So, awhile back, I decided to start self hosting my music collection. I’m sure I’ve at least mentioned it somewhere here on the blog. I re-downloaded my entire collection and more beyond that. Nearly 5TB of new music was stored on my various hard drives. It took months. And by the end, I was pretty damn proud of it.

I’ve been using that system now for months, and I’ve realized that I miss streaming services like Tidal and Spotify. It makes me feel a little dirty writing it, but it’s true. Why?

Music Discovery.

See, I have an issue that has been developing over these months of using my own music: I have been listening to the same songs over and over and over again. Very rarely to I venture out into anything different. I’ve tried ListenBrainz playlists, which supposedly help, but they aren’t very good even though I scrobble everything.

I’ve tried to listen to actual radio again. Pro tip: don’t do that. FM Radio was always bad on the advertisement front, but it is WAY worse now. One song, 5 advertisements, repeat. It’s horrid. I’ve tried to listen to Pandora. Their free account is pretty generous, but it’s not as good as it used to be. And it takes me two apps to do what one app used to.

I don’t miss paying for music. I do miss the algorithm that seemed to know just what new music to send my way. I found loads of good stuff that way and loads of stuff that I had forgotten about.

Self hosting just doesn’t do that. There is no algorithm. And yes, I know the perils of algorithms and the data stuff that goes along with it. I’m fully aware about all that stuff. But in all the demonizing of algorithms that goes on, we forget that there is some good use for them.

The question I have to ask myself is: am I willing to go back? I don’t know the answer to that question yet. I still would love to find a way to discover new music while keeping my self hosted workflow alive. I know people point me towards blogs and reddit, but it’s not the same guys. You can’t discover new music on a blog. You have to discover it by hearing it.

So, I’m in a bit of a odd place. I want what I used to have, but I also don’t really want to go back to it. What will I do? I’m not sure. I’ll let you know

_matt