The Obscure Side of the Algorithm
How do you find and consume media, specifically music? In 2026 the answer is probably through a streaming service. What streaming service do you use? Spotify? Pandora? Apple or YouTube Music? How deliberate are you about your listening habits? How did your tastes come to form? And who, or what guides them?
In past decades tastemakers in the form of DJs and radio personalities would be the ones to help shape public consciousness and the direction of music, creating a more unified audience of listeners. Getting airtime on a local or known genre station could be the difference between a career being made or lost. For some radio stations like the infamous Stretch & Bobbito show, an underground hip hop station based out of NYC in the 1990s, some artists' entire career goal would be to simply have airtime on that station - record sales be damned. They had achieved all they wanted with recognition by those tastemakers.
But who are the tastemakers today? Who are the ones helping to shape public consciousness and the direction of music?
Much of the focus from so many industries these days is on the algorithm. There are many different algorithms, yet it's always referred to in such a nebulous way as The algorithm. It's ever so vague as a noun. When used in speech the lines between person, place, or thing blur depending on who you're talking to and their particular mood towards the algorithm that day. The algorithm knows me so well. Sorry, I got lost in the algorithm for a while. Dude, that's such a good pull from the algorithm.
I'm sure there are still plenty of tastemakers still out there today, but many folks I've spoken to leave themselves to the will of the algorithm.
There are those, however, that try to control the algorithm. Opening media in incognito tabs so as not to "taint" or "ruin" their algorithm, to keep it perfectly tailored to their tastes. There are also those seek to exploit the algorithm for specific use cases. Trying to figure out the way an algorithm works in order to get it to work for them instead of relying on the infernal contraption to decide for them. Open in incognito, search for a specific genre of music, and run wild wherever the journey takes you. It doesn't have aggregated data on who you are, only what you're watching in that given moment.
If you wanted to find music decades ago, and you were serious about it, you'd frequent record shops. You'd have to read liner notes, figure out your favorite songs and standards, remember artist names and cross reference. You'd get to know the people there, have conversations to figure out each others' tastes, exchange songs. The tricky thing is, I'm not sure quite how you have a conversation with an algorithm.
Thankfully human interaction isn't completely dead (yet) and you can find communities of music listeners and media consumers to have wonderful conversations with. You can still read the equivalent of liner notes through savvy searches online and using music databases like Discogs or quirky websites where people most certainly have opinions. And if you're ever so lucky to have one, you can still go to a local record shop.
But who are the tastemakers? Are you your own tastemaker? How much effort do you put into cultivating an algorithm? How often do you skip next in "my mix?" How often do you actually sit down and listen? I mean really listen?
There are benefits to the algorithm, you know. There are artists and entire genres that've managed to have resurgences and discoveries they never would've been able to have otherwise.
Take City Pop's discovery by Western audiences in the last decade. How about Masayoshi Takanaka becoming one of the world's most beloved guitarists over a short span of years, when he had previously only had recognition in his home country for decades? Maybe Ryo Fukui's scenery becoming one of the most listened to jazz albums in the last decade, a pianist self taught at 22 who's debut album faded into obscurity until the algorithm made it hundreds of thousands of people's introduction to jazz? I have no idea why the algorithm put these songs in my feed, nor millions of others worldwide, yet I'm glad for it. Bit of a Japanese bias.... but was it me, or the algorithm?
These are artists who may have had recognition in their time or their home countries, perhaps none at all, skyrocketing into the modern consciousness. Transcending borders, time, and language to meet people where ever they are. Can you tell me please who this algorithm is? I'd like to meet them and talk to them. I'd like to shake their hand and say "Hey, nice to meet you algorithm. You got any more of that good shit?"
Yet as much as I'd like to meet the algorithm, I hate the algorithm. I hate the algorithm when it recommends me slop. I hate it when my mood and outlook on things shift subtly due to a video I read the title of yet haven't even clicked on. Videos with their clickbait titles and stupid, over edited deep fried thumbnails with the guy making a shocked face and eyes slightly bigger than they should be. I hate it when it feels like all there is, is for my attention to be stolen. Exploited and milked raw for that sweet nectar of engagement.
And yet it was that same algorithm who made me who I am today. Without the algorithm, I never would listen to the music I listen to. I never would have been able to hear a 16 year old's hip hop passion project that had an independent label release in 1996 with only 300 copies dubbed. I never would have had access to decades upon decades of Jazz records of all shapes and sizes. I never would have been able to hear acetates of 1960s garage rock. I never would have been able to hear the evolution of electronic music from tape loops to shady 192kbps MP3s. So what was it? Was I the tastemaker or was it the algorithm? Did I find the obscure side of the algorithm, or did it find me?
Everything in moderation, I guess. The most important thing is the same thing I've found applies to most things in life.
Engage with intentionality.