Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff? - <AUTHOR> Music has always been the least appealing art form for me out of the music-film-literature trio. Now I am looking to get more familiar with its history, evolution and simply discover good music.<p>Is there a music buff's roadmap, some sort of a chronologically-ordered list of the best and most influential albums that gives a coherent picture of how music evolved over the 20th century? And is that a right approach to becoming a music buff? If not, what is? <comment><USER14> Knowing what music you _like_ would be helpful in a discussion like this. (Context: I've spent a lot of my career working in music or music software.)

It's difficult to expand your musical horizons just by shooting in the dark at things you _should_ like. But often you can build bridges to new things by exploring their musical ancestors and descendants. Like classic rock? Start listening to some blues, then go from there to jazz. Like hip hop? Move backwards through disco, funk, soul, and, well, there we're back to jazz.

Classical music is a somewhat harder nut to crack if you don't gravitate towards it. What I've found, however is that some people think they don't like classical because they don't like Mozart, but then you play something a bit more modern (say, Stravinsky or so) and that grabs their attention.

If you like electronic stuff, one great book that I read years back, and have since passed on to several people is this:

[https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music- Technol...](https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music-Technology- Culture/dp/1138365467)

It does a very good job of drawing a line from musique concrète and impressionism all the way through modern stuff like DJ Spooky. There are older editions of the book that are cheaper used and should be just fine.

If you list some of the things you _do_ like, then it'd be easier for riff off of that to give you some suggestions for what might expand your horizon. There's no shame in having unsophisticated tastes at first. I remember having a student who started off wanting to learn Limp Bizket, and we worked from there to Rage Against the Machine, then from there to things like King Crimson and eventually a couple years later he was into pretty sophisticated fusion stuff.

(Edit: fixed the link)

<comment><USER15> This is a solid answer, but I'd also add - there are very few general music buffs.

Maybe I'd count, with years in pro music performance, degree in Jazz and a lifetime of listing to and performing an insanely wide variety of genres... but not a buff for all styles.

Computer systems are actually not a bad analogy. How many people do you know that have an in-depth knowledge of Assembly in different systems (including the oldest ones), GPUs, ML, Python, JS, Haskell, C++, Rust, ALGOL, Compilers, Hardware development, etc. Then add into the mix having an in-depth knowledge of the creators of those things, what else they did, failures, influences, their mentors.

You always have the choice of breadth versus depth, within your time constraints. I think learning about a single artist or band, looking up the producer, label, members and following up on all those leads to see what else they have done - and see if you like it is a great beginning.

Some genres like jazz might seem difficult to get into, and that's fine. No need to delve in until you find a hook that peaks your interest. And then when you find out about a genre (and jazz is an excellent example) - you'll find sub-genres you like, and don't and maybe you are interested in the evolution - like many people love bebop, but don't listen to "dixieland jazz" or big band swing, or modern fusion.

You will never hear all the music. But depth (in my opinion) breads a lot more passion than breadth just for the sake of it. So rather than listening to all the top 40 singles of the last decades, you'd probably be better off listening to some whole albums, and exploring from there.

Spotify (and similar) make it very easy for breadth, and can help discover new music you like - but you'll need to put work into delving in deep yourself.

As you do have a passion for film I'd suggest this.

For interesting modern music Quentin Tarantino files always deliver.

Danny Elfman has some interesting stuff (like this Simpsons theme which is a great example of the Lydian mode...)

John Williams & Hans Zimmer have made loads of epic soundtracks, and if you like them - look up Holst, Tchaikovsky and Wagner

If you want a weirder launching off point, watch koyaanisqatsi and look up Philip Glass who made the soundtrack - that's an interesting avenue, albeit not very mainstream.

Another epic film score is 28 Days Later, John Murphey - parts of which have been used in loads of other huge features like Kick Ass...

You could also go a different route, and look up how the pre-classical Pachelbel's Canon contains the chord progression that is arguably the most popular of all time and watch this mash up of songs that use it (or the first part) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ)

Hahahaha, I could go on forever! I hope you find something you love, and actually want to go deeper into.

<comment><USER16> > If you want a weirder launching off point, watch koyaanisqatsi and look up > Philip Glass who made the soundtrack - that's an interesting avenue, albeit > not very mainstream.

Omg that film is absolutely amazing (maybe the best thing I've seen in the past 10 years) and easily half of the effect is the music.

For epic scores you can't also go wrong with "Requiem for a Dream"...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You might be going about this in the wrong order. Instead of trying to become an expert in an art form that does not currently appeal to me, wouldn't it make more sense to first find instances of this art form that DO appeal to you, and then branch out from that?

So the order I would suggest is:

1\. Find music you like particularly

2\. Seek out music related to #1

3\. Start thinking about why you like what you like

So, start by establishing a visceral connection to the art before delving into the analytic side.

<comment><USER18> This is the correct answer.

Being a music buff among music buffs is as much about having a well-developed taste in music as it is a knowledge of music that influences others.

So start by developing your taste in music. Here's how:

Using a site like albumoftheyear.org, listen to the first one to three tracks on the top rated albums from every genre.

Do this every week on Monday. New albums come out later in the week and it helps to see the how reviews change after more critics and fans listen repeatedly.

Your goal should be to find albums that you want to listen all the way through.

Sometimes, You'll listen to the whole album and want to start it over as soon as you're done. Other times you'll find the album doesn't live up to its first few tracks.

Albums you consider great you'll be lucky to come across once out of a dozen times, so you have to be patient with the process.

You'll know you found something you like when It feels exciting to know about a piece of music like you're in on a secret. And it makes you want to tell other people about it.

Share the album with someone and tell them what you like about it.

Going through this process won't only be a great experience—-you'll learn your own taste.

And you'll have convinced yourself that you in fact do enjoy discovering and listening to music as much or more than the other art forms you mentioned.

You'll find you naturally learn about historically important pieces of music from reading reviews and from talking about music with other people who are impassioned by it.

The key is to then follow up like you would when you hear a word you don't know the definition of, or library that solves something you were considering coding by hand.

Make a note, listen to the album and think about the context it was mentioned in.

If it appeals to you go back and listen to the greatest hits if that appeals to you go through their entire catalog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Most answers here kind of imply that listening is enough, but I don't think that's true.

You'll learn a lot more _reading_ about / listening to podcasts about music[0].

Step 1) Read the American music history Wikipedia article[1]

Step 2) Familiarize yourself with each genre listed.

How? Listen to the biggest hits in each. Explore the full discography of the genres popular artists. Understand the history and cultural context of each era.

Learn about how each generation was inspired by the previous. And don't forget to _Read_ about the music.

If you don't know how to find info about this stuff try your local librarian!

