Listening to ILX Listen - 2015 Spotify Genre Playlists

Whenever we do the end of the year lists, it's always interesting and a little sad to see how isolated our listening groups are. Lord knows they're impenetrable to a non-expert, much less a first-timer to the board; given the arcane naming rituals, it's often tough to even figure out where to click to discuss. So for the foreseeable future (and maybe, hopefully, for the year), I'm gonna index music discussed on a number of rolling ILM genre threads, at least insofar as that music is somewhat current and available on Spotify in the US.

Spotify is hardly the be-all-end-all of music indices and it is often notably less au courant than say, YouTube or soundcloud, which makes finding immediate hip hop or electronic dicey, but it has the added benefit of being very easy to search and manage, free and/or cheap, available in multiple countries and it just happens to be the service I lean on for at least 75% of my listening. It is also a service that makes subscription to playlists (and autoupdating/downloading tracks to a mobile playlist) easy. Anyone who wants to do this with a different service to vacuum up tracks I'm missing, please do! I'm crazy but I'm just not that crazy.

For those not used to Spotify: you'll want to click the posted playlist link and then, from the web interface, click the green button that says "FOLLOW". If you are logged in to Spotify on your console of choice, the playlist should show up shortly on your desktop/laptop/phone under playlists or "My Music" and will autoupdate from there on in.

Here's what I'm following, with links to the rolling thread. I may likely add a few more lists as threads heat up and will note future additions on this page.

R&B: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5rQ0tsWmY41jKw4bNmllLN
Global / World: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/301ODR3qGB9NiVeQrnewAR
Metal: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5xPSDWnboP74K9x5F9taKV
Jazz: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/4banIC4hak3hItzJFNqzAo
Hip Hop: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/2tCCiE3QkE3PGy7uMztMmo
Dancehall / Reggae: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/3Hut52sC4BKkS8yd7vNmE3
Techno / House: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/0lfp12dnn7niggU21T16Km
Pop: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/0ZgCXRp0oHsCdNZldCOGna
Grime: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/2zgVdCQf9ngtAUBoYW1los
K-Pop: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/0XRCyNxG4rB2Tox9ZILPhl
Rolling Emo / Pop Punk / Bullshit / Haircut: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5T1JMUJYlFCGtIDq9XJtkf
Afrobeats / Afropop: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5zMYEZ127NDuUsi7BAHzcT

I'm also including a few non-genre ILX specific lists for shits and giggles, as follows:
Worst Songs of 2015: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/3slfZre0izEZTHplBD5OLu
Time Travel 2015 2012 2102 5102 (LJ's sandbox): http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/4ApbWaVsmXNO4zp5P7EsNN
I Heard It in 2015, I Liked It (DJP sandbox, intended to be open to ILX contribution): http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/1Y0VE0chzyWx8PbHuYwel0
Johnny Fever's Not Pop Not Indie Shambhala: http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/7kNYZZEDWwIuIEnoHL7y5O
Rolling Fave Tracks (not albums tho): http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/2buwnyMrk3egIjsJ0uSU0S

I'm keeping this a cottage industry and not a wiki for the moment so these are not collaborative playlists. If I drop the ball for a month or two, I promise I will open the playlists up to whatever group management wants the unenviable task but for now, if you don't care for the way I am curating, I strongly recommend you pull what you want from the core playlist and transfer it to a new playlist of your own where you can season to taste. Or heck: if there are songs you'd like to see added to these playlists, why not go to the thread and talk about it and I'll try to add it! That's kinda the point.

All that said: I am leaving the K-Pop playlist collaborative as I don't read/speak the language and am presuming more qualified folks than me can help keep that in order.

If you would like to point out (on this thread I guess) any material that I've egregiously overlooked or that was previously unavailable and was discussed on one of those threads and is now added on Spotify, I'll likely add it.

NB: There are some other folks on ILX doing yeoman's work of capturing more careful considered (and highly recommended!) Spotify collections already... notably Spottie's killer hip hop lists and Glenn's metal lists. This project is meant to supplement and not replace those efforts. I'm just fulfilling some omnivorous music lust (and OCD) to force myself even further outside my own self-imposed tastes. All you dilettantes get to reap the benefits.

