Are You a Swifty?

@tylermunns "Perhaps what you’re saying is, “there is great potential for personal growth in exposing oneself to stuff they typically assume to be crap, as one may surprise oneself and avoid a certain stagnation of musical awareness,” or, as Werner Herzog likes to say, “the poet must not close his eyes.”  
These things I can appreciate."

That is pretty much what I'm saying, and the reason I linked to my Discogs collection was so that you could see that. I buy a mix of old and new releases.

For female pop artists I'd put Lana Del Rey up there with the very best of them-- from any era. There just isn't as much of it -- and algorithms now often drive artistic and production decisions, whether we realize it or not, and that very idea kind of repulses me.

There is still incredible music being released today-- but it's at a much lower volume and pace than say the 70s, 80s, or 90s I'd generally say. 

Newish releases that I'm liking a lot are:

Real Estate - Daniel
MGMT - Loss of Life
Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive
Woods – Perennial
The Smile – Wall Of Eyes
J Mascis – What Do We Do Now
Peter Gabriel – I/O (Dark-Side Mixes)
DC Gore – All These Things
Waxahatchee -- Tigers Blood

@toro3 I don’t believe in most maxims either, especially when it comes to our own  minds, but these observations that you listed are good things to consider and think about.

Even as a kid there were albums that didn’t grab me right off, but there was something in them that made listen again, and eventually, in some cases, I’d "get it".

It took me literally forever to start really loving jazz. I had so little exposure to it as a kid that, as an adult, I had to do a lot of listening to begin to start loving it. For me, jazz is a whole new world that I’m just now getting to explore and I’m having a lot of fun doing just that!

Gaslighting...there's music and then there is garbage. Sorry to tell you the truth about TS.

@wesheadley I’m with you 100% on the repulsion from algorithmic dominance in the dissemination of music today.  
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I really chafe at the “female artist” bit.  
No one ever says, “you should check out (insert male artist). When I’m in the mood for male artist music, he really hits the spot.”  
If someone said that to you, you would furrow your brow and say, “what? ‘Male artist?’ What the hell are you talking about?”  
Yet, for some reason, even in 2024, we constantly hear this bit of, “if you like female artists, you should check out (insert female artist),” or, as is rampantly the case in this very thread, instead of discussing Taylor Swift and her music, an inexplicable choice of saying stuff like, “nah, listen to (Joni, Aretha, Whitney, Adele, Beyoncé, blah, blah, blah…) instead,” as if it’s automatically assumed that because two different artists are female, they are automatically alike.  
If someone said to you, “don’t listen to Justin Bieber, listen to Cecil Taylor,” that would be a very strange comment; where the hell does Cecil Taylor fit into a Justin Bieber conversation?  Well, they’re two male artists, so, that’s why.  
WTF?!?!

I’m sorry, but it’s very, very dumb.

@tylermunns You’ll get no argument from me regarding the fake divide between male and female artists. When I ask myself what am I in the mood to listen to, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it in terms of ’male’ or ’female’ artist. I think more about the style, sound, or overall vibe of the music and then I make my choices.

It’s like when people assume that since most of the great chefs that they can think of or name are male, that therefore males must make better chefs. I think BS! What’s happened is that males got most of the "opportunities" over the decades so it isn’t surprising there’s more of them in this or that category. I really do believe that this is changing, but like most things, it feels like its taking forever!

There are now more females in PHD programs in the U.S. than there are males for example. There are definitely more females in music these days than ever before as well. Change is always hard and the status quo is always very sticky.