Edit: don't just take it genre by genre. Go through the decades.

[0]][https://www.switchedonpop.com](https://www.switchedonpop.com) [1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_history_of_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_history_of_the_United_States)

</comment><comment><USER20> Start playing an instrument and get some lessons.

IME there is nothing that makes you appreciate music more than learning how it works at a really intimate & deep level. You have a super deep connection with the music when you're playing it instead of just being a listener.

I know for me there are whole genre's of music I couldn't appreciate till I started learning to play pieces in those genres. You start to see the interesting and innovative stuff in the music and you appreciate it.

If you're just going to listen.. do not listen while multi-tasking. Sit down and dedicate time to appreciating the music.. put on a nice set of headphones or get a nice stereo system and sit down and listen to a piece all the way through and pay attention to it.

When you are learning to play a piece you will tend to listen to it very carefully to pick out the parts.. if you try to listen at that level it will really pay off even if you're not learning to play the piece.

<comment><USER21> I agree 100% with this. While you can appreciate music it's hard to be a "buff" unless you can try to understand the effort or absolute virtuosity that goes into playing a really complex piece. Knowing that you like the way music sounds is great, but understanding _why_ a particular harmonic shift / change is unexpected, novel, or unique is even better. That said, understanding that sort of theory takes a lot of work and investment.

If you can't make that investment, I'd say watching some videos about theory, or reading up on production, or technique on any instrument will help gain a deeper understanding. Bernstein did the Norton Lectures in the 70s around a language of music ([https://youtu.be/8fHi36dvTdE](https://youtu.be/8fHi36dvTdE)) but even watching somebody like Cory Wong or Jacob Collier go through their composition, playing and process (there are many other artists that do this stuff to) is great for appreciation / buffery.

<comment><USER22> +1 to bernstein-- his young people's concerts are a very approachable introduction to classical music

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't think this is something you can force, it just happens when you enjoy music, and a range of music.

A couple tips from me though:

1) Use Spotify, and the personal generated playlists that expand out (ie Discover Weekly, and Release Radar), avoid the ones that just play what you listen to a lot, it just reinforces a limited set of songs/albums/artists. And use the 'Fans also like' section of artists. Spotify's recommendations tend to really impress me, especially niche stuff

2) Never prejudge music. I used to do this, and since I grew up and stopped, my music taste has expanded in every direction. Own the embarrassing stuff, it's music for your enjoyment

3) Give everything a chance. Listened to something which was too experimental/loud/ambient/whatever? Come back to it later, some genres and even albums are growers, so never discount anything quickly.

4) There's no bad music. There is music you may not like, there's music which may be poorly produced/poor musicianship/etc, but music is about more than the sum of it's parts

__Edit__

Nearly forgot the most important IMO.

5) Songs are (for the most part) designed to sit in their place as a chapter in an album. They typically make more sense in the context of the other songs, so try and listen to full albums rather than songs or playlists. And make sure to turn off shuffle!

<comment><USER24> About number 5. I think that was only true for a short period: From the time the LP was invented until music streaming hit the mainstream. Before the LP, it certainly wasn't true, and we seem to now be moving away from that format.

<comment><USER23> Hmm I agree with what you say, but I only think it's pop music that is moving away from that format

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There may be something better, but I found something similar to what you are looking for in [https://www.allmusic.com](https://www.allmusic.com) years ago. They grouped music by genre (and sub-genres) and noted significant artists and albums by year within each genre.

I went through the genres, working from the past to the present and ended up with a much broader experience in music because of it.

They still seem to have most of those features.

For example, they have a list of genres ([https://www.allmusic.com/genres](https://www.allmusic.com/genres)). If you go into a genre, say blues, there are lists of significant albums and artists. You have to click on the "list view", but that exposes the year of the album or artist. At the very bottom of the genre page (almost hidden) are lists of sub genres that you can break out. Each of these has the same highlighted album and artist information. If you go into detail on an individual artist, say Robert Johnson, they have bio, discography, and related artist / influences ([https://www.allmusic.com/artist/robert-johnson- mn0000832288/...](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/robert-johnson- mn0000832288/related)) information.

All that said, the site does not seem as easy to use as I remember (but that could be my memory). But, hopefully, it is at least a start towards what you are looking for!

<comment><USER26> AMG is really amazing. I can't think of a more comprehensive encyclopedia of well curated music-related data and thoughtful criticism in one place. It would be really exciting if this database were available publicly a la MusicBrainz because the rich relationship graph encourages novel interfaces to explore the content.

Before all of this information was readily available on the internet, The Rolling Stone Album Guide was the de facto reference and a used copy can be had for around $5. Like any critical rating of art, ymmv, famously Led Zeppelin.

[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/117198.The_New_Rollin...](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/117198.The_New_Rolling_Stone_Album_Guide)

For current artists I usually turn to Pitchfork for news and criticism, RS tends to have a strong boomer bias.

[https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Finding an music/artists you like and seeing who their influences are and checking them out may be one path. DJ's can cut through that even faster since they surface and reference more material.

There are also a lot of movies out there - Béla Fleck made a movie tracing the banjo back to africa Throw Down Your Heart, if your looking to chronological type stuff in America, Ken Burns did a series on American Jazz and Country music - [https://www.pbs.org/kenburns](https://www.pbs.org/kenburns), Muscle Shoals, Buena Vista Social Club, The Nu LatAm Sound may be of interest for non western movies

[https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs](https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs) [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music- lists/500-greatest-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music- lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826) (take with a grain of salt)

so much music, so little time!

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Albums_You_Must_Hear_Befo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Albums_You_Must_Hear_Before_You_Die)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone%27s_500_Greatest...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone%27s_500_Greatest_Albums_of_All_Time)

These are great starters, I would recommend going through and finding out what periods and artists speak to you and then joining Spotify and using their auto generated playlists to dig deeper. They do an AMAZING job if you <3 the songs you really get into. My personal taste is really scattered, gen z pop, old school country, punk, hip hop, 90's hi-nrg and house, disco, and they somehow consistently find new music that speaks to me.

</comment><comment><USER29> For me, trying to follow some sort of quantification of what's "best" is what leads to the frustration feeling like I am missing something because I don't like something that's supposedly great . There's nothing objective about liking music. Some music moves us and some doesn't. Artists that are deemed to be the best are usually just artists that have sold a lot of records, which means a lot of people happen to like them (or they have good marketing strategies). You might like some of those artists because you might fall in the majority but you might not.

The search is part of the enjoyment. Start listening to whatever you can find that you think you might like and if you don't like it just put it aside and look for something else. If you do like it, you will probably be compelled to find more music like it. Look for interviews with the artist or band members and they'll probably talk about their influences and other artists they themselves like. Go listen to those artists and repeat the process. If you like those artists keep digging. If not, go somewhere else and find some other music.