Okay, let's see if I'm still doing this in March. For now, enjoy.

wow cool! will use

p.s. Glenn, plz hire me

I may need to create a rolling ambient thread

would add

Great idea forks!

forks, thank you for being insane enough to do this :)

Links to the individual threads are broken, at least some of them

Aw man, how did I fuck this up

Love this. Thanks, forks!

Is there by any chance a way to see the playlists content when you don't have Spotify?

I may need to create a rolling ambient thread

good idea

Dinsdale: That link should bring it up on your browser so you can look at it there.

good luck with this!
you should add stoner droner and fahey weirdos
subgenres for sure but lotsa good stuff in there, not personal sandboxes (usually)

a post-Fahey backdoor playlist would be wonderful to have

I assume you'll make a playlist in a few months for the obligatory SUMMER JAMS thread when the time comes.

Every ilx thread should come with a button to turn it into a Spotify playlist imo.

Fahey brigade playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/theshipment/playlist/2WNjL5jGiUHaSu5CFkN9Xg

Welp, I just built one too! This one is quite a bit less exhaustive and picks up as of December 2014.... I try to put in about three to four tracks when people start discussing an album.

So for the record:
ILX Gonna Shine in My Backdoor Someday (new post-Fahey folk for ppl posting in Takoma/Tompkins Square threads Pt II) - http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/2pbIWTlMvF90LLwWW1DCpx

Dinsdale: That link should bring it up on your browser so you can look at it there.

― Sounds like a forks display name (forksclovetofu)

It doesn't, I can see a collage what I assume is the artwork of 4 of the tracks but that's it. No big deal, it was just out of curiosity, I'm probably going to follow the threads I'm interested in anyway.

hm. i would ask glenn, who posts here often and has some spotify affiliation.

I'm gonna start a non-house/tech dance thread when I get around to it too. RIP the old partisans threads ;_;

Where did the partisans people go?

maybe worthwhile making these collaborative to lighten the load to you in updating?

oh, you addressed that in the OP. my bad.

stoner/droner is what now?

stoner/droner is what now?

Rolling Stoner/Psych/Retro/Space Thread 2015: Red With Purple Flashes

my lists are:
2015 New World
2015 Old World (reissues)
2015 Electronica
2015 Folk
2015 Indie
2015 Warped Tour (pop punk, emo, ska, etc)
2015 Strange Sounds (kinda misc catchall)
2015 Metal
2015 Comedy
2015 Country

none of them are specifically mirrors of the related rolling threads and they're all fairly arbitrary in terms of genre - i just stick albums where they make most sense. anyone can feel free to follow along.

nb this is all going to be mostly stuff that interests me - i'm not going be a completionist but figured since forks made the thread i might as well share

that's what it's here for; good call

Sorry, no idea why the web view of the playlists isn't working for you, Dinsdale. What browser and platform are you on?

[I work at Spotify. But not in our very excellent support department, which you can reach at https://support.spotify.com/us/ or on Twitter at @SpotifyCares...]

damn, thanks forks. this is an heroic fucking undertaking, a new era in ilxing, etc. you should make techno/house an open list tho.

Sorry, no idea why the web view of the playlists isn't working for you, Dinsdale. What browser and platform are you on?

― glenn mcdonald

Mac OS 10.8.4 / Firefox 35

But really that doesn't seem like something worth getting the support guys involved. I assumed it was normal behavior not to be able to see the list since I don't have an account, I was just wondering if there was a workaround. I guess I could just register if I really needed to see these. Thanks for the reply though.

This is a great idea, kudos.

Dinsdale, what you are seeing is the normal behavior if you are not logged in to Spotify. So you do need to register if you want to see (and hear) the playlists.

Makes sense.

Forks, thank you for doing this! Any interest in adding country? Here's the rolling thread:

Rolling Country 2015

yep, am still waiting for somebody to post something other than best of 2014 recommendations!

