It seems I'm one of the elder statesmen here on Hive. This is very similar to me at work. I used to joke around about the curmudgeony old man at work... now I am him. As a result, I sometimes feel the need to share my unwanted pearls of wisdom about the good old days. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of cool stuff today and I am not afraid to adapt with the times, but there are still some stuff from the analog days that I think are far superior to today's digital age.
One of those is music. And I don't mean the difference between the sound of vinyl and the sound of an MP4. Many people my age swear that vinyl is so much better, but my ears have been damaged by too many nights at clubs and concerts that i can't even tell the difference.
No I am talking about discovering music. Today, all you need to do is program a Spotify playlist and when you get to the end, the genius AI makes some suggestions of some other music you might like. It's actually pretty cool and convenient, but it is also really boring and takes away the fun of the hunt.
Bake in my day, you either discovered music by someone you know playing something new for you, you heard it on the radio, or you found it yourself. This process also really added to the mystique of seeing a cool, undiscovered opening act. I used to go to shows, check out the opening act and then go and buy their tape ((yes I said "tape" at the local record shop (yes I said "local" record shop)). If you heard an opening band you liked, you could walk into a brick and motor store and hope to get lucky enough to find the one and only copy of their tape hidden in the "new", "local" or "alternative" section.
But discovering a new band like this did not happen every day. You had to wait for a band to play that was worth spending your last 20 bucks on and then they actually had to have an opening act worthy of you borrowing another 10 bucks from someone so you could buy their tape. Those were both very rare occurrences.
Back in my day, the best way to find new music was to go to the local record store and hang around until; the cashier played something cool. then you'd ask what it was and you'd leave with a brand new tape that you could play until it warped or you left it in the sun in the back of your car.
Although that was the most effective way, the most fun was basically gambling based on a name and the tape cover art. Sometimes you struck out and wasted $10 that you didn't really gamble with. But other times you saw a band named "The Revolting Cocks" and you thought, "This has to be interesting". And then you put it in your tape deck and it blew you away.
One such purchase I will never forget is Jane's Addiction's "Nothing's Shocking". This album was released right before the start of my senior year. None of my friends or I had ever heard of Jane's Addiction. One day I was at the mall record shop perusing their very small "alternative" section when I came across, some of the most unique album cover art I had seen. I won't show it here because it is NSFW but feel free to check it out on your own. Two women sat in a giant rocking chair with their hair on fire. I was sold. It was the best music gamble of my life. I listened to that tape on repeat for the next year. Even though I don't listen to it very much anymore, I can still sing along, word for word, with every song on that album.
Yeah it was risky to buy sight unseen... sound unheard, but it was also fun. Spotify is cool and all but my kids will never feel the joy of discovering music on their own.
How about you? What is some music you discovered on your own?