There must be at least one song or artist who interests you. I'd recommend starting there. One of my favorite albums is Love Man, by Otis Redding. Maybe give it a shot and see if you like it :) [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kyK5LvO6EbPrUC...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kyK5LvO6EbPrUCvFoBRpxAKMdYUISvZKE)

Also, go see some live music. Seeing music live is almost incomparable to listening to music through headphones or car speakers.

</comment><comment><USER30> Sheesh Data, find something you like and listen to it! Repeat .. Enjoy falling down Wikipedia holes to read about the music you like. Go out to gigs. It'll go in but your knowledge will be different to everyone else's

Though if you really don't like music why do you think you can get good at it?

Like I feel like I have almost no knowledge of painting, and that it's important in some sense, and I'll go to exhibitions but... None of it goes in. I can't answer questions on what I've seen. (But music mostly did.)

</comment><comment><USER31> > Is there a music buff's roadmap, some sort of a chronologically-ordered list > of the best and most influential albums that gives a coherent picture of how > music evolved over the 20th century? And is that a right approach to > becoming a music buff?

Probably not, because it doesn't start from where you are. For example, my I happen to like the music of the second Viennese school (well, Schoenberg and Webern; I don't much like Berg's work). My parents both regarded it with confusion. So I sat them down and played a whole series of pieces, first going back from common practice into the Renaissance to get outside common practice tonality, and then forward through Puccini to Stravinsky, each stepwise leading their ears so when we got to Schoenberg's 4th string quartet they could hear it and say, "Alright, I see how this isn't a crazy departure and I kind of hear what's going on."

Now, my parents were steeped in Baroque and classical period music, so their starting point is unlikely to help you.

Someone else suggested a music appreciation course, which probably is the right way. You need some kind of framework to explore in and enough sampling of the space to be able to get a hint of what you like.

If you just want to get started right now, I suggest starting with the Beatles, which are the only artists that I think pretty much every western musician of the 20th century is conversant with, from Baroque music specialists to grunge metal players.

</comment><comment><USER32> For me, listening to human DJs on non-commercial radio stations has expanded my knowledge and tastes massively. It's a good way to learn about a wide variety of music and keep current. That knowledge can be used as a springboard for further exploration.

I like KEXP [0], a well-known community radio station from Seattle. They have many shows with all kinds of genres, as well as live music and discussion.

[0] [https://kexp.org/](https://kexp.org/)

</comment><comment><USER33> If you are interested in classical music - here's a couple of good books on the 20th century.

      "The Rest Is Noise" by Alex Ross
      "Modern Times, Modern Places" by Peter Conrad

The first is just music, the second one covers art and culture in general but has a lot about music.

"America's Musical Life: A History" by Richard Crawford is also great, focusing on America obviously and covers more than just the 20th century.

<comment><USER34> I second The Rest Is Noise recommendation. I really enjoyed it. Make sure to check out the companion website, which has tons of samples of the music he discusses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There are so many radio shows that explore the exponentially growing music- verse out there.

Bandcamp is a great place for music artists. Here a huge chunk of the profits go direct to the artists, so it's got every possible kind of music from nobody you've ever heard of.

They have a weekly radio show called The Bandcamp Weekly. It's super varied but they're friendly and they often do themes each week. Give it a go

<comment><USER36> Another great choice for radio shows is BBC Sounds. Wide range of genres, good song/piece selections in each genre, and, in most cases, a reasonable amount patter about the music.

Most of the music I've come to like in recent years I heard first on the BBC. Radio 3 is a particular treasure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Find what you like and then deep dive into that genre. Learn the history about it, look up the producers, the stories behind the albums, the songwriters, the studios that they were recorded at even.

A lot of historical context can be built from that. And you also find more artists that way. Also if you really want to get into it, look up the instruments that are influential in the process of the albums you find. For example, J Dilla's MPC was one of the most important tools of the 90s Neo-Soul and Hip Hop scene (it's actually in the Smithsonian). But other producers have mastered it and its decedents... like Araab Musik, Pete Rock, or Kanye.

If you want to be a person who respects all different genres of music, look into the history of genres as you explore them and find the most influential albums in that genre (usually this correlates to albums sells for "popular" music, influential is usually tied to the network of artists someone has influenced, worked with, produced for, etc).

Hopefully that helps. I'm a huge music buff, so I'd be happy to discuss.

<comment><USER38> I agree 100%. I think hip-hop in particular makes it very easy to trace these relations with it's heavy use of samples and collaboration.

For example, Common's Album "Be" is the album that started me on my path back in 2009. I really liked the album and using those relations I was able to discover so much more music:

1\. Kanye West produced it

      -> Check-out other Kanye production credits

        -> Jay-Z's "The Blueprint"
        -> Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III"
        -> Kanye's solo albums

2\. Marvin Gaye's "God is Love" is sampled in the song "Love is..."

      -> Check-out Marvin Gaye's album "What's Going On"

3\. John Legend is a feature on "They Say"

      -> Check-out John Legend's album "Get Lifted"

Of course, it might be a little silly to think I needed to discover big names like Kanye, Common and John Legend but the process of discovering them through the music itself can help separate the artist from some of their non-musical pursuits that might not be as interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is literally the exact thing you seek. Piero Scaruffi's website. [https://www.scaruffi.com/music.html](https://www.scaruffi.com/music.html)

</comment><comment><USER40> This must be one of the most 'HN' posts I've ever seen. Aiming to become a "music buff", to me, is missing the point of music. In HN terms, you could say it's 'orthogonal'. Just listen to some different kinds of music, and find out what you like. If you become a 'buff' along the way, that's nice I guess.

</comment><comment><USER41> Get personally involved, have some skin in the game, and you'll get much more out of music.

About a year ago I started a project called Poseur to Composer. My goal is to play an instrument and learn enough music theory to compose songs I'm proud of (it's been a slow and humbling process, and I'm still working at it). Along the way I've discovered many new artists and genres, and I listen to music - no, _engage_ with music - in a much different way now.

In case anyone's interested, here is where I've blogged my progress: [https://poseurtocomposer.postach.io/page/sitemap](https://poseurtocomposer.postach.io/page/sitemap) and a recent newsletter I sent that encapsulates what I've accomplished thus far: [https://mailchi.mp/60c7dfc7bcbb/rediscovery](https://mailchi.mp/60c7dfc7bcbb/rediscovery)

</comment><comment><USER42> Once you figure out your top artist this online tool is pretty nifty if you want to find niches. It works on user data. Clusters artists that are similar in style with the closest one to your selected being the most similar in style: [https://www.music-map.com/](https://www.music-map.com/)

</comment><comment><USER43> > How music evolved over the 20th Century?

