site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1543 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I try to find new music on youtube. Find songs I like. I add them on a spotify playlist. Realize I don't like listening to them that much.

There is a class of songs that hit really well when I'm watching the singer, but fall off significantly without a visual aspect. One of the best examples of this is a singer "dax" on youtube. A dozen music videos I enjoy watching and listening to. But as soon as my eyes wander, or i listen to him without visuals he immediately loses my interest. I don't even like rap as a genre that much, but he is visually interesting.

I'm wondering how to find the opposite. Super listenable, but no good music video for discoverability. I haven't liked most of spotify's discoverability.

My MIL goes to lots of classical music concerts and is just fine in the nosebleeds as long as the acoustics are fine. I am not, because for me watching the performers is half the pleasure. I must watch their faces and their hands, and only the front rows of the stalls are good enough for me.

Like, try listening to this without watching the video. It's still great, but the video doubles my enjoyment.

No idea how people can enjoy going to one of these stadium-sized concerts.

No idea how people can enjoy going to one of these stadium-sized concerts.

You spend half the time just staring at a screen, you might as well be watching it on the telly.

When you say you haven't liked most of Spotify's discoverability, what have you tried?

They've come out with a few features over the past few years that I've found to be great for finding new songs and new artists.

  1. If you find a song that you really like the sound of, you can tap the three dots next to it, scroll down, and select "Go to Song Radio." I find it does a pretty good job of giving me songs that are adjacent to what I'm listening to. In a 30-song playlist, maybe I'll find three or four that I like and end up saving. It's a low hit rate, but better than most other methods I've tried.
  2. This one has been hit or miss, but they have an LLM-powered playlist creation feature now. You can describe the vibe of what you're looking for in plain text and ask it to include specific types of songs, exclude other types, mix in weird picks, stick to traditional picks, etc. They might even have the ability to filter to exclude songs.
  3. One of my favorite ways to find new stuff is going to an artist's page that I'm into but only somewhat familiar with, scrolling all the way to the bottom, and checking out their "related artists." Usually it gives you a list of like 20 artists. I go through and queue up the top three songs from each of those groups. I'm pretty skip-happy; if something isn't hitting right away I usually just go on to the next.

I think any of these three methods tend to give me much better recommendations than the default "for you" style playlists that they throw at you - Discover Weekly or whatever they're called.

Edit: saw you mention that iris performance - awesome, the pouring rain is so iconic. in that same vein, paramore has a live performance of "All I Wanted" from 2023's Bonnaroo on YouTube. It's great. another good one is the Dave Matthews band's cover of "all along the watchtower" in central park. Skip to 4:45, the first chunk is just some light jamming. give it time to warm up, it starts slow, but really kicks in after a few minutes

A lot of music discoverability seems to be based around the idea that I like the elements of the specific song and want songs that share those elements. That is sometimes true, but it is more often ass-backwards for me. I want songs that are the best example of certain elements, and once I hear the best example I want very different elements. So just grading on "pop" success has been an easy metric for me before. Whatever song from whatever genre that rises above its peers is usually interesting to me. But pop music seems to have compressed into its own sub genre of copying its own elements.

A lot of music discoverability seems to be based around the idea that I like the elements of the specific song and want songs that share those elements.

I wish it was. Unfortunately it's largely just clustering based on what bands / albums people like. If it was actually based around elements, I wouldn't always get shit tier recommendations.

I haven't liked most of spotify's discoverability.

Is Pandora still around? I remember them being leaps and bounds ahead of Spotify in that regard, but times may have changed.

The Spotify Radio feature, especially if you have Premium, has improved significantly. Pandora was great before it injected itself with ads between every other song.

Also the real bangers where visual and musical align are awesome to experience, share those too.

Rich men north of richmond

a few bo burnham songs

some dance anthems

etc

edit was looking for it earlier but goo goo dolls iris playing in the rain is perfect: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_HZM0QiuUS8

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats