My YouTube algorithm is just terrible. It will circle back the same 5-10 videos I have watched or liked some years ago, sprinkle in some rightwing political bullshit, or show only very tangentially related results.
Recent example: an underground artist popped into my head I used to listen to during my school days, and I wanted to go through their album for nostalgia.
Entering the artist and album name gives me two tracks from that album, a handful of other artists who have at some point collaborated, and the aforementioned unrelated or political results. Clicking through some of the videos always cycles back to the same few suggestions.
I even tried this on incognito mode to see if my login bricked the algorithm, but it was equally shitty. Apparently google can’t even get their own content indexed properly, not to mention actual web search.
On mobile i’ve got an app that lets me play youtube videos with the screen locked so i use that as well.
It’s a bit annoying cause the app does have ads as well, but only when you open it. If you put a video on and close it (leaving it playing on the background), there’s no ads
bandcamp is pretty great. Granted, they are still a for-profit company; a popular community based solution would be nice. But they do let you download lossless file to self-host or just listen on device.
The only complain is the lack of classical music (not modern/contemporary classical) on there. But I would imagine most classical music is public domain by now. I just don’t know where to find them…
What do you use for music?
“open directory” searches
(+“index of” +filename +(mp3|ogg|flac|aac|m4a))
yt-dlp
xdcc
VLC
Bandcamp (pay what u want) and soulseek.
Ahh soulseek. That takes me back
Back? It’s still extremely relevant for niches :)
Youtube + ublock
My YouTube algorithm is just terrible. It will circle back the same 5-10 videos I have watched or liked some years ago, sprinkle in some rightwing political bullshit, or show only very tangentially related results.
Recent example: an underground artist popped into my head I used to listen to during my school days, and I wanted to go through their album for nostalgia.
Entering the artist and album name gives me two tracks from that album, a handful of other artists who have at some point collaborated, and the aforementioned unrelated or political results. Clicking through some of the videos always cycles back to the same few suggestions.
I even tried this on incognito mode to see if my login bricked the algorithm, but it was equally shitty. Apparently google can’t even get their own content indexed properly, not to mention actual web search.
The trick for me is to search playlists. But it might be a region issue depending on where you live
On mobile i’ve got an app that lets me play youtube videos with the screen locked so i use that as well.
It’s a bit annoying cause the app does have ads as well, but only when you open it. If you put a video on and close it (leaving it playing on the background), there’s no ads
Oh, I’ve been using Newpipe to do this. Zero ads, free and open source too. Interface is a little rough, but you’ll get the hang of it quick.
Oh nice. I’ll check it out, thanks!
Soulseek is good
bandcamp is pretty great. Granted, they are still a for-profit company; a popular community based solution would be nice. But they do let you download lossless file to self-host or just listen on device.
The only complain is the lack of classical music (not modern/contemporary classical) on there. But I would imagine most classical music is public domain by now. I just don’t know where to find them…
Edit: found it: https://www.classiccat.net/ or internet archive has a huge collection of classical music.
archive.org actually has quite a decent clearweb variety. The usual suspects have everything else.
yt-dlp to download, Strawberry and JetAudio as music players, and Kid3qt for batch renames/metadata management