Music married with electricity and that helped to create a cambrian explosion of creativity. This is the major contribution from the 20th Century to the history of music and nothing will be the same after this.

That spawned 1) Rock first, based in the electric guitar, and 2) an sea of Electronic music later, based in the synthesizer.

To focus in the second part, here you have a selection of albums to experience several flavours of electronic and experimental music, from dark wave to big beat, space rock or synthpop. Just one album representative of each group was chosen; not necessarily their best or the easiest to listen, but all deserve to be here for different reasons.

Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine

Yello - <USER2>

Pink Floyd - The Dark Face of the Moon

OMD - Dazzle Ships

Tricky - <USER3>

Massive Attack - <USER4>

Bjork - <USER5>

The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land

Moby - <USER6>

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole

Pet Shop Boys - <USER7>

Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Depeche mode - <USER8>

Radiohead - Kid A

Gary Numan - <USER9>

Jean Michel Jarre - <USER10>

The Cure - <USER11>

<comment><USER44> Whilst it may not have been as popular back then, electronic music actually predates Rock. The Theremin for instance, invented in 1922 was not the first electronic musical instrument, but it is one of the few from that era that still makes an appearance these days. [https://120years.net](https://120years.net) has more on electronic instruments through the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I suggest searching for documentaries on your favorite genre, whether it be Jazz, Rock, or Hip Hop. Jot down the artists/labels that pique your interest. Research those groups online.

In parallel, learning music is best when you're having fun. You should start with your favorite artists and dive deeper into their discography. Research the label they were on (fruitful if the label is independent). Look into their contemporaries. Who were those artists? Maybe they were associated with a larger movement/scene, and so on.

Finally, listen to more music! Everything (almost) is on Youtube or Spotify. Make it a point to listen to music everyday.

</comment><comment><USER46> I usually start with music I like, then work back and outwards from there. I'll find similar artists, artists from that time period, previous artists that influenced them, then go check them out and repeat the process.

Once I find some music I like, I start looking into the details of that genre. How it's constructed where it came from, what genres influenced it.

It's fascinating when you start getting into it.

But, if you don't enjoy it, I'm not sure how well it's going to go. It's hard to be a fan of something you don't really like that much.

</comment><comment><USER47> For modern music, the definitive resource (in my experience) is RYM: [https://rateyourmusic.com/](https://rateyourmusic.com/). It has several advantages: 1) extremely broad coverage - it is almost "list of all music ever" 2) the community has rated all of this music and "has good taste" 3) nice sorting and search capability

How to use: a) For overview of most important albums which is at the same time a reasonable overview of modern music history, use the default sorting [https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart](https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart) b) after you get into specific sub-genre's, use the sorting. For example, you discover you like Japanese 90s city-pop? Here's the query for you [https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&...](https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=1990s&genre_include=1&include_child_genres=1&genres=city+pop&include_child_genres_chk=1&include=both&origin_countries=&limit=none&countries=) c) for music discovery, browse recommendation lists of people there. It is a true gold-mine of great music

For completness, to rollingstone.com and npr, I add pitchfork.com which is arguably the most important "independent" medium

<comment><USER48> Seconding RYM, imo the best place to find music worth listening if you don't have time to go through everything. The community is also very good in curating lists for various tastes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The book Range, by David Epstein has a pretty interesting chapter on music and the history of improvisation.

I knew that Django, the Python web dev framework, had been named after some obscure dutch musician. But after reading the book I had a wholly new appreciation for Django Reinhardt [1], the artist. Man was truly a great jazz improviser, whose legacy now lives on in the framework.

[1]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt)

<comment><USER50> Django Reinhardt is neither an obscure musician nor Dutch... It's the father of a style called Jazz Manouche. Maybe is not well known in the US.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Fun fact: Django was a big influence on Willie Nelson who is, of course, very well known in the US. It might not be overly obvious because of the genre disparities but listen to Willie's guitar phrasing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Nobody mentioning "the internet's busiest music nerd"/ The needle drop?

He has a very active youtube channel talking about various records. He usually talks about new releases, but here is a playlist of his reviews for albums considered "classics" [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP4CSgl7K7or_7JI7RsEs...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP4CSgl7K7or_7JI7RsEsptyS4wfLFGIN)

</comment><comment><USER52> Just keep listening.

Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap is an amazing look into (somewhat Canadian-focused) classic rock, 60's, 70s, with amazing anecdotes about how it connects with the biggest namns of the last 65 years. Truly awesome radio show. [https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/2-4294-randy- bachmans-v...](https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/2-4294-randy-bachmans- vinyl-tap)

For current music (yes, even pop) I HIGHLY recommend Benji B on BBC Radio 1. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v4tv3/episodes/player](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v4tv3/episodes/player) He has been doing yearly "Best Of" mixes for over 10 years, and if you want to contextualize what's been going on in the last decade-plus of everything club/underground, rap, techno and pop, they're required listening. Whatever bias you have about current music, I promise there's something for you in his programming. Easily one of the best radio DJs in the world.

Second mention is Gilles Peterson, more jazz/world focused than Benji but they crossover numerously, and his programming is just stellar. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fm4ss/episodes/player](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fm4ss/episodes/player)

Lastly, I'd recommend Pete Tongs "Essential Mix" if you find an artist/DJ that you appreciate, its essentially masterclass mixes on their most inspiring work and adjacent music.

Enjoy

</comment><comment><USER53> My recommendations that have not been mentioned on this thread yet:

33 1/3 book series [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33%E2%85%93](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33%E2%85%93)

deep cuts youtube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRYhCg0DHloE9gn- PAiAYNg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRYhCg0DHloE9gn-PAiAYNg)

</comment><comment><USER54> If you like literature then focus on lyrics. The country genre, folk and rap can be appreciated from a literary angle if you can't hear well or recognize intervals or anything. If you like movies, try on some musicals and then wade into opera. The lines between the thee areas op mentions are somewhat artificial. You can spend more time reading about music than listening, and that still counts as enjoying music.

</comment><comment><USER55> I took a History of Rock and Roll course at my local community college and learned more in 4 months than 30 years of listening to "deep tracks".

</comment><comment><USER56> For electronic music there is this wondrous creation:

[https://music.ishkur.com/](https://music.ishkur.com/)

</comment><comment><USER57> >Is there a music buff's roadmap, some sort of a chronologically-ordered list of the best and most influential albums that gives a coherent picture of how music evolved over the 20th century?

This is a huge undertaking as a LOT of music has been made during that time period, covering a huge amount of genres and cultural movements. I think you're going to get overwhelmed.

