Can someone explain to a Gen x guy what “listening data” gets me? I’ve been living off a folder of mp3s for 30 years. Does this use my music? Does this get it from the Internet somewhere? How is it different from asking Alexa to play music for me? Thanks.

I’ve been living off a folder of mp3s for 30 years.

Same here. I love that shit. My mood is the algorithm. I still occasionally get new stuff, but from other sources I happen to see or hear, like a Netflix show that has it in the background or a musician’s personal recommendation in an interview, and I go look it up manually. But even if I never got anything new, I already have more music than I could easily listen to in a lifetime that I already know I liked at least once.

I’ve tried streaming sources, but it never hits right. This way, where I am specifically picking the artist or album, it’s always right, always fresh, and I’m always listening to something I want to hear.

where I am specifically picking the artist or album, it’s always right

That’s a remarkable level of effort, these days. Yes, I know, it’s trivial compared to pulling vinyl from the sleeve and flipping it every 20 minutes the way I used to before 1985, but… I prefer to put in my music effort with focus, and let a mix algorithm surprise me when I’m not in “music picking mode.” To me, it’s much more enjoyable to hear a song I like that I wasn’t expecting than it is to think about it, navigate the list of thousands to find my pick, and then hear the thing I was thinking of.

I have yet to find an algorithm that has figured out what I like about music. So I curate my own collection. Only way it works for me.