I even threw in a “hidden” track at the end that wouldn’t technically make it. The rest are just really good songs that came my way.Īs far as format goes, I decided to go with a mix that would fit onto two 80 minute CD-Rs, just like the old days. About a quarter are by artists I wasn’t familiar with but who I am now interested in following where they go next. About half the tracks are by artists I was already familiar with, who put out new work this year. This year’s mix is a reflection of both these impulses.
On the other hand, with the deaths of career artists like Leonard Cohen, Prince, David Bowie and the stark reminder of Gord Downie’s mortality, I found myself gravitating towards wanting to spend time with albums and discographies of music I might want to return to, again and again, rather than chasing the hit of whatever’s new. Add things like Daily Mix and Release Radar and I could easily do nothing but listen to algorithmically-generated playlists.
Discover Weekly is a pretty darn good tool– every week, a mix of 30 new tracks I haven’t heard before, tailored to my listening habits. On the one hand, my switch over to Spotify after the death of Rdio had me listening to a lot more single tracks. This year my listening habits were torn in two directions.