Is there a reason why youre more concerned with the history of the medium than current releases ? We are living in one of the best times in history to access new music. It can be as simple as finding a reviewer/website you like and following their recommendations.

With that said, there are a lot of amazing albums that have been released in the past, this goes without saying. But like other people have mentioned, the best approach is an organic one. Find compilations of famous albums or singles, listen to them, focus on what you like, read up about the genre and find other recommendations. I find youtube is especially good at taking you down rabbit holes.

If you dont know where to start, you can look at 4chans music boards "essential" albums [1] and see what appeals to you. Never thought I would recommend something from that site but it actually did expose me to a lot of new stuff 10 years ago. Other popular sites like Pitchfork and Sputnik music tend to write articles about influential albums or genres.

If you are interested in the "why" behind some of the history, David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) wrote a phenomenal book on the subject called "How Music Works", that explains a lot of important shifts in the mediums history.

[1] [https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts](https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts)

</comment><comment><USER58> Of course any answer you'll get is by its very nature opinionated. But /mu/ essentials tends to have a pretty good cross-section of the most important and foundational works across a wide variety of genres.

[https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts](https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts)

</comment><comment><USER59> I've realised over the past decade that my brain just isn't wired to allow me to be a music buff.

I absolutely love music and the emotional effects it has. But I can never remember the names of songs, or how they sound. It means when I try to play music at a party, first I have to look it up by finding the playlist I put it in, and then it inevitably falls flat - missing the mood in the room by being too sad or happy or heavy or melodic. Many of my friends do this instinctually - they can throw songs into the queue and they fit the mood.

The one area I can seem to remember is actual bands I've seen perform. Something about engaging with live music sets it in my mind.

So while I think investing time into music if you enjoy it is worthwhile, there's no point forcing yourself. It might be that you're just not wired that way. And that's ok!

</comment><comment><USER60> If you want to go a bit off-piste, 20th and 21st century liturgical choral music is an excellent choice.

As a bonus: gigs are free and in most cities happen every night (at evensong, which also comes with free mindfulness and meditation sessions, as well as a chance for a singalong with the crowd.)

The choirs range from school and college scholarship level to outright professionals and they will often have albums where you can explore their repertoire, and branch off from there. In essence: they put together the need- to-know pieces on your behalf, which assists massively in increasing buff- level.

I find the ensemble of male voice to also be incredibly relaxing:

[https://open.spotify.com/track/12hKtoAt7uiDgqIzrqWWr4?si=O8d...](https://open.spotify.com/track/12hKtoAt7uiDgqIzrqWWr4?si=O8drli2qSV25bru-Q7SDhg)

</comment><comment><USER61> RateYourMusic and a few decent BitTorrent trackers should get you started. Listen to what you like.

<comment><USER62> +1 for RYM. It's one of the greatest curated resources with a ton of ratings and metadata.

I think a good start for you might just be going to RYM Charts ([https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart](https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart)) and selecting a genre. You'll find the top rated albums, and can further filter by the decade. That's my #1 music discovery source.

<comment><USER63> That's a _damn_ fine looking list. I cannot understand why people like King Crimson no matter how hard I try, let alone well enough for In the Court... to place at #5, but otherwise, looks great to me.

For anyone starting from nearly-scratch with popular music I'd recommend a chronological approach to lists like this. Don't start at #1—cut the list off with however many you're willing to commit to listening to, then order them by release date, and start at the beginning. For the earliest entries consider hunting down the major influences on their genre or a couple major popular acts from the preceding 10-20 years before them to get a sense of where they came from—maybe a few tracks of ragtime, a crooner or two, a couple big-band acts, some early and mid-period jazz, maybe an album of "standards" or something, a small selection of early rock. That's a decent set-up for starting on 60s-and-on popular music, which is mostly what these lists treat (Kind of Blue is almost always the highest-ranking exception to the "60s and later" rule)

[EDIT] incidentally, I don't see a CSV or Excel export option for the list on this site, even in the list of "subscriber" features that I could unlock by paying $15. I am entirely certain I'm not the only person who _needs_ my lists to end up somewhere like that so I can mess around with sorting, checking-off, and so on :-)

<comment><USER62> An API has been on their to-do list for quite a long time, not sure how the progress is on that. It would be absolutely great, bringing opportunities to make automated curators and whatnot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Music of XX century is rather a broad subject, but I assume - from your question - you are looking for popular music genres like pop, rock, hiphop, etc.

In fact, most of this music has been as much a cultural phenomenon and and a statement of a generation, as it was... music. Not being rude to individual artists, who were at times very talented, a lot of this music is musically rather simplistic and doesn't require any preparation, but a cultural context. Granted your film-literature preferences, a good territory to start explorations from would be watch a few music movies, like the history of the Doors etc. that could give you the context needed and you are all set for many months of listening. But is all largely about youthful energy, about love, a man vs society, about dance and drugs. So - if you are not too young anymore - it can be a bit boring ;)

One exception would be jazz, that is a bit more complex to grasp, but again - you have a good series from Ken Burns to start with. That being said, to enjoy jazz truly in it's more complex genres, I would argue at least certain musical background is beneficial, maybe some youtube talks etc.

Classical music... well this is a true ocean. Just Beethoven piano sonatas could be a passion for a year or two. You're talking about XX century, and there's been great classical music published in that period! But probably - <USER12> you go that route - you really want to start with renaissance and baroque. Here a lot of great introductory courses are available. If you don't have musical background, Robert Greenberg series on Great Courses is really an entertaining and valuable intro.

And then there is world music, ranging from African roots bands playing drums to Indian classical music.

Now - having all that said - my personal perspective is that to enjoy music, you want to enjoy music. What I mean by that, is that you might want to dance, sing, play! Even a simple baroque dance, played by your self, could be way more gratifying that latest dull pop hit. If you really want to enjoy music and not just be a pop music encyclopedia who knows names of The Beatles - <USER13> should do one of these!

</comment><comment><USER65> There's the beatles, which are worth following chronologically as a sense of how pop music evolved. The "Beatles Anthology" documentary series is great.

Other than that, music is really too diverse and varied to approach systematically IMO, especially from the perspective of individual taste (as opposed to, say, academic ethnomusicology). My suggestion would be tasting assortments of artists within subgenres until you stumble upon something you love, and branching from there. The free NTS internet radio station ([https://nts.live](https://nts.live)) has a lot of searchable shows curated by musicians, so I really recommend that resource for exploration.

</comment><comment><USER66> There's a distinction between a _music_ buff and an _audio_ buff.