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2015 and onward: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin-Jazz and more -
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/73ZkB3SrNp2QDIwHhr49G2

And for the record:
ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014 -
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5lPWx6tEFSLSfnI7iTFSrf

ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014 -
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/57m9LpUGkWDzGOiIgNsTeR

Rolling Country 2015 - http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/0UovNZH0gkGMeUyADHp9PU

yep, am still waiting for somebody to post something other than best of 2014 recommendations!

― Sounds like a forks display name (forksclovetofu), Monday, January 26, 2015 9:07 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't really follow any of the rolling threads -- which is part of why I'm excited about these playlists -- but are they meant to be for 2015 music only? I ask in part because I noticed that you'd put on the Jazz D-Bags playlist some tracks from an album I randomly mentioned on that thread, but it's a 2014 album.

they're meant to be whatever's discussed but since there was like 100 2014 recommendation in the 2015 country thread, i thought i'd wait till the initial end of last year excitement subsided, if only because it was gonna be a lot of work to hunt down all those cuts. Then I changed my mind. So that's why there's a country playlist now that's labeled "Rolling Country 2015" that's gonna start with 50 cuts from 2014.

The PJ's at Sherwood Heights: A Del Webb (TM) Hip Hop Retirement Community -
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/6K4aVwluqiVYsNJikx2NhQ

I made it to April! Here's a quarterly update with appropriate links for those wanting to play along at home.

The following 17 threads are being updated in the appropriate Spotify playlists; most recently discussed at the top.

Rolling Favorite Tracks of 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Techno / House 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Pop 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Country 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling R&B 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Hip Hop 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Global / Outernational 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Jazz 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Dancehall / Reggae 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Emo / Pop Punk 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Latin / Afro-Latin 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Grime in 2015 - Spotify List
Johnny Fever's Not Pop Not Indie Shambhala 2015 ('JF's Outre Pop') - Spotify List
Time Travel 2015 ('LJ's Arty Pop') - Spotify List
'I Heard This in 2015 and I Liked It' ('DJP's Idiot Thread Repository List') - Spotify List
Rolling Worst Songs of 2015 - Spotify List

The following are lists that I've given up being able to maintain and that are now open and collaborative... so if you're interested in continuing to follow and contribute, feel free!

Rolling K-Pop 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Metal 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling 'Post Fahey' Folk 2015 - Spotify List

I'll check back in July.

fuck's sake; of course the genre thread links don't work. But the playlists do.

Just added this:
Rolling Punk 2015 Spotify Playlist
There is, as far as I can see, no Rolling Rock 2015 thread? Go figure.

I'm gonna start a non-house/tech dance thread when I get around to it too. RIP the old partisans threads ;_;
― The Reverend, Sunday, January 25, 2015 10:36 AM (2 months ago)

You guys are way too organized! I only keep one tracks of 2015 and my 20/30 genre playlists are all mixed regardless of release date.

Everything is updated for July; god help me.

The following threads are being monitored and Spotify-available songs are being added to the appropriate playlists more-or-less as they enter the conversation:

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2015 - Spotify List
Techno / House Bobbins 2015 - Spotify List
rolling pop thread 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Country 2015 - Spotify List
R&B 2015 - Spotify List
rolling CORP low bar just to appear hip to teens thread 2015 (Hip Hop) - Spotify List
Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2015 thread - Spotify List
Rolling Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2015 Thread Once Known as World Music - Spotify List
"Weird Means Something You Never Heard Before": Rolling Jazz D-bag Thread 2015 - Spotify List
rolling dancehall & reggae 2015 - Spotify List
rolling emo/pop-punk/bullshit/haircuts 2015 - Spotify List
Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2015 and onward: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin-Jazz and more - Spotify List
grime in 2015 - Spotify List
Johnny Fever's Not Pop Not Indie Shambhala 2015 ('JF's Outre Pop') - Spotify List
time travel 2015 -> 2012 <-> 2102 <-5102 levart emit ('LJ's Arty Pop') - Spotify List
I heard this in 2015, I liked it ('DJP's Idiot Thread Repository List') - Spotify List
rolling fuck this shit worst songs of 2015 thread - Spotify List
rolling punk/non-indie underground 2015 - Spotify List
it's not Summer without your Jams - 2015 - Spotify List

The following are lists that, for various reasons, I've given up being able to maintain but that are now open and collaborative and still occasionally being updated... so if you're interested in following along and contributing, feel free!

K-pop (2015) - Spotify List
Rolling Metal Thread 2015 - Spotify List
ILX Gonna Shine in My Backdoor Someday (new post-Fahey folk for ppl posting in Takoma/Tompkins Square threads Pt II) - Spotify List

To celebrate six months of this quixotic task, I've built a playlist with ALL the above integrated together.

If you're curious to find out what 2015 ILM has been discussing in the fields of jazz, hip-hop, pop, rock, R&B, afro-latin and latin, country, global, dancehall and reggae, grime, pop punk, punk, metal, k-pop and folk.... have I ever got a curated, genre- and quality-blind 1700+ song tracklist for you.

ILX Listens - January 1 to July 3 2015 Spotify List

God willing and the creek don't rise, I'll check back in October.

doing the lord's work there forks

Please note: Not every track in these lists originates from 2015, though the vast majority do... quite a few are from late 2014 or simply came up as part of a discussion regarding au courant music.

New list added:

ILX's Rolling Indie 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Thanks man, I listen to these all the time.

yer welcome.

Some new ones:
ILX's Rolling Folk / Singer Songwriter 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist
ILX's Rolling Goth 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist
ILX's Rolling Eastern European Pop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Heroic, forks

thanks

One more:

Rolling 'One Track Per Week' Thread 2014

ILX's One Track Per Week 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

3rd Quarter! Everything is updated!

Here's the complete list of Spotify playlists for ILX's 2015 genre threads.
For the purposes of link clarity, this is just the playlists... so to contribute further, you'll want to click upthread on the individual thread titles.

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Techno / House 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Pop 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Country 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling R&B 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Hip Hop 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Global / Outernational 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Jazz 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Dancehall / Reggae 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Emo / Pop-Punk 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Latin / Afro-Latin 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Grime 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Punk 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Indie 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Folk / Singer-Songwriter 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Goth 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Eastern European Pop 2015 Spotify Playlist

The following playlists are user oriented, generally less genre-specific than taste-specific:

Johnny Fever's Not Pop Not Indie Shambhala (JF's 'Outre Pop') 2015 Spotify Playlist
Time Travel 2015 -> 2012 <-> 2102 <-5102 levart emit (imago's 'Arty Pop') 2015 Spotify Playlist
I Heard This in 2015, I Liked It (DJP and Stevie D's Idiot Thread Repository List) 2015 Spotify Playlist
ILX's One Track Per Week 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Summer Jams 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Worst Songs of 2015 Spotify Playlist

The following two playlists are open and occasionally updated by folks posting to the thread:
Rolling K-Pop 2015 Spotify Playlist
Rolling Metal 2015 Spotify Playlist

Let's see if I can finish this project off over the next three months! As of now, it's well over a week of semi-curated, non-stop music.

bump once more for anybody who missed this update message yesterday. see you in a few months.

one of the most impressive and generally useful self-imposed projects on ILX - bravo, forks.

Thanks!
The plan is to clean this up in January and then do a final spin by in March to add anything that's new.

These lists are one of the main reasons I signed up for Spotify Premium, great project indeed

brilliant !

Okay, so this is done. I have a few thoughts on the experience of spending a year on this project that I’d like to share with you, a few words about how I intend to utilize this work and how I plan to replicate the project in 2016.

First and foremost, let's share the final genre playlists and their accompanying threads. The link to the genre discussion thread title is in bold and, where the thread title is sufficiently circumlocutory or not entirely up front, explanation in italics follows of useful details and just what the thread covers.

