Music
So yeah, one of my out-of-proportion interests is music. I know back in our teen or young adult years, that was true for pretty much everyone, but I'm one of those people who never grew out of it. And I love discovering new music I like, seeing emerging or recently emerged artists, and sharing that with friends.
At least once a year towards the end of the year, I share a compilation of some of the songs I discovered and liked. Please check out this collection of playlists, including editorial comments, if you are interested (yes, you can learn a lot about a person by looking at their books or music). My playlists used to be "mix tapes," roughly the length of an album (i.e., maybe 10-20 songs) but once I lost the natural constraint of a 90-minute tape or a 74-minute (650MB) CD my playlists got longer. MUCH longer.
A few more tidbits on this obsession:
Spotify tells me I listened for more than 30,000 minutes last year (which puts me in the top 1%). YouTube Music is smart enough not to rub my nose in it, but there was a fair amount of listening / watching videos there as well. If you want to see me on Spotify, my profile is here. My Youtube Channel: @suermondt
I've been tracking all the shows and festivals I've been to, and bands I've seen. At last count, at least 250 shows. I use tools like MyConcertArchive and an Excel spreadsheet and I've scoured old tickets, photos, calendar entries, and show posters, but it's hard to keep track.
Inspired by the walls of the Fillmore, I have multiple walls at home covered in concert posters of shows I've been to.
Although I spend most of my listening time on relatively recently released music rather than wallowing in the anthems of my youth (or the classics from the 60s or 70s), I still have loads of those as well, including a fair amount of vinyl, a whole wall of CDs, and even all the tapes I recorded since I was like 12 years old.
Key disclaimers:
I am NOT an expert. I don't read trade rags, I don't have a good memory, I largely ignore lyrics or even titles unless they scream in your face, and I've never seen the inside of the music business. I am not a critical critic, and my spectrum is roughly like that of how I rate wine: "I love it", "Wow this is really good", "It's OK", "Mweh not for me", "Throw that shit out" (with the vast majority of that ever made in the latter three categories).
I am not an influencer, nor do I have many followers on Spotify or YouTube, nor do I want to. I don't make music or videos, just occasional (albeit carefully curated and commented) playlists.
I have an annoyingly broad taste (not an omnivore, but definitely willing to try anything). Like, I've had season tickets at the Symphony and Opera (although not today), went to two sold-out arena shows in the last year, but mostly go to small-venue shows, ideally of artists I haven't seen before. My taste has obviously evolved over the years, and it did not fossilize. While I still have nostalgia kicks, I also get tired of previous favorites (or at least accept that perhaps my crush might have had flaws). I was once told that specialization is the hallmark of civilization. I think that's a great recipe for becoming a one-trick pony. I enjoy discovery and the wonder of learning about new things.
I used to scour Metacritic or Pitchfork for new finds but compared to e.g. Release Radar on Spotify, the win rate is too low. So as a result, I'm probably more filter bubbled than I used to be. So, if you have something I should hear, let me know.