If you want to be a music buff, my suggestion is to learn how to play an instrument. This will give you the understanding to appreciate music; you can't truly understand a musician's talent until you try to play what they can and fail. You can't appreciate the complexity of a piece that has changing time signatures (for example) _if you don 't even know how to count time_. You'll end up listening to the same chord progressions over and over (G-C-D come to mind...) if you don't know how to identify what you're listening to.

If you want to be an audio buff, buy some expensive speakers and then just follow you ears.

</comment><comment><USER67> I think it's pretty simple, actually. Start playing an instrument (or dig deeper into playing an instrument). Most "music buffs" I respect are decent musicians themselves. I great prefer a musician's music recommendations to a music critic's who doesn't play.

</comment><comment><USER68> This is a book recommendation, not a chronologically-ordered list, but I found it helpful to round out my music appreciation and exposure: 'Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty' by Ben Ratliff

The book walks through musical concepts, one per chapter, and points to illustrative examples.

I've also found it interesting to check out top posts on these music appreciation/discovery subreddits:

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/](https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/listentous/](https://www.reddit.com/r/listentous/)

</comment><comment><USER69> These are interesting blueprints for hip hop and alternative music.

[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/hip- hop...](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/hip-hop-love- blueprint-art-print-dorothy- hero_6072392e-bdaf-49fb-9f1c-f8165ff08eb1.jpg?v=1519296749)

[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/alterna...](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/alternative- love-blueprint-art-print-dorothy-hero.jpg?v=1519742525)

<comment><USER70> Where can I find more of these?

<comment><USER71> I was able to find the store that offers these, and a bunch more. [https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/music](https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/music)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I approach it the way I would approach a reinforcement learning problem.

1st exploration -> then exploitation.

Start by randomly listening to the most popular stuff from random genres, until something somewhat sticks.

Then reduce your search range to the type of music you liked, go to the "enthusiasts forum" for that genre (usually a subreddit) and find the 'true gems'.

Then do periodic MCMC random walk, where I go from my current genre to the most likely adjacent genres to branch out.

For the music I listen to, the chronological journey goes as follows: (with each genre capturing a couple of decades)

Jazz, Blues -> Rock -> psychedelic rock, metal -> prog rock , Frank Zappa, death metal-> prog metal -> experimental prog

</comment><comment><USER73> There is way too much music compared to film and literature as it's so much easier, faster, and cheaper to make. Many of people's favourite albums were recorded over periods of days and weeks, while books can take years to write, and films are crazy often needing thousands of people. Additionally it is so incredibly subjective to the point that no one can agree on classics and it evolves much more quickly.

Really, there is no such thing as being a "music buff", but you can be a "jazz buff" for example! I'd say pick something mildly pretentious to feed your clearly slightly overinflated ego and dig deep into the history of that genre.

</comment><comment><USER74> There was a time when I was younger (back in the early 90's) when I thought I just didn't like music that much. Turns out I just really didn't like the sort of music that was played on the radio. Once I discovered what was then termed "alternative" music that opened up entire vistas of the kind of music that was out there. It was just really hard to find back then. In 2020 there this is not the case and finding great music in niche genres is easier than ever. Just listen to a bit of everything until something hooks you and then let the recommendation engine of YouTube, Spotify, etc take you down the Rabbit Hole.

</comment><comment><USER75> >If not, what is?

Follow your current taste, and go backwards from there. What are the influences of the musicians and groups you like? What are the influences of their influences? This is how most people I know, including myself discovered music.

<comment> 52-6F-62 This is the approach I'd recommend, too. It's a far lower barrier of entry than the countless tomes people are recommending, too.

Go down the rabbit hole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> A great jumping in spot would be to watch Ken Burn's Jazz and Country Music Documentaries. Two other shorter documentaries that I can recommend is "The Wrecking Crew" (2015) and "It Might Get Loud" (2009)

Listening to music isn't gonna do you a lot of good unless you have context. For example, The Beatles and Beach Boys influenced each other. Rubber Soul led to Pet Sounds which led to Sgt. Pepper which led to Smile.

Another consideration is that some of the real influencers aren't well known or popular, and some of them were not the singers but the music writers, producers, and musicians.

</comment><comment><USER77> What is it that makes it less interesting to you - what about graphical arts, sculpture, architecture?

Given your list I would suppose maybe you like things with a complex narrative, or as is the case for me - music with clever/complex lyrics.

So you could look for music that has a complex narrative, but obviously that helps you find music best suited for you and not helping you build an understanding of what is appealing about music or what makes for 'good' music artistically speaking.

Although maybe you can jump from music appealing to you to a broader feeling for music in general.

Is there some music or musicians you find more appealing than others?

</comment><comment><USER78> This is not exactly a direct answer, but I've really enjoyed clicking through this expansive guide to electronic music:

[https://music.ishkur.com/](https://music.ishkur.com/)

</comment><comment><USER79> After I listened to the podcast Conversations with Tyler interview music writer Ted Gioia [0] (one of the topics: "how to cultivate excellent taste in music") I would have to say a good place to start is read books by him, follow him on Twitter. He seems to have the well-roundedness, the breadth and the intelligence to be a good ad-hoc guide to the world of music.

[0] [https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/ted- gioia/](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/ted-gioia/)

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm very much a dilettante but a piano teacher taught me a few boogie woogie songs when I was in middle school. That planted a seed that has turned into a lifelong love for the music of New Orleans, which is essentially the source and pulse of American music, full stop.

A benefit of exploring this music is that while the tradition is both deep and broad it's also very much alive, and there are tons of ways to get into it. A great start is to listen to WWOZ (wwozy.org) and to google all the artists that you like. I could do that all day if it paid.

</comment><comment><USER81> Honestly I would focus on figuring out a way to get access to a large body of music where you can arbitrarily access almost everything. So a Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. If you have any music you like those services will likely have suggestions and you can go down the rabbit hole.

Alternatively, search Google for "top [insert genre here] songs".

The most important thing IMO is to start listening to as many different things as you can and dive deeper from there. Then you can get all academic on your preferred genres like everybody mentions here.

</comment><comment><USER82> Make sure you have some decent headphones/speakers before you start, which will allow you to pick up the subtleties in what's playing. Then get a streaming service with high quality. RateYourMusic is pretty good for organizing best albums of each year or decade, by genre as well. It might not have what was popular from a historical perspective but is probably a good start. I check out different genres and then read about them on Wikipedia, which has a ton of information about every genre and chronology of music.

<comment><USER83> This.

My mind was blown when I heard the 2013 remaster of The Eagle's "Taking It Easy".

Original: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ZZHNRHA2g&t=1m36s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ZZHNRHA2g&t=1m36s)

Remaster: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v8KEbQA8kw&t=1m36s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v8KEbQA8kw&t=1m36s)

I never knew there was a backing bluegrass guitar on the track!

