I haven’t sent a Sad Bastard Music Club email in 2 years. I’m fixing that problem now. If you’re not subscribed, I encourage you to sign up here. It’s a way to get some new, cool tunes, curated by a human (me).
Because it’s been so long, I thought I would share some thoughts on the list, and I’m republishing a version of the post here. If you’re already subbed, you can skip this. For everyone else, this is part of why I think we need to continue to curate our own music and share music with each other — even when the robots de-incentivize us to do so.
Hey friends.
It’s been two years since I’ve done one of these. And the last one was pretty politically charged — it was right after Roe v Wade was overturned. Now…well, you don’t need me to tell you that the world — or at least the country — is looking pretty bleak. I feel you.
That’s not actually why I’m here, though. I mean, now more than ever, might be an appropriate time for Sad Bastard tunes. No, actually, I’ve come back here because of two things.
One was a conversation. Lately, I’ve been working on a podcast I started a couple months ago. It’s called Community + Code and it’s really just about having conversations with folks in my wider tech/Developer Relations (oh yeah, I’m a Senior Developer Advocate now, that’s new since last time)/WordPress network and really trying to talk less about the stuff we do for work and more about the things we find interesting. Emphasis on community and the people behind the code, that sort of thing.
Anyhoo, it was in one such conversation with Tammie Lister in which we were talking about sharing music as a social thing. And it made me realize that that’s not a thing I’ve been doing much — despite it being an important part of connecting with people at one point in my life. And I remembered this list, and these playlists, and even if there’s only 10 people who get these emails and there’s no real interaction…that’s still something. That’s still community.
And then I was listening to this podcast with a researcher who did a deep dive on Spotify and how we listen to music now. And the thing is, so much of our music is algorithmically fed to us. And frequently, it’s not even the stuff we want to listen to. I’ve been brainstorming an AI-powered playlist builder app to create the Spotify playlists I actually want to listen to because — I’m sure you’ve noticed it, too — Spotify tends to get into a rut and feed me the same types of stuff and doesn’t go outside of a particular comfort zone. And there are deep cuts that I want to be mixed in. I want to be surprised and delighted. I spent years perfecting a system of tagging for MP3s specifically so that I could have this sort of experience. It required a lot of work, it was manual and tedious, but it was better than the available alternatives. And now we just listen to playlists curated by a robot. And some of those artists might not even exist!
Sad Bastard Music Club is and always will be powered by a human. Even if the discovery of many of these songs is the result of an algorithm, every song has been hand-picked by yours truly, and, honestly, giving the robots a middle finger 🖕is a not insignificant part of why I want to get back into the habit of doing these. Sharing the joy of music — especially in the face of the systemic deconstruction of fundamental pillars of our republic — should be a human interaction, not an algorithmic one. And I’m deeply sorry that I’ve left you to the robots for so long. I will be better.
I don’t know what these songs have in common with each other. It’s not a single vibe or mood. This list was built over the course of the 2 years since the last SBMC. But I think you’ll agree that somehow they still fit. As a DJ, you find ways to make it work, and one of my favorite things whenever I spin is to find interesting juxtapositions in moving from one track to the next, seeing how the songs and voices speak to each other. That’s something a robot can’t fucking do.
Yours in humanity,
🖤
~c
Leave a Reply