Are you cool with forks making Spotify playlists out of every rolling thread without permission?

No, I am not cool with polls attacking users in this community because I've been the focus of a few of them over the years. But I don't know if that was a specific question to me or not.

I'm tech stupid but sure! The major problems with something that would just crawl the page and automatically add to a playlist are that people misspell names and song titles all the time. And so does Spotify! And any other service as well. I do a lot of hunting around to find things that don't show up where they should. But anything that would narrow the gap!

A plug-in or applet or whatever the fuck that could pull all the music on a page by name seems like something that would catch on big if it was done right. This could be the next hipster puppies ILX success story. Call it "forks" and buy me dinner and I'll give you permission.

― ulysses, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:52 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a friend who's supposedly working on such an app at the moment by the way.

Thread starter is a bully, yes

No, ime/o. And that's as close to a defence of him as you're going to get from me.

Citations not really needed, mind.

"OK, for "not a morally defensible position" substitute something a little more like "don't pretend you're not being just a little bit hypocritical while calling other people out for their hypocrisy, but hey, most people have to be a little bit hypocritical to function in the societies we exist in, we just pick different battles."

I'm trying and failing not to reach for the aphorism about "speck, eye, log", but."

Yeah, that I can agree with. I'm personally inclined to use the phrase "holier-than-thou" in this context.

dog latin, your friend did not ask me permission. i call backsies.

A plug-in or applet or whatever the fuck that could pull all the music on a page

i wrote a script for pulling the youtube links from ilx threads at one point. no idea where it is now tho.

i think some of the aversion to spotify is an aversion to listening to a database, and all the barely engaged listening facilitated by the vast playlists easily generated or accessed through it.

It’s lazy to pretend all private listening is the same; context shapes how you hear things, whether you're sitting down with expensive boutique label vinyl, sweating to a radio set on a treadmill or going for a nocturnal trip down a youtube hole.

I'm bemused by these playlists tho, outside of supreme indolence or an aversion to words idgi. if I’m not in a position to read a thread, there’s plenty of much better curated stuff out there. and how could the ilxness of it matter when it's shorn of ilxness?

I used to see the sort of blind listening encouraged by these aggregated lists of unknowns as like swimming around and seeing what i bumped into, but lots of excellent stuff can sound unappealing like that, randomly sequenced, & it skews towards magpie-listening

this goes down to how people use ILX and what they're looking for w music generally. whether you're just looking for grist for the mill or yr trying to hone or develop some sensitivity. do you want to hear more or hear better

how dare you fucking presume with what depth i or anyone else listens to a playlist you pretentious jerk

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

ITT: unnecessary umbrage

Hey guys I'm back. You said we needed to get persimmons, right?

http://foodshift.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/fruit-persimmon-photo1-l.jpg

woah for fucks sake guys

I know things are getting heated itt but impugning each others' playlist listening depth is not on

ogmor, you and i disagree on some integral points that i think i've already said my peace on but i did want to note that i like the phrase "going for a nocturnal trip down a youtube hole" and am singing it in my head to the tune of the end of "little bunny foo foo, hopping through the internet, going for a NOCturnal trip down a youtube hole"

think I just hit my record for FPs in a single thread

flopson OTM throughout

Keep up the good work forksclovetofulysses!

thread: http://i.imgur.com/PfUWww7.gifv

Very concerned here that I may be listening to music in the wrong way.

You haven't really ~experienced~ music unless you listen hanging upside down with all the blood rushing to your head

How dare you fucking second guess the way you listen to fucking music. Your music-listening style is fucking beautiful.

https://tosinadeda.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/resized_piseed-off-harry-meme-generator-how-dare-you-sir-148312.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/N2b71zt.jpg

One small point that i haven't made because it seemed obvious: barring some sort of moderator-level complaint that I have no reason to expect, i have no plans to stop doing this regardless of what this poll returns, so feel free to vote for the lulz or whatever.

