Rec
I honestly donāt really know how I can best divest from streaming, so this is like, the path iāve been taking. Know it will take time, donāt put yourself under pressure to buy all the CDs/records/etc right now to get away ASAP.. Even if theyāre real cheap, it can lead to overbuying fast, which i have already done, so I try to be mindful of what music I want to buy and the format, even if it is really cheap.
I do wanna highlight bandcamp as a good āalternativeā, itās kind of different since not every artist will be there? But itās also a really awesome tool to discover new music. Feels more like listening to something in a music store headphone jack than a song on youtube, if that makes sense. Bandcamp also pays artists more fairly. You can get realll niche with your genre searches, and itās so likely that thereās someone in like, Christmas Island making your dream sound you never wouldāve found otherwise. Itās not perfect as a streaming service FS, the UI isnāt my favorite, but it is goated in its own way.
Jul 3, 2025
Related Recs
Rec
š“I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that arenāt an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to ā which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since youāre listening to something really just because itās the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take whatās served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order.
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, itās meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework thatās still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether itās available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so iām forced to consider its value (usually iāll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as iāll buy a few releases iāve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they donāt get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until iām done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isnāt coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, Iām getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether itās bandcamp daily, yāall lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because itās kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences itās like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because thereās no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now iām listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing iāll say ā because in yappin about this iām realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of āvibesā and āaestheticsā and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship iām forming with what iāve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didnāt have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. thatās ok! maybe I rank it lower but now iāve actually taken time to consider it, itās in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often iāll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, itās meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework thatās still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether itās available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so iām forced to consider its value (usually iāll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as iāll buy a few releases iāve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they donāt get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until iām done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isnāt coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, Iām getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether itās bandcamp daily, yāall lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because itās kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences itās like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because thereās no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now iām listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing iāll say ā because in yappin about this iām realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of āvibesā and āaestheticsā and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship iām forming with what iāve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didnāt have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. thatās ok! maybe I rank it lower but now iāve actually taken time to consider it, itās in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often iāll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
Feb 29, 2024
Rec
šµBandcamp is my go-to for buying music nowadays - artists make the most money from there, and there are thousands of smaller artists there that you won't find anywhere else. Unfortunately, many large artists aren't there, so you might still need to buy from Amazon music or another online marketplace, but, it's a start!Ā
Feb 4, 2025
Rec
š»i feel like my music taste is becoming a bit stale and too influenced by social media, so bandcamp is here to save me
Sep 20, 2024
Top Recs from @playstation
Rec
šIām not off streaming, but these are some things I do to feel the fun in movies/music again and diverge. Iāve always kinda been a CD supremacist and saved/kept buying them, itās never too late to start, for any medium!
- investing in some equipment like DVD, CD, cassette, etc players if you donāt have the old ones to dig out, or theyāre too messed up. A decent DVD player is super inexpensive these days, avoid internet nostalgia up-sellers
- going to any random thrift store, including the ābad onesā, and really going through their book/CD/DVD inventory THOROUGHLY. Pick up what looks interesting, itās likely something you already have in your digital library will be there for cheap and to own forever.
- patronizing remaining movie stores, they can be few and far between but the people who run them are usually very passionate about film. If you have one within a reasonable distance from you, it feels great to take a DVD back they recommended you or a familiar classic. Going to the movie store can be so fun and is something weāve been deprived of since DVDās decline. Same for music shops
- exploring obsolete mediums, if you end up getting a VCR you can find tapes for super duper cheap and watch a lot of movies and expand your library fast!
- movie or music or medium specific swaps if theyāre in ur area, or trade with fellow enthusiasts anywhere you can find them, even online movie clubs
- investing in some equipment like DVD, CD, cassette, etc players if you donāt have the old ones to dig out, or theyāre too messed up. A decent DVD player is super inexpensive these days, avoid internet nostalgia up-sellers
- going to any random thrift store, including the ābad onesā, and really going through their book/CD/DVD inventory THOROUGHLY. Pick up what looks interesting, itās likely something you already have in your digital library will be there for cheap and to own forever.
- patronizing remaining movie stores, they can be few and far between but the people who run them are usually very passionate about film. If you have one within a reasonable distance from you, it feels great to take a DVD back they recommended you or a familiar classic. Going to the movie store can be so fun and is something weāve been deprived of since DVDās decline. Same for music shops
- exploring obsolete mediums, if you end up getting a VCR you can find tapes for super duper cheap and watch a lot of movies and expand your library fast!
- movie or music or medium specific swaps if theyāre in ur area, or trade with fellow enthusiasts anywhere you can find them, even online movie clubs
Jul 1, 2025
Rec
I went to an incense making class earlier this year for my birthday, itās super easy and makko powder is basically the ONLY thing you need to buy to make incense at home. Itās pretty cheap and lasts a while, you can get it on amazon.
All you need to make incense is equal parts makko powder, your dried+pulverized herbs/flowers/etc, and water (give or take on the water, use your intuition). And boom, you have incense ādoughā that you can now shape into cones, dry, and burn. Iāve been making incense with what I can find around me, natives and invasive plants. Itās awesome and I totally recommend it. Making incense makes me feel like the computer energy is leaving my body.
(pic is of the class incense set up)
Jun 24, 2025
Rec
He passed in May, he was 11 years old. His name is Bear/Tarzan. It broke me. I always thought this was one of my favorite pictures of him, Iām really glad I had it saved somewhere else because I took it a while back. I was so happy to find it I cried. I want to get this picture tattooed one day. I miss my big gorgeous angel boy so so so much. <3
Jul 1, 2025