- How do you discover new music?

- Spotify, mainly.

- TikTok.

- So, I'm a Spotify user.

- I will go onto YouTube.

- Spotify.

- And I wanna know, how do you discover new music?

- Friends and SoundCloud.

- All right, thank you.

- Over the last decade, music streaming and social media have fundamentally altered the way that music is created and distributed.

From shorter songs with catchy introductions to the sudden rise of functional music made specifically for sleeping, working, and everything in between.

But what about the ways that streaming impacts us as listeners?

With over 112,000 new tracks released each day on music streaming platforms, services such as Spotify and Apple Music give us access to a vast collection of music, both brand new and timeless classics.

With a quick search, you can find almost anything.

And with the advent of AI generated music, this could become even more music released daily.

But has that access made us more or less connected to how we relate to our music discovery?

In this episode, we're exploring this question of music discovery in the current moment, and we'll highlight ways to look beyond your social media feed or streaming service to deepen that emotional connection to what you're hearing.

I'll be visiting a beloved neighborhood record shop, a new type of listening bar for music explorers, and I'll talk to music journalists and curators to figure out just how to get unstuck from algorithmic recommendations.

(upbeat music) A random sample of new users of Spotify over one year found that listeners significantly increased their consumption of artists, tracks and genres that they had not previously encountered compared with the period before they started using the service.

But even though consumption has increased, the meaningful connection to music and artists might not be.

A good example is how social media like TikTok only uses a snippet of the song, potentially cutting off a deeper connection to the music.

(crowd singing) ♪ I wish I knew ♪ - Let's get the second verse, come on.

- Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs put it plainly.

"All that's changed.

The way people hear music, it can glaze over you before you really get to the heart of it."

US journalist Liz Pelley argues that streaming turns all music into emotional wallpaper.

She writes, "streaming makes music conform to an emotional regulation capsule, optimized for maximum clicks," with their attention to mood and activity-based playlists.

- I am Derek Gee.

I call myself a professional music fan these days.

- How do you think social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have shifted the way that people are discovering new music?

- I think it's ultimately great.

It has given the opportunity to people like myself and a diverse cast and crew of people that would not normally have the opportunity to speak to so many people about the love of music, putting people onto music.

Downside of that, of like when there's an incentive to monetize, when there's an incentive to get popular, that the recommendations I think are getting thinner and weaker in terms of how meaningful they actually are to these people.

And a lot of people get paid for those recommendations.

- Exactly, yeah.

- Which is a business, but it's also not easy to tell the difference who is paid and who's not.

So therefore the economics comes into recommendation, and as with anything can muddy the waters and kind of ruin the purity of what it was.

- One way to strengthen your emotional connection with the music you enjoy is to visit a record store in person.

When you listen to a song on streaming, you don't own that music, you're effectively borrowing it.

This can impact your emotional connection to a piece of music.

It's so hard getting records for someone.

I feel like it's like scary, you know?

Rather than letting the music come to you, in a record store, the music discovery process is all about the hunt.

Why do you think people are coming to record stores more often these days?

- Well, I think it's for a few reasons.

We're definitely in a time of more music than ever.

More music being created, being shared, being consumed.

And that oversaturation and that overstimulation, it can lead to an apathy.

And I like how being in a record store is the antithesis of that.

You gotta opt in and you gotta look for it yourself.

- I'm a big Carole King fan, so this one might be coming home with me.

(upbeat music) What do you think about streaming?

- I feel like streaming is what's happening.

So I think it's like an unavoidable part of the world.

I feel like I can appreciate music has to be like a pretty intentional experience, you know?

- Intentional, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So what's your role in countering this, and helping people discover new music?

- I think like providing a space that people can come in and like, you know, find things that maybe they are looking for or are familiar with, but then go off and see things they've never heard of before and like go check it out and be like, "is this what I like, am I interested in this?

Do I want it?

Do you have anything like that?"

And I'll be like, "I think so."

You know, and like we'll go through and I'll, we'll try to help you like, yeah, I mean I think if you like that you'll like this.

- Streaming and social media leverage sophisticated algorithms and user listening habits to recommend music.

Often tailoring suggestions to specific moods or activities.

While this approach may offer convenience, it also tends to reinforce existing preferences.

Do you feel that the algorithmic playlists have shifted the way that people discover new music?

- I think if you were to take the broader big picture, they are excellent, they are really good, they're good for artists, they're good for discovery.

I guess it's not about building a deep relationship with the musician, it's about serving you personalized content.

Because I don't blame the people that use, you know, and discover music through these means.

My personal responsibility is to be positive about music and to not talk any about anything I don't like, but to talk about things I do like.

I think my responsibility is for people to understand, or have a greater appreciation behind the music that they listen to.

(upbeat music) - In many major cities, people are countering this way of discovery by stepping away from their computer screens and opening their ears to new sounds.

We explored this phenomenon by visiting one of New York City's listening bars.

Also known as record bars, or HiFi bars, these establishments are a direct descendant of the Kissaten, the intimate coffee houses that have populated Tokyo side streets since the 1950s.

Here, music takes center stage with acoustics designed to fully immerse listeners in the music being played.

- Welcome to Eavesdrop.

Here this is what we really consider to be our listening area.

So whereas the bar is mostly walk-in customers, back here it's mostly based on reservations.

- Okay.

- We're really careful about seating everybody in specific places.

There's no standing room.

All that's to make sure that like, listening is the focal point.

- How does that affect the sound?

- It makes it really directional, which is interesting.

So they're towed in.

And then when you have really, really good acoustic treatment, like over here we have a diffusion wall.

So all those mirrors are separated at different depths, so they deflect the sound and then it gets absorbed up there.

Then as you move around the room, it sounds a little bit different.

- I feel like you can walk in and maybe not even be aware that you're in a space for listening.

- The idea of what a listening bar is is always evolving.

A lot of people go back to jazz kissa culture in Japan, which is definitely the place to start.

The story goes that the Japanese got really interested in jazz during the post-war period, but didn't have the musicians to play it.

So they sort of recreated the jazz club concept with records.

They built really nice sound systems and they played the records.

And maybe one of the reasons listening bars are becoming more popular is because you need a place to hear music that you haven't heard before, or that wouldn't be recommended to you by an algorithm.

So when you come here you might hear a few familiar things and that's great.

Usually the moment of familiarity like brings you back in, 'cause you're like, "oh, I know this one," but you're also gonna hear a bunch of things that you maybe would never hear if you were just waiting for an algorithm to recommend them.

- If you find yourself in a musical rut, tired of your algorithm, or just longing to see what's out there, don't worry, we got you.

Here are some tips to help you refresh your musical journey.

- When I travel, I try to go to record stores now because the curation can feel so different, and it can be such a snapshot of what that city or country is into.

- I mean, the more you can turn, I guess, the discovery of new music into a conversation between you and someone else, people who are interested in music that you're not interested in, and having a conversation, that's the way to discover new music.

- At least for me, I feel like I can connect more with music when I can hold something in my hands, and like read something about it, and really like, I don't know, like build more, or just, I don't know, feel more about it than just idly listening to something that I don't know what it is that like comes up and goes away.

- But if there was any advice, I would just say rather than go to what's new and what could be new for you today, if you wanted to get into say John Coltrane, then put on a few albums and try to enjoy them.

- There are numerous ways to keep your musical taste fresh.

By listening closer, contextualizing the music, and listening to your favorite artist's favorite artist, you can find new dimensions to the music you love.

While the ways that we listen to music may continue to evolve, our love of discovery can be a constant.