As Charlotte and I expand our listening habits, it never ceases to amaze me just how much new music there is “out there,” and not just new music, but new and easy ways to listen to it.
I’m listening to a perfect track called Natural Tune by Efterklang – it’s laid back – chilled and perfect stuff to write this post to. Oh and you can listen to it too – go to 22tracks and select the Relax category – right here.
This is brilliant – it’s just like radio – if radio didn’t have the ads and was programmed by music lovers rather than accountants. There are22 different playlists from Contemporary to Latin, Dubstep to Worldgrooves – each area has a curator who selects 22 tracks and you just click and listen. Each track has a link out to the artist’s website and a purchase link – genius.
The more I look at this model the more it makes sense. There’s been much discussion about having an algorithmic approach to music selection – one of my favorite music writers Bruce Warila, is at the forefront of that (to my ears) quixotic charge. For me - I’d much rather have a human being act as my filter; someone who really is passionate about music – who lives and breathes it – who writes about it and works with it and who spends hours of their time listening to and feeling it. I’m not saying that one day the Kurzweilian utopia won’t appear but I’m guessing it’s a while away – until then I’ll let Venz curate my relax music and my hip hop too!