What's giving you more joy these days?

Third option:

swimming in pools

I guess "exploring genres", I mean I'm boring and yeah it's mostly metal but every now and then I get in a hip-hop mood and deep dive into that for a few weeks, or something else, like prog rock/punk.

some individual artists hold my attention for a longer period of time but a lot of times if I find one thing I really like in a genre and it's very niche, I immediately want to find ten other things like that.

my answer is yes

tho at the moment i may be leaning more toward individual artists

I'm currently in the midst of listening to 25 Miles Davis albums chronologically, and honestly finding it kind of a chore. I keep getting distracted by other music. I'm much more into exploring a continuum like "Oh, you dig Stereolab, you should hear Broadcast. Oh, hey they both draw from The United States of America, cool!"

very strongly on the genres side at the moment

Of course we know that genres and artists are not discrete areas, but I've always sought out and listened for individual voices. So I'm more likely to seek out a 2nd album by a performer I've enjoyed than listen to a record by one of their genre peers, although I'll probably end up doing the latter at some point as well.
I guess one pitfall of "artist-centred listening" is that you don't understand the genre as well as you would if you were listening to the more workmanlike stuff a genre explorer encounters. I have wondered what misconceptions someone might have about a given genre if they only heard the stuff that makes the "best of all time" lists.

i'll always be an artists guy but when there is an embarrassment of artistic talent in one genre and era, and collaboration is a big part of what drives the creative process, i like bathing in that from time to time.

I guess one pitfall of "artist-centred listening" is that you don't understand the genre as well as you would if you were listening to the more workmanlike stuff a genre explorer encounters. I have wondered what misconceptions someone might have about a given genre if they only heard the stuff that makes the "best of all time" lists.

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, June 6, 2022 4:49 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

can also be fun to hear an artist in terms of their relationship to genre. that's also thinking about industry and product and how art coexists with it.

Alfred otm

can also be fun to hear an artist in terms of their relationship to genre

Yeah, one of the processes I enjoy about listening to a never-heard artist before is seeing their personality and individual perspective come to the surface through multiple listens, where, at first, all that is apparent is their genre or influences.

I choose what to check out based on sleeve/label art

i'm usually more of a "checking out the best album each by 5 similar bands" person, i only do a full discography run for artists i already really like

think i'm on team brad yet again in the sense that i'm just grateful that my hearing and wits are intact enough for me to still be able to enjoy music.

side question: ya'll ever heard the godz? felt plenty of joy while listening to "gotta keep a runnin" the other day.

there's so much good new rap these days that i wind up spending much of my time trying to catch up, and that does bring me joy.

also fun to find a jersey club song on soundcloud and let autoplay do its thing

I've heard The Gogz but not the Godz (2) xp

I've become much more picky in the past six months, and find myself mostly drifting toward genre exploration after a period of intense artist exploration.

Genre exploration for me. I recently went through a refresher course of Post-punk. Now interested in exploring artists like The Raincoats.

here I follow both genre and artist threads, but artists are more important for me, there are no genres I dislike but plenty of artists I can't get with, that is, genres don't point me in the right direction, artists do

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I kinda wrote about this this week. (TL;DR: I thought I was exploring a genre, and it turned out I was mostly listening to the work of one guy.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I admire people I know who seem to specialise in certain genres, whether that's being super involved in a certain branch of dance music, or people with a generally wide knowledge of music who like to go in deep on certain styles. I have a friend who is a passionate playlist compiler, putting together selections of everything from 80s Gangster Rap to Renaissance compositions.

I was having this conversation with a friend more recently and came to realise I don't really approach my listening and curatorship in quite the same way. If I were making a playlist, it would be more disparate tunes collated around a vibe: A hot mug of tea on a stormy day; Music for a night in a haunted castle; what would it sound like to be inside a flower etc...