A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
I don't believe the human brain was ever made for this level of stimulation
Before recorded audio, every song was unique. Every play of every song was unique. Non-Variable stimuli is actually the weird situation.
For better or worse, we can recreate that unique song experience with AI music.
I would rather go see a really bad musician live, than listen to the greatest AI.
For worse
Local > Streaming, but I'd prefer to have a large, eclectic library: My musical preferences are all over the place.
just download all of it? i got like 2tb of storage on my phone...soulseek + that = all the music i could want
Oh me as well. I just dont like the aspect of unlimited. Unlimited anything is not really a good thing and it cheapens art, IMO.
Plus, how many people now listen to albums multiple times (yes, I'm an unc, I realize no one has listened to albums since the 90s)? I'm willing to bet 98% of them are a 1 and done. They never get the experience of hearing it again and listening for things the artist may have subtly placed there, or really understanding the lyrics the 3rd time around etc.
Aren't albums still called albums even when they're electronic? Has that changed? Am I that old?
Yes, an album is the release of tracks, not the physical medium.
Nah they are. But I don't know anyone who listens to albums that isnt a musician.
Now you do! Hi.
I have some instruments I fuck around with casually once in a while, but I am most definitely not a musician.
No that hasn't changed lol Artists making cohesive albums has changed though. I don't mind a compilation project but I never hear any newer artists doing concept albums other than Tyler the Creator.
Hmm, you should probably check out Deltron 3030's 2 albums: If you like hip-hop, compilations, and concept albums, this one is pretty great IMO (not new though). It's Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Dan the Automator, and Kid Koala (a turntable genius) along with a bunch of guests.
I'll give it a go. I've listened to Del the Funkee Homosapien before so there's some familiar ground there.
IMO it's some of his best stuff
One of the primary appeals of early streaming platforms (first via MySpace and then later through services like Napster and Pandora) was the opportunity to explore outside your normie musical tastes. For folks who weren't living in some major metroplex with an active indie music scene, this was a reliable way to find new music and get outside whatever your parents had on repeat in the car on the way to school.
The modern scene has exploited a desire for "newness" in the abstract and stuffed everyone's feeds with AI slop. But there is still a demand for media broadcasts outside the ClearChannel "Top 3 Pop Songs on a Loop" and Oldie "Mandatory Metallica" stations that go beyond what you have already listened to.
How do you fill your local collection if you aren't listening to stuff outside your local collection?
I'm always finding new music. I just dont do it using "recommended playlists".
I got tired of hearing the same stuff from the 80s 90s and early 2000s so I just subscribed to spotify for a few months to explore some new music without ads.
I've tried to get back into cds but it's the old there's two tracks I like on this one, so switch. I believe in listening to albums in their entirety unless you absolutely can't stand a song. Streaming is just to convenient and the old way is to limited. Plus it's far cheaper.
I havent found much modern new music I've loved, there's a few here and there. But I have rediscovered bands I completely forgotten about on streaming or was unaware of from way back then that I now enjoy.
Also some bands who I never cared for their radio single so I just dismissed them and didn't give them a chance like sum41 and Volbeat. Recently listened to all of princes albums in full for the first time.
I mainly listen to my music collection from my Plex server, but I’ll also pop in a CD on occasion and listen from start to finish. It can honestly be so refreshing to have the music experience be so physical without a screen in the way. I agree with your feelings on mainstream streaming services. You have access to a lot of music but it really discourages you from traveling deeper.
One of my coworkers told me he doesn’t like hearing the same song twice after I was talking about alternatives to Spotify. I was just baffled.
A result of rampant consumer capitalism perhaps ? "Must have new new new consume consume"
Ever?
I don't agree with the op necessarily, I've found value in having virtually unlimited access to music, but i listen to the same music all the time.
I mean shit, if i find a new song I like i start with it for the next several times I listen to music with the rest shuffled from my "liked" songs. If a song doesn't hit the right way I'll start it over. If it hits too well it gets played again right away.
I have a playlist called "All week repeat". It doesn't mean I listen to the playlist all week, it means that every single song on it has been on a one-song-repeat the entire work week.
In the before times you would buy a new album and listen to it from start to finish, several times. It was Tuesday.
I still enjoy listening to music in album form. I can think of many songs that are not discrete pieces of art without the track(s) before and after.
A local radio station once played "Golden Slumbers" without also playing "carry that weight" and they apologized for it the next day.
Metallica's ride the lightning cassette got played in my car from beginning to end so many times
On thing I miss is listening to full albums, i.e. you put on an album, listen to all the tracks from beginning to end in the order the artist intended. I know you still can listen to full albums now, but most software is designed these days around individual tracks and it loses something. Sometimes a well put together album can be better than the sum of its parts.
Never subscribed to a streaming service myself, I don't see the appeal of listening to (and potentially becoming emotionally attached to) music I don't actually own and could lose some day.
I pretty much only listen to albums. I enjoy the cohesiveness. Jumping around in shuffle is fine for like parties I guess. Not for me.
most software is designed these days around individual tracks and it loses something.
I use Apple Music and that is very album centric. You can add entire albums to your library and browse you library using an album view.
A lot of software will do that if all your music is correctly (and consistently) tagged. Depending on where you get it though it often isn't, and it's a lot of manual work getting all your music files tagged in a standard way.
I stream plenty but that is one of the reasons I like vinyl. Pretty much forced to listen to the album.
Navidrome + Scrobble to ListenBrainz + RSS notifications for Fresh Releases feed = Perfection
There's definitely truth to that and I'm currently building up a local library of music to put on my dedicated music player.
On the other hand, I do like the ease of discovery with streaming. I didn't listen to a lot of music in the pre-streaming days, because the only easy way to discover artists was by listening to the radio, which was mostly music I didn't love. I have to admit that I only found much of the music I now like thanks to streaming.
Understandable. I prefer the more human ways of discovering a lot of the time...buying random albums to see what they are, talking to friends about what they've liked recently , reading liner notes to see who produced or mixed and album and seeking out more things theyve produced (streaming ruined this, because you get zero liner notes now and no one gets any credits), going to shows to hear new music etc. Thats all part of what makes it so fun vs the al gore rhythm telling me what to like.
For probably >50% of artists I listen to, I never could have discovered them in record stores, either because they never had widely available physical releases at all, or only in their home countries. And my friends have pretty different musical tastes from myself.
Recently went through my parents' old vinyl record collection though, after fixing up their record player from the 70s. There's definitely something special about discovering music through physical media, looking at the album art, reading the booklets etc.
I like my collection - so I don't mind having my collection randomly played back to me - some songs more often than others, sure, but it's really nice to have some song you haven't heard in months just start playing without having thought about it. I also like having the option to "turn down" the frequency with which certain songs in my collection play.
Being able to add music to my collection easily - ambiently out of life, when experienced here or there in whatever contexts - is something that's still lacking in today's tools. They're still too profit focused, trying to build mega-hit monsters through brainwashing of the general public. No thanks.
Since streaming became a thing, I could probably only name a handful of artists I've discovered. I just pick a genre and let the algorithm decide.
About 6 months ago, I started self-hosting my music, and it's a game changer. It feels like much more intentional consumption of media.
I've grown content with not having to store my music for listening. And I hate to admit it but I have gotten bad at finding new and Spotify us all like " you like this, check this out. That said my listening is done at work and while driving. If I want music at home I pick an instrument and play some. But saying there's too much access to music is horseshit. Everyone gets something different out of music, and it's nobody's business but theirs what that is. Even if it is just background noise. You want to know why a song exists, I'm picking apart the chord structure and lyrical devices. Or giving my day theme music. Or maybe just knowing that today was a good day.
How about a bigger personal collection?
Although I have family plans for both Spotify and Youtube, I only use my local itunes libraries for listening and curating my music.
All the tracks have their corresponding albums. All tracks except new ones are rated. A lot of my purchase goes to the artist (more if I buy from Bandcamp), and all my music is always available on planes, trains, road trips, and camping trips regardless of the status of the network.
It's also surprising how much stuff just isn't on streaming. I'd say about 10-20% of my library can't be found on Spotify.
I have tried Spotify and apple music for discovery but actually find it very difficult to get them to offer me stuff I don't already own or know about. In general I usually find out about new stuff from recommendations or forums or just following specific bands and musicians i already know.
I never plan to change owning my library .
Yup. I've pretty much moved to on-device music exclusively. Pretty pricey, but treating myself to a new album feels good every time.
If the Netflix series is anything to go by, Spotify sends 70% of their revenue to the record companies anyway, so whether you're paying for media or paying for streaming, the lion's share goes to the same lions.
I just have a radio channel I like and I let them decide. Does that make me a boomer?
I think some people enjoy the thrill of discovery more than the depth of experience. Which is fine. No judgment.
Personally I'd rather have 10 albums that mean a lot than 100,000 albums I listen to once.
I'd rather have 3,000 albums (30,000 songs, 120,000 minutes -> 2000 hours) of music that I listen to anywhere from once a week to once every couple of years.
My lifetime collection of music tracks is currently at 821 tracks in total. My music taste is somehow stupidly specific. Theres no formula. I like rock, metal, death metal, Goth metal, dance music, video game theme tracks, electro, instrumental covers, some classical, some Mongolian throat singing, etc etc. But I will only like specific tracks and I've got no tolerance to have things I don't love in my library.
When I see that most people just throw on whatever on Spotify and just let any ol' genre playlist play out, I find it amazing. People don't have to be as restricted as me, but how is everyone now so very non-intentional with what they consume.
But this isn't just for music. People let algorithms decode what content they see online, what YouTube videos to watch, what movie to stream..... I would strongly advocate being at least a bit more intentional. Pick what you want to be exposed to. Pay attention to it. Stop being so passive and try to intentionally consume art and you'll get a lot more put of it.