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> What worked for me is to blindly listen to bands whos names kept coming up. For example I heard that the Police were supposed to be a big deal so I dug up an album by them and listened through the whole thing. If I liked what I heard I would hunt down more albums (or CD's because this was mostly in the 90's and 00's). I would do the same thing if I heard a song I liked on the radio. Gradually you will find out what genres you like and you'll be able to discover similar artists.

</comment><comment><USER85> The nature of the question strikes me as a bit odd. If you don't have any enthusiasm for music history, I don't see what's to be gained by forcing yourself to learn about it. If it's not for fun, other subjects would have a greater impact on your career.

At any rate, the easiest thing to do would be to dive into classical music, rather than popular music. In classical, there's only around a dozen composers with whom anyone expects you to be familiar.

</comment><comment><USER86> You could do worse than:

1) Tune into HD college radio stations so you get exposed to a lot of stuff and you can see the artist/track names.

2) Make and explore play lists on Spotify.

3) Google artists that interest you.

</comment><comment><USER87> I think there's too much music out there to become a "buff" of every genre. You can certainly learn a _little_ about every genre, but otherwise, I think you should pick a genre and focus on that.

My recommendation would be to look at the most famous/most popular musicians in the respective genre you're studying, and then follow the links from there. Learn who influenced them, and who they influenced. And then follow the organic web from there.

</comment><comment><USER88> I've been listening to the Music Exists podcast by Chuck Klosterman and Chris Ryan (unfortunately available only on Spotify). It's quite good and definitely introduced me to some new stuff.

While I feel like I've been doing a fairly good job of keeping up with music for the last decade, their knowledge of music, even from before they were born, is extensive and got me interested in exploring stuff that came out before I really cared about music.

</comment><comment><USER89> I've learned so much from the Sound Opinions show. It's a weekly hour long music show where the hosts (Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis) interview musicians, producers, historians, and also review albums - both new releases and the occasional classics. Mostly centered around rock and pop they do branch out into hip-hop and jazz occasionally. All of their past episodes are online. They're on NPR once a week.

soundopinions.org

</comment><comment><USER90> Are there particular genres of music you'd like to learn about? There are lots of genres--classical, jazz, rock and roll, R&B, many flavors of "world", and more--each with its own history and evolution and literature, with influences between genres and lots and lots of cross-fertilization. I'd suggest starting with one that's a current favorite and branch out from there.

</comment><comment><USER91> I listen to all of my music on YouTube unless I'm playing records at my house and the algorithm has exposed me to a huge amount of amazing music over the years.

Go to YouTube, pick one of the more niche things you like, hit autoplay, and then if something random you like comes up start the process over with the new thing as the initial search. I promise you this works.

</comment><comment><USER92> To learn to appreciate concert music I can warmly recommend the Great Courses' How to Listen to and Understand Great Music: [https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-listen-to- and...](https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-listen-to-and- understand-great-music-3rd-edition.html)

</comment><comment><USER93> What kind of music are you talking about here? Do you want for Western music? Or are you willing to explore Eastern music too?

</comment><comment><USER94> You didn't mention classical, but I find many of the YouTube videos featuring Benjamin Zander (Boston Philharmonic) to be delightful. Particularly the interpretation sessions with younger musicians.

I'm not generally a classical lover, but the energy he brings when discussing the music, with a bit of context, works for me.

</comment><comment><USER95> Maybe load up some rolling stone's(the magazine) lists on your favorite streaming service, and read the Wikipedia entry for each band/song that interests you. They aren't in chronological order, but they have top 500 lists for the most important albums, songs and musicians.

</comment><comment><USER96> I don't know if I am a music buff -- what are the qualifications? I have a few thousand CDs, some of them fairly rare, and I am the person my friends turn to when they need to track down a song or rare release. By those standards ...

1) Find your passion. I generally despise this as advise for careers and the like but when it comes to matters of personal preference, _de gustibus non est disputandum_. What do you like?

2) Hit Discogs for your bands. Don't just look at main albums, look at appearances and rarities, songs covered by the band, appearances on soundtracks (which can often be one-offs) and the like. For certain bands, I literally own everything they performed in because I like all of it. This is _depth_. After that, follow each member of a band to hear if they did anything before or after you enjoy. Even try session musicians. You may find a talented collaborator that way, too. This is _breadth_.

3) Find a radio program adjacent to your tastes and examine the weekly playlist. What did you like? Here you are riding in the slipstream of a great big truck, as the DJ is doing a lot of the work for you.

4) Ignore most recommendation algorithms but Pandora, which are based on what other people play rather than what is actually related.

5) Don't be afraid to reach out. I have written musicians letters (snail mail, self-addressed stamped envelope enclosed) and said, "I really like X, Y, and Z" or "Your performance on this track moved me" then asked what inspired them, influenced them, or if they have influenced others. I usually hear back.

6) Attend concerts and listen to the opening acts, buy their (typically cheap) CDs. The openers appreciate it and you can find some great somewhat related music that way.

7) Back in the days when record stores existed, I would hit the "M" section or whatever letter, any band that didn't have a tab of their own, and just flip through it, looking for anything to catch my eye, then listen that way. Many duds, but some real wins.

8) Now that you have a sense of what you enjoy, you probably have some names associated with them, various microgenres. List 'em. For example, "grave wave."

9) Look up those microgenres on Bandcamp and the like, listen through that way.

10) Hit "Every Noise at Once" and surf your microgenre that way, too. Bop around between band and microgenre names.

11) Iterate.

</comment><comment><USER97> This is a pretty good book that should roughly give you what you are looking for:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_Is_Noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_Is_Noise)

<comment><USER98> A great book for music fans, and probably at least a good read for non fans like our OP. Recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> A music buff probably listens to music for the enjoyment of doing so and take active interest in its creation and history, and their "buffness" is a simply side effect of long-term application of this habit.

</comment><comment><USER100> Here's a really comprehensive genre map: [http://everynoise.com](http://everynoise.com). It's not going to give you the history of a genre, but wikipedia probably can.

</comment><comment><USER101> This might be a different kind of route you'll want, but if you want to read from the source, look up "Songwriters On Songwriting: Revised And Expanded" which has personal in-depth interviews, including a variety of pop history stars. I think it puts artist in some kind of historical context and how they proceed music-making.

Also if you want to check out mostly quite recent popular songs, and some highlights of the tracks with commentary, see Rick Beato's What Makes this Song Great playlist. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScRG40_7zb0&list=PLW0NGgv1qn...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScRG40_7zb0&list=PLW0NGgv1qnfzb1klL6Vw9B0aiM7ryfXV_)

</comment><comment><USER102> [https://www.treblezine.com/top-100-best-cover- songs/](https://www.treblezine.com/top-100-best-cover-songs/)

</comment><comment><USER103> I had a good time listening to music history books. The Great Courses have some great ones by Dr. Robert Greenberg such as "Music as a Mirror of History".

