thus far, smaller userbase here helps? Most lists seem intended to respect other people's time and it's easier to filter out any bs from the comments. I started out searching charts per descriptor (and doing genre combos like johnny said) which takes the monotony out of the eventual 150hr playlists. @jotw I will do a Hirasawa dive imminently, for sure... don't even know how Beacon got on my radar but it was a freaky listen without any context of Hirasawa's non-OST status/history. @budgie don't be shy babe
Ryus 03.30.24	like 2 lists get posted here a day vs hundreds on rym, you can definitely find what youre looking for on rym
ArsMoriendi 03.30.24	Jennifer Charles is way cooler than Lana Del Ray
ArsMoriendi 03.30.24	Sputnik has definitely gotten me more into stuff than RYM even if RYM is more useful from a database standpoint. People actually care about your specific flavor of taste since our community is smaller and the website is built in a way to get to know people. RYM's more likely to be like "oh you like neo-soul? here's the top 400 neo-soul albums of all time" Sputnik's more like: oh you like neo-soul? Which ones that you've hearddo you prefer? Oh that one? Then there's this one I think you'll like!" All encompassing marco vs. tailored micro
Sniff 03.31.24	Rating music is my ocd
mouldypigeon 03.31.24	Frank - the rater of 3.5 albums every day for 13 years
Kompys2000 03.31.24	Giving up on greatest hits comps one of the worst mistakes I ever made ngl
FowlKrietzsche 03.31.24	Hard to discuss the 10+ years thing personally as I'm at about the ten year mark from when my parents bought me an Ipod (yes, in 2014), but I have really enjoyed reading other contributions. Music discovery has certainly been different as an adult, as a teenager I was limited to buying what my fundamentalist parent's would approve of, so eventually I began ripping the audio from youtube uploaded songs. I gravitated pretty hard towards heavy metal throughout my teenage years, which has perhaps permanently fucked up my sput chart (I don't even listen to death metal anymore), but between the years 20 to 22 I really just outgrew a lot of my anger, or at least I began developing more concrete foundations towards what anger was actually important to me, and flailing rage music stopped appealing to me. Much of my music discovery over the last few years has been explicitly about inundating myself in new musical contexts: it took metalcore to make me realize I like a catchy chorus and a fun riff, so then I went to pop punk, which took me to punk, which took me to noise punk, and all the atonal sounds of noise punk and everything that can be built with them have recently been serving as a gateway into electronica and ambient. Personally I am an album guy, which will probably have to change at a certain point, but for now most of my discovery involved picking 5 to 10 albums for a week and spinning them as I want. I try not to rate albums off of only a single listen, but if I'm especially convinced I won't return to it any time soon I don't mind as much.
mouldypigeon 03.31.24	@kompys Oh shit. Noted. @Fowl your journey through genres is interesting as it appears to have given you a solid understanding of what you like over someone like me who has historically consumed music with a chaotic "flavour of the day" approach. "I try not to rate albums off of only a single listen, but if I'm especially convinced I won't return to it any time soon I don't mind as much" Same. I think this gives the highest yield of finding stuff you like a lot while not wasting your time on dross. Stuff will always fall through the cracks and I suppose that's one of the big benefits to joining a community that will remind you to revisit things from time to time.
Havey 04.01.24	>Sputnik lists have been better than rym ones thus far, smaller userbase here helps? Most lists seem intended to respect other people's time yeah you have to ignore all those massive megalists of random albums in random order, they're p much useless. find the users who know their shit, they exist... Seaside is good for reggae/dub/dancehall for example
ToSmokMuzyki 04.01.24	thankfully metal archives exists and thus i am never in need of any other kind of heuristic system tho i am a curious dragon and so occasionally explore every other kingdom outside my universe usually resulting in nothing more than further satisfaction within the realms of my immediate solar system but nonetheless