Algorithms stole music’s soul and moulded our tastes – this playlist pushes back

It is not uncommon to hear anxieties expressed about digital spoonfeeding accelerating the dumbing down of the species which has unhesitatingly embraced, absorbed, thrilled and been colonised by digital tech’s insidious proliferation and deployment of the benign tools of convenience. Spotify has become a beloved indispensable nemesis, the convenience of being able to dial up, source and instantly render almost any song that your heart – or mere whim – may desire to hear is marvellous and – for me, at any rate – indispensable. Still, I take exception to the algorithm.

It makes my soul ache. Some tips and pointers are always welcome when navigating the oceanic deposits of music made by humans for humans. For a resistant few (dinosaurs that we are), however, the exploration is the thing. The algorithm, with all its triumphant convenience and ease of experience, provides a very different answer from the one Chuck D may have anticipated when Public Enemy threw out the question: “Who stole the Soul?” The algorithm stole the soul, Chuck. 

For more than a year The Good Times Co has been reviewing submissions on the Groover platform, where artists send their new offerings and have them reviewed and assessed by Groover-appointed teams per genres the teams have chosen to adjudicate. When songs hit the (or a) sweet spot, the curators review accordingly and commit to including those on a playlist or publicising/popularising in some other manner through the magnificent and multifarious portals of social media. 

We have been plugging our Groover likes on The Good Stuff, a playlist that is updated twice monthly and which is intended as an oasis for listeners who favour a human touch, who do not want their taste (and data) hijacked for nefarious purposes by a heartless product of big tech. Basically it’s for people who listened to John Peel or Andy Kershaw or Chris Prior or any other of the disc-spinning wizards who served as a compass for music enthusiasts who relish variety in their listening and who chase the thrill of hearing things they may not have heard before. The Good Stuff is for people who do not search for music with terms like “chilled-out vibes”. 

Read in Daily Maverick: How digital music streaming hangs creators out to dry

Pop, jazz, blues, African genres, hard rock, doo wop, psychedelic, reggae, ragga and reggaeton, experimental, hip hop and trip hop, noise, jungle, house, electronic music of all forms, punk and funk, soul, swamp and bebop, garage, folk, hardcore and all core, bluegrass, gospel, improvised, western as well as country, soundtrack sounds – are a few of the forms and styles included and celebrated by The Good Stuff on an ongoing basis. All of these forms and more. Many, many more. 

The selections are personal and each new Good Stuff iteration issues the unspoken but regular challenge to the demonically tireless tech to spit out lists with the swathe and sweep that we think distinguishes The Good Stuff. We use ancient technology to compile these regular lists and to maintain the pedigree that we have established and will not deviate from. The hardware we call “ears”, while the software – which achieves what we term “listening” – is augmented by a unique design blend of taste, curiosity and discernment. In other words, an intelligence that may be fragile, fallible and flakey but is not artificial. It has a soul. 

Each fortnight we update and replace about a dozen of the approximately 40 tracks (or about two and a half hours of sensational sounds), always including some brand-new gems from the Groover harvest. So, every six weeks the playlist completely changes – kind of like the way playlists worked in the primitive days of music radio.

So, for your eclectic edification, please take a listen to The Good Stuff. If you like, please “like”, and if you dare, please share. DM/ML

The Good Stuff playlist on Spotify is updated on the first and third Friday of every month. Jay Savage was managing director of Sony Music Publishing South Africa for 16 years, is currently a consultant in the entertainment industry and is a director of The Good Times Co and Present Records.