I keep ending up with AI music in my playlist when exploring for me music. What is your workflow to avoid it? Searching DDG for me has been more bandwidth intensive than I like…
Some background. My favorite song is a song I haven’t heard yet. And my appetite sways wildly. One month it’s old school urban rap, the next it’s kpop, and then Nordic death metal and so on.
I never know what I’ll be in the mood for but I’ll find a thread with a song I don’t know and use it to build play lists to see what I find and sometimes I find trash gems that way.
This last time our friend group watched Eurovision 2026 together and some of those songs are bangers. One of them led to adding a few artists built off of playlists from that song I really liked, and they all ended up being AI… damnit!
Never stumbled upon AI generated music ever.
I have my local library with ripped CDs and pirated music mostly from the 2010s and below.
When I feel like discovering new music, I
- browse forums to find arists similar to those I already listen to
- I search for artists that have been featured in a collab in songs I already listen to
- Or, I use ListenBrainz’s Weekly Exploration tab when I’m feeling bored.
No streaming bullshit, AI algorithms made to keep me hooked, and definetly no AI music to be seen or heard.
♥️♥️♥️
Also +1 to the guy that mentioned to listen to your local music scene! I have as many smaller local artists as I possibly can in my library. I’m always looking for random stickers on the streets or festival posters, and then I get home and look all of them up to see if they’re my jam.
Listen to artists I know are human, if the artist doesn’t show up in a web search sorry but they gotta go its too risky
By not letting an AI choose what you hear.
Seems pretty obvious, really.
I used to only rely on people making recommendations but there just isn’t enough of that with the people I know unfortunately. Though you’re not wrong…
I personally would never listen to a song recommended by a machine. Gave pandora a real good shot but it always seems to recommend things I hate, along with Spotify, Apple, etc. so I just let the music find me. You are very lucky it has worked for you! I’ll bet there is a service out there for you that works. I’m also super not picky when it comes to music- don’t care what the lyrics are, as long as it’s a bop I’ll listen to it. In that regard, I would definitely listen to an AI song if I couldn’t tell. Never heard one like that but is the fact that it’s ai the only hangup? I refuse ai at work, web search, almost every aspect of my life, but I don’t think I would care if music was ai.
It’s my biggest hangup. As someone who thinks of themselves as an artist I hate thinking I’m helping crowd out artists and reward music plays from people who didn’t go through the effort to master music like that.
Just like I’ve never been able to pirate media (I’m old enough to have been around when MP3s killed music stores). I want the artist to be rewarded.
Maybe I’m being silly? But it’s important to me.
Nah I get that, dude! I guess I need to think about it more cuz I’m sure eventually I’ll have that moral conundrum. I’ll keep an eye out on my Apple Music, I think they stated they would have a watermark of some sort. If you’re using Spotify, definitely ditch that, Apple is so much more respectful to artists and the interface isn’t trash.
Look at that, Apple music has an android app. Silly me for not knowing. I’m gonna check my library against their stuff. It’s a provider I hadn’t considered!
Thank you.
There is a local music festival to me and as part of their promo, they have a playlist with songs from every band on a Spotify playlist. I imagine it’s something other music festivals do and could be good to build a library of music you know is made by real people
I didn’t think of this… I need to go to more of these. Thank you!
Are you using Spotify ?
Because they are mainly known for 2 things:
- they are nazi cunts who platform nazi cunts and play ads for nazi cunts
- they flood their library with slop as a way to funnel money to themselves rather than to legitimate artists.
I’m not aware of a streaming service completely free of slop, but I know some like Qobuz are actively detecting and removing it.
Bamdcamp took a stand against blatant slop but will allow artists to use some generative methods in their music.
I’m not, I’m using YouTube music which isn’t much better. I’m still looking for another platform to use but so far I need multiple to get all the music I like in one place.
Though I’ve considered buying CDs again and ripping them for local storage…
Same boat here. YouTube music and AI songs being more common. For right now if I hear someone new I check to see if they had an album before 2025… This method won’t be viable for much longer.
Thank you!
Don’t use Spotify, they actively try to put AI shit into your playlist so they have to pay less royalties. Not sure how scumbaggy other services are.
YouTube music is what I’m using, add them to your list of scum please.
How would they pay less royalties? That AI music is still being uploaded by someone.
All AI work is public domain, but also, its thought that Spotify themselves likely create some of that AI content - although I’m not familiar enough with Spotify to confirm that myself.
By not updating my music taste for the last 15 years
Pretty much what every one of my friends have done. My kids were a great source in their late teens / early twenties. But as they’ve gotten older now they pretty much listen to the same stuff.
No, I’m not going to have more kids.
Music peaked right around the time I was 20.
I only sub to Deezer, a French streaming service that actively filters AI music and blocks it from their algorithms and search results.
Yeah this is also a key part lol
By streaming mp3s, which I have collected and updated for almost 25 years, from my personal server.
Piracy. Private trackers are genuinely better stewards and curators of their libraries because unlike the the slop factories, they’re made by real humans, for real humans.
Cancel Spotify if that’s what you use. I’ve been happy with Tidal.
Certainly not a magic bullet tho. I tend to not listen to a lot of new music so I don’t give the slop much of an opening.
Tidal lacks about a third of the music on my playlist. They have all the big artists but miss a lot of the small ones…
+1, I’ve been very happy with Tidal for years now. I go down discovery holes fairly often and have yet to come across anything AI. It does a good job of vibe matching what I wanna hear.
Plus the audiophile quality is very, very nice if you have the equipment!
By getting old.
I don’t purposely listen to anything made after 2015.
Buy real CDs from artists I see play in person. Or CDs of artists that are long dead.
CDs are key, streaming random tracks you have no clue what you will get.
I’ve been considering this and ripping them like it’s 1996…
Check out your local thrift store and your local library theyre gold mines for physical media to rip the only other thing you’d need is a disc drive
I have one on my gaming PC that I’ve probably used 3 times in the 15 years I’ve had that drive.
And a good idea for the hits for sure.
If your kick is new music than you should just switch languages and listen to stuff pre 2022.
I listen to a ton of foreign language music. The 2022 piece would help but it won’t last for me. Young people are always coming up with new sounds and I love that!
Yeah and many of them are using AI to do it.
Given your genre flexibility, there is nearly infinite music out there from well before the was any question about it being human-made. You could easily listen to songs you’ve never heard back to back for the rest of your life without coming close to running out of old music.
For modern stuff you’ve basically got to see video of them performing live to be sure.
Sadly that’s what it feels like it’s coming too. But I don’t just want to support artists of a given age…
I know. I want my cake and eat it too.
The video might be AI too.
Qobuz has seemed to stay on top of generated music for me so far even with recommendation playlists.