Which is not to say I don't give a damn about how the community views or utilizes the project. I do! It's just that there were well over a hundred subscribers to most of each of last year's rolling genre playlists, so a clear plurality of people are finding some benefit or enjoyment in what I'm doing. If you have some sort of serious objection that i haven't addressed already in this thread (above and beyond "you're not doing it right" / 'this contributes to poor aural hygiene" / "you're making it too easy for the norms to learn to like acid house" / "Spotify is evil" / "why didn't you ask me how i FEEL"), I am open to being convinced otherwise.

Forks: Son, we live in a world that has music, and that music has to be organized into playlists. Who's gonna do it? You? You, mattresslessness? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for musicians, and you curse Spotify. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the royalties issue, while *~~controversial~~*, probably led to more music purchases indirectly. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, leads to more music purchases. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me making those playlists, you need me on ILM. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of music streaming issues. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very playlists that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide them. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a pair of headphones, and listen. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Very concerned here that I may be listening to music in the wrong way.

― _Rudipherous_, Friday, February 5, 2016 1:22 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for while i used to put earplugs in my ears and intently stare at the woofer of my speaker from across the room, i was young and had a lot to learn about listening to music

irl lols at nomar thank u

http://media.giphy.com/media/PRoz09f8gBE1a/giphy.gif

nomA+r

don't call me son. I'm a ROLLING HARDMAN THREAD 2009, and you're under arrest, you son of a bitch.

http://angryczeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/a-few-good-men-quotes_288x288.jpg

"COLONEL FORKS - DID YOU ORDER THE ROLLING AFROPOP/AFROBEAT 2015 PLAYLIST???????"

i wouldnt say listening is really a question of depth

or 'wrong' for that matter

it goes in your earholes (generally)

Music fits in all sorts of holes.

You're cool with forks making out with Spotify playlists is what you're saying.

to respond directly to your earlier question: i want to hear more AND i want to hear better. in my experience, juxtaposed music listening both within genres and arbitrarily diverse helps do just that. I just listened to Anthony Braxton's 'Trio and Duet' and Anthony Child's 'Electronic Recordings from Maui Jungle v.1' back to back for no other reason than they fell alphabetically adjacent but they ended up informing each other in ways I couldn't have otherwise arranged or predicted. All revelations are valid. Any approach is meaningful. There is no spoon (feeding).

spoonsclovetofu

if forks and spotify had a baby would it be a spork

Fortify

I want to mention that the new Skunk Anansie album is really great.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6JphhA8BhS1H7U7T8Yqy0o

(Can we get a Spotify playlist for this thread, by the way?)

i dunno if i've shared this consideration on ilx because it makes for easy ridicule but hey, here we are: it seems like the goal of a truly discerning listener, counterintuitive though it might seem, is to learn to find things to enjoy in every sound. Is the purpose of the listener (or even a critic) to explain why a thing is not good? Why a person or many person's expression of self is not valid? Why a thing that has been manufactured to be enjoyable is not enjoyable? Is it preferable to live a life of cynicism and disappointment or to broaden your ability to seek out the best in the art that you engage with rather than the worst? Why not presume that a thing is good until it can be proved otherwise? And who else can prove that you don't like a sound but you? Which is why I've spent hours grappling with music that I don't care for, sometimes to the point of real frustration. Often it doesn't help and all I'm doing is torturing myself. But sometimes exposure provides context and sounds that baffled open up. Classical compositions, noise, 2 tone ska, free jazz... this stuff didn't engage me on first listen but over time, you can start to see where it fits and where it can make sense in your own pantheon.
I mean, there's regular exceptions of course. But even those provide the opportunity to hone your sense of what does not abide. And even the worst song is fascinating in its raw repugnance. It's why trainwreck songs fascinate us.
blah blah blah. i'm procrastinating here.

maybe. not really. sometimes. broaden, i think. seems presumptuous. nobody.

why? well we agree there. i get it if it's dangerous, but otherwise what's the harm? yeah absolutely. presumptuous, sure but worth aspiring to nonetheless imo. damn right.

i agree it is absolutely possible to stumble upon v pleasing & profitable monents through stirring a big pot

that's not really what the playlists are about though, they're modelled after the styles, scenes, sensibilities that are thrashed out on the threads. i just don't know when I'd ever benefit from hearing them abstracted out of the thread

who gets to say what is valid and meaningful. many revelations & approaches are contradictory. part of what makes for a strong aesthetic are its limits and the things it rejects. you can have your all-music buffet, but you won't be able to experience fine dining while yr there

in thread, you get informed recommendation and occasional context. on listening, you get your own experience. Both are important but I'm gonna selfishly pick the latter if i only get one.

we disagree about what constitutes "a strong aesthetic". I think your statement of "who gets to say what is valid and meaningful" (which i agree with obvs) runs counter to the suggestion that I don't get fine dining at the all-you-can-eat bar. as a matter of fact, i DO get fine dining there, almost every day! And it's not really all-music, what I'm counting on is that the much-maligned hivemind of ILX actually has its own strong aesthetic made up of many amateur and professional obsessives in any number of niches. And removed from context, those recommendations sometimes shine or fail on their own merits... even though i can sometimes absolutely tell who recommended something when it pops up in my listening.

i may not be being clear: i am NOT just willy nilly listening to anything. I'm listening to things that people who frequent ILX think are worth listening to. Having done it for over a year, I can tell you with some authority: as a site, we have pretty good taste! I've found hundreds of songs and artists I wouldn't otherwise have heard of solely through ILX recommendation. Some of them have become immensely important to me!

like alphabetically from the past year in the past two months alone:
Thank you ILX for The 1978ers (hip hop), 9 Muses (k-pop), 18 Carat Affair (vaporwave), 45 ACP. (IDM), 47 Soul (dancehall/MENA/hiphop/dabke fusion), A-Wax's new album (hip hop), Abra (electropop), adekunleGOLD (Nigerian singer/songwriter), Adrian Marcel (R&B), Agent Fresco (metal), Agent Sasco (dancehall), Ahleuchistas (jazz? kinda?), Alasdair Roberts (trad folk), Alaska Thunderfuck (WORK), Alessandro Cortini (thick fuzzy curtains of sound), Alexander Abreu and Havana D'Primera (salsa), Alexander Turnquist (shimmery guitar), Amadou Balake (West African folk), Amber (k-pop) etc etc etc

the things that come up in threads are not just recommendations, they're whatever comes up in discussion, things presented w varying degrees of distance or to help make a certain case

the availability of a huge variety of music does not enable different approaches to listening to music, in fact it encourages certain styles more. hence all the shit about kids growing up w the internet relating to music differently, blindness to genre/era or w/e. it doesn't mean they are able to relate to music in the same way as their parents or grandparents. the gulfs in how things are heard are most evident when people are listening to the same thing. i will never hear church music the way my grandma did and no playlist will change that

it IS scary that i'll never get to all of it. it IS frustrating when I hit music that just doesn't land even with my best intentions. it does feel like a waste of time when i get an hour in a row of sounds that go nowhere and leave me nonplussed. but man, the feeling of finding something new everyday never grows old. And today was Anthony Braxton (not my first rodeo there) and Anthony Child (who I've never heard before and this is great!)

i also think the find-good-in-everything ideal of listening is v much at odds with how most music is made, which is more a case of refinement, pefectionism etc.

xp i would say about 3 out of 4 songs that pop up in the genre threads (probably more) are either recommendations or mentioned because they're integral to the direction the field is headed.

i guess i don't disagree with anything in your second para there at all ogmor except that the maximalist approach is accessible to far more people with far less effort and i think that's okay and more often than not CAN lead to a certain genre blindness. not everybody does. but i do know a few parents whose kids are obsessive about yusef lateef or carl perkins or whatever mostly because they can deep dive on their own into the catalogue in a way that would've been impossible when we were growing up. but sure: we're all different monsters and we hear differently and we are doomed to live and die alone. in the meantime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-0sUuGufmw