Comment by thirdsun | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thirdsun | Hacker News Reader

> “The idea that DJs are just picking songs because they like them is so antiquated,” says Radha Subramanyam, the executive vice president of insights, research, and analytics at iHeartMedia

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I imagine that hardly anyone here listens to traditional radio anymore, which makes a lot of sense to me as I'm very particular and selective about my music listening habits too and rarely trust any recommendations.

However recently I started listening to NTS Radio rather frequently. In contrast to the quote above NTS shows are very much made of songs the DJ likes - that is all the qualification they need. No agenda, no hype, no ratings. Every show owner is free to come up with his very own selection, from all genres. Of course it means you have to find the right show for your taste - however if you do it's rather satisfying - I've been able to dig up a ton of rarely known soul gems on "The Do You Breakfast Show": http://www.mixcloud.com/tag/the-do-you-breakfast-show/

The whole idea and philosophy behind NTS Radio is very appealing, worth a read and a fresh contrast to the data-driven selection process described in the article: http://www.dummymag.com/features/the-rise-and-rise-of-nts-ra...

I listen to the radio - classical music stations primarily.

I used to be selective about my music until I felt like I was diving into a computationally created tunnel vision of my own interests. It culturally biased me without me being aware of the bias. I did not like this. I mainly did not like this because I had unhappy things happen in my life, and then all the recommendation engines did was remind me of things I associated with unhappiness.

More generally, I am repulsed by the idea that a formula exists, that defines my taste. I am repulsed by the idea that I am predictably definable. I will happily take recommendations from some place else if I know it screws up an algorithm.

> NTS shows are very much made of songs the DJ likes - that is all the qualification they need

The idea of DJ-as-selector/curator (rather than producer or 'personality') has had a resurgence in the electronic music scene over the last few years. The tastemaker DJs on stations such as Rinse FM and NTS are increasingly reaching wider out or further back to find old gems and weirder music to build into increasingly eclectic sets, and I think this has been driven partly by the mainstreaming and homogenisation of electronic music culture into "EDM" in the US, but also as an antithesis to the machine-made reductiveness of Spotify genre mixes.

As a regular club-goer here in Europe, it's no longer enough for a club DJ to merely play one genre all night long -- a crowd expects to be surprised and entertained.

If you're looking to widen your scope, the electronic music community has some great resources out there, and you can dive into any of these and find something utterly new and exciting without much trouble:

1. http://www.residentadvisor.net 2. http://www.xlr8r.com 3. http://rinse.fm 4. http://ntslive.co.uk 5. http://musicforprogramming.net

Resurgence? This was the DJ's role in the electronic music scene going back to the 90s, back when everyone spun vinyl. Just saying this isn't new at all there.

Agreed. Sure, as I have been around when mp3s became a thing and the TranceAddict or MercuryServer forums where the go-to place for electronic music enthusiasts, I'm of course familiar with your sources. In fact I produce and to a lesser extent DJ myself.

Of course since then my taste became much wider and genres are really irrelevant to me today. Which renders the usual recommendations engines hardly useful to me - it seems everyone's coming up with the same suggestions (or they all use EchoNest). In any case it's not a replacement for a real human curator that knows his stuff. Also labels play a pretty big role in this. Despite the evil reputation of the major ones, their smaller siblings are very valuable when it comes to curation and selection. Being featured on kranky, warp, Secretly Canadian, Editions Mego,... well, you name it, is a very strong indicator for quality. Particularly in electronic music this is hardly news.

Speaking of digging up hidden gems and rare classics: Do you know the Numero Group? An utterly fantastic re-issue label that made it their mission to find the most well hidden and unreleased material to give it a proper modern release. The background story is a fascinating read too: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/13/numero-group-cr...

If you want to learn more about them, start here: http://m.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/numero-six-hour-takeover/

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