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2015
Rolling Favorite Tracks 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling pop thread 2015
Rolling Pop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

K-pop (2015) (predominantly Korean pop but some other Chinese and Japanese pop as well)
Rolling K-Pop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling CORP low bar just to appear hip to teens thread 2015 (Rolling Hip Hop Thread)
Rolling Hip Hop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

R&B 2015
Rolling R&B 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling dancehall & reggae 2015
Rolling 2015 Dancehall and Reggae Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2015 Thread Once Known as World Music
Rolling Global and ‘Outernational’ Thread 2015 Spotify Playlist

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2015 and onward: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin-Jazz and more
Rolling Latin and Afro-Latin 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

"Weird Means Something You Never Heard Before": Rolling Jazz D-bag Thread 2015
Rolling Jazz 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2015 thread
Rolling Afrobeats and Afropop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Techno / House Bobbins 2015
Rolling Techno and House 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling Country 2015
Rolling Country 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling 2015 Indie Rock/Pop Thread - Bring Your Bulldozers; Time to Plow the Landfill for Great Indie Rock!
Rolling Indie Rock 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

grime in 2015 (hip hop and trap production from the UK)
Rolling Grime 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling Eastern European Pop 2015
Rolling Eastern Euro Pop 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling 2015 Goth / Post-Goth / Darkwave / Dark Neopostpunk / Deathrock etc. etc. Thread!
Rolling Goth 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling punk/non-indie underground 2015
Rolling Punk 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling non-US rap thread 2015
Rolling Non-US Rap 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Guy/Gal With a Guitar (Or Anything Else): Rolling Folk/Singer-Songwriter/Americana Thread 2015
Rolling Folk and Singer-Songwriter 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling emo/pop-punk/bullshit/haircuts 2015
Rolling Emo and Pop Punk 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Additionally, there were several threads that were geared toward specific user taste. They ran as follows:

Johnny Fever's Not Pop Not Indie Shambhala 2015 (Somewhat lyrical alt-pop, predominantly female artists)
Rolling Shambhala 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

time travel 2015 -> 2012 <-> 2102 <-5102 levart emit (iconoclastic art-pop)
Rolling Time Travel 2015 2012 2102 5102 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

I heard this in 2015, I liked it (grab bag)
Rolling I Heard This in 2015, I Liked It In 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling 'One Track Per Week' Thread 2014 (more grab bag, playlist starts from first 2015 post)
Rolling One Track Per Week 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

rolling fuck this shit worst songs of 2015 thread
Rolling Worst Songs of 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

it's not Summer without your Jams - 2015
Rolling Summer Jams2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Also, there was a yearly metal thread that was so active and expansive that I was unable to diligently maintain a playlist. Even so,135 songs were collaboratively wrangled from the thread and it deserves inclusion here.

Rolling Metal Thread 2015
Rolling Metal 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Finally, I built playlists for all the nominated tracks for ILM’s yearly best track and album polls. For the album nominees, I pulled two or three tracks from each disc and put them into an album sampler playlist.

ILM's 2015 End of Year Albums & Tracks Poll / NOMINATIONS THREAD

Rolling Best of the Year Track Nominations 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Rolling Best of the Year Album Nominations Sampler 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

and FINALLY finally, the following big daddy is the playlist which includes ALL of the above playlists: genre, personal and Best of 2015 nominees. There are copious doubles, which I’ll endeavor to clean up in time, but it should still ultimately end up about 7500+ total tracks long.

ILX Listens - The Complete Playlists Playlist for 2015 - Spotify Playlist

^ THIS monstrosity, along with a handful of other selections, is going to be the core of my own collaborative music engagement project for 2016. I’ll post a new thread shortly with more info once I have a moment, but long story short is that I’m gonna try to work through this pile of tunes over the course of the next 12 months and I’d love to have any interested people join me for as long as you'd like so we can discuss tracks in mutual play.

For clarification on my non-affiliation with Spotify and to reiterate my earlier rationale for limiting this to one freemium/paid service:

Spotify is hardly the be-all-end-all of music indices and it is often notably less au courant than say, YouTube or soundcloud, which makes finding immediate hip hop or electronic dicey, but it has the added benefit of being very easy to search and manage, free and/or cheap, available in multiple countries and it just happens to be the service I lean on for at least 75% of my listening. It is also a service that makes subscription to playlists (and autoupdating/downloading tracks to a mobile playlist) easy.

Some conceivably helpful parting footnotes:
- These playlists reflect America's accessible spotify catalogue only; if you are listening to these playlists outside of the US, you may have access to tracks we do not and vice versa.
- That said, if you find a significant omission or if Spotify adds an album or single to the service in the future, feel free to bump any of the accompanying threads and I'll try to update the playlist.
- This curatory work is not intended to be proprietary; feel free to recopy listings to your own mixes or share wherever you'd like. Information wants to be free and Spotify wants to be ten bucks a month.
- Whenever albums are discussed, I have sought representative tracks, generally those that are listed as the most played on Spotify.
- In some instances where an artist is discussed and the song or album in question is not available on the streaming service, I will instead post other representative music from the same artist, but I have strived to make sure that music is from a 2015 release or, rarely, 2014.
- Eagle eyed track editors will note that not strictly every song in these playlists hails from 2015 or late 2014; on certain threads and playlists, tracks from far earlier periods are part of the discussion and, where appropriate, I have included those songs. IMO, obsession can be good for you, needless consistency, not so much.

And let’s talk about obsession: I’ve mentioned elsewhere on ILX that this (entirely self-imposed) project has fired off some major OCD tendencies in me over the course of the past year. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night to scan bookmarks and occasionally shirking work in preference of updating this strange and winding monster. This unpaid combo of never ending immediate deadline and impossibly easy procrastination fodder never strayed too far from my forebrain. I find indexing simultaneously calming and anxiety-inducing; the only way to keep potential freak outs at bay was to just add A FEW MORE to the pile. I’d like to continue doing a version of this project for the ILX community in the upcoming year as it’s a great way to get a broad overview of what’s contemporary in each of these genres but I’ve got to shift my approach or else I am going to stoke my neuroses higher than I can jump... so for 2016, I’ll be fully updating all playlists on a monthly basis only, starting in early February. I’ll bump the respective genre thread when everything is updated (which I hope will not be too egocentric or distracting) and will start a "Listening to ILX Listen - 2016" thread so that there's once again a hub to access and join in both playlists and discussion.

Without begging for tips, I feel compelled to say again that this project was HARD WORK... more than I could've imagined and certainly enough to have prevented me from starting had I known the arduousness of the task. Though I've absolutely gotten something out of the experience, it's not something I would do so publicly unless I thought it was both helpful for and appreciated by a plurality of the population here. Kind words and commiseration at this journey's end would be appreciated.

And hey, Glenn and Stet and any code kiddies! If you can create a script or something that automates what I'm trying to do here, boy would I ever welcome it!

Happy listening.

2015 was a golden year - certainly my best year for new music in a very long time - so it's great that you have constructed this towering memorial!

hopefully a living memorial! this stuff needs to breathe for us to figure out what's the dross and what's the gold.

I don't use Spotify and tracks playlists are not really how I listen to music anyway but I'm very admirative of the work accomplished here.

Thanks for all of the hard work!

u crazy forks

And hey, Glenn and Stet and any code kiddies! If you can create a script or something that automates what I'm trying to do here, boy would I ever welcome it!

Happy listening.

― Copy rights, pleasing all star wars fans, hiring professionals. (forksclovetofu), Monday, January 11, 2016 8:13 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is definitely possible - have you tried using Ivy?

not yet, but exploring it now... I gather it would require everyone to tag songs for inclusion?

If not, there would need to be some kind of smart script that could parse through a thread and try to extract Artist/Track text. This sounds like a job for Google or something. I like the idea of creating a tag/format for rolling music threads, though!

thx for the effort forks, I signed up for spotify for your lists!

You'd just have to copy/paste "Artist - Track" lines from the thread into a big file - obviously some manual work but maybe less than searching Spotify for each and every one.

Beyond that, yes you could write a script to extract these lines from a thread, could get as fancy as you'd like really.

well, as the guy who just did this, I can tell you that people regularly misspell the names of the tracks or the artists and spotify often mislabels them. I had to do a great deal of digging to find quite a lot of this. I don't think it's unrealistic to say that automating the process might lose as much as 30% of what I found with a little intuition and boolean skill.

Listening to ILX Listen: 2016