</comment><comment><USER104> There are many "should listen to", or "best albums of XYX" lists out there and (arguably) finding a pretty generic one (like a middle of the road music magazine) is probably a pretty good start.

 _However_ \-- I've always listened to a lot of music. I still probably get through 10 or so new releases a week, a fair amount of older stuff I've never heard, and a lot of 'comfort' records. The problem with top XYZ lists is you have to be 'open' to listening to them, and for some records it definitely helps to have some reference points in the form of 'stuff you know' to frame why they're significant. It took me years to see the genius in some records that later become favourites.

Whilst I became much open to exploring genres as I got older, and whilst my tastes are now far more varied, primarily I still listen to a lot of alternative/punk and hip-hop. I'll occasionally listen to more electronic music, but with the rare exception anything too house/techno/etc. just doesn't work for me as much. I also find when exploring back catalogues it helps to hear the song over the production - a punk rock record from 1985 probably sounds like shit - but when you learn to hear the song you see how amazing it was. Definitely something a younger me struggled with (in a world of over produced music!).

I guess what I'm saying is _personally_ I feel music is a lot like anything else. The more you surround yourself with it, the more you 'get' it, the more genres bleed into one another. And the more you hear, the better frame of reference you have as to why some of the 'best' records are what they are and sounds like they do.

TL;DR: Listen to lots and lots, keep exploring. Spotify is an incredible tool. Pick a genre, listen to what Spotify recommends. See what grabs you. If nothing does, try another genre. Keep trying until something grabs you. Then delve into the genre - you'll find pretty soon that genres start to crossover. Music should be fun.

God I love music.

</comment><comment><USER105> A fun way to start thinking about the structure of songs is to try your hand at djing, particularly when mixing two songs together with beat-matching and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER106> At a certain point, you realize Bach is all you need.

<comment><USER107> And then Frank Zappa fills any remaining gaps.

<comment><USER108> Up to and including finnish tango: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trFs_PDqSv4&t=135](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trFs_PDqSv4&t=135)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> Oddly enough, I really was able to get broad swathes of genres and broaden my horizons through 4chan's /mu/ essentials lists: [https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts](https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts)

I didn't really consider myself a music buff from the listening perspective until I had worked through several of those. Despite the 4chan moniker, they are _really_ good genre introductions and have excellent selections.

</comment><comment><USER110> Listen to the top 100 on RYM. When you find an album you like listen to the artists other albums and the albums on the genre chart.

</comment><comment><USER111> idk, but here's Adam Neely explaining lo-fi -- the channel in general might be of interest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4KIwA8O9LU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4KIwA8O9LU)

<comment><USER112> Adam Neely is fantastic at explaining musical concepts. Good recommendation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> I definitely consider myself a music buff. Here's my suggestion: start with what you love and explore the graph from there.

Consider an album a node in the great graph of music. The links to other nodes are plentiful and will likely lead to other things you love. Explore other artists on the same label, other groups composed of members of the group, other albums recorded in the same studio, etc.

Don't just listen to the music but get interested in the context, just like any work of art, the significance is often relative to the context in which it was created. Learn about the history of the members, read reviews, etc.

Learn an instrument, you don't have to be good, but a little knowledge of how to play some of your favorite music can really help to understand the craft.

Find some of those '500 best albums of all time' type lists and do my graph exploration for the ones that resonate with you. It's fine to not like everything but awareness of the really impactful landmark albums will help you understand the evolution of music. It can be interesting to learn about what an album is a _rejection_ of as much as it is a homage to.

tldr - bread first explore from what you already like

</comment><comment><USER114> Start off with the beatles and branch off forwards and backwards from there, I guess?

</comment><comment><USER22> start with mid-period beatles, probably sgt. peppers. they are without a doubt the greatest band of all time and it's my contention that people who say they don't like them haven't listened to them enough or just don't like music.

if you are interested in harder edge lineage of rock music, then start with the american beatles-- the velvet underground. the 8 minute version of 'what goes on' on live 1969 is the single greatest rock recording of all time and will be studied by scholars for as long as the recordings remain. a good starting point would be the self titled album or the one with nico

also listen to ALBUMS over and over, not playlists-- in general, that's how that artists intended for their work to be consumed

<comment><USER24> I love the Beatles, but your advice really only applies to the last half of the 20th century, since albums didn't exist before that. Before that music was released as individual pieces or singles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> Get a reasonable overview of the different genres at everynoise.com

</comment><comment><USER116> Listen to NPR's "All songs considered"

</comment><comment><USER117> Simple book rec: This is Your Brain on Music.

</comment><comment><USER118> today it's easier than ever.

the key is to put in the listening hours.

how you start doesn't matter much. maybe wikipedia + youtube?

</comment><comment><USER119> Listen,...

<comment><USER119> On a related note: also wondering whether there is a good book about swimming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> 1\. Listen to music

2\. Enjoy said music

3.

</comment><comment><USER121> Read How To Listen To Jazz

</comment><comment><USER122> > Music has always been the least appealing art form for me out of the music- > film-literature trio.

Can you share what your diagnosis is?</comment>


Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth's Orbit - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/15-06/ff_space_musk

<comment><USER2> Flagged as this is an old and very much out of date article.

Here is a video of flight 4 that was successful. (awesome to watch too)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-XOPgaGsQ>

Also, an update to the article which people might not have seen was that SpaceX was recently (less than a month ago) awarded the contract from NASA for resupply missions to the International Space Station.

<http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20081223>

<comment><AUTHOR> I realise this is an older article, but today was the first time I'd seen it and I found it very interesting. Is it bad form to post older articles? (I realise this is Hacker _News_ , but I was assuming it's more important that it be interesting than new...)

Thanks for the updates. That video was awesome.

<comment><USER3> I had not read the article, so I thank the original poster for it, even if it is "old". Well written, not too gonzo, classic wired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Watch this summer for the launch of Falcon9 from the Cape.

Pretty pics of Falcon9 on the launch pad for testing earlier this month: <http://spacex.com/updates.php>

</comment><comment><USER5> Article is great, but dated: it is from May 2007.</comment>


Rails Rumble Gem Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.dwellable.com/blog/Rails-Rumble-Gem-Teardown

<comment><USER2> This is perfect timing. My co-founders and I are currently in the process of duking it out over these choices. Now we have something to break the tie.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author, along with @patricko. Feel free to chime in with questions here. I'll link to this discussion from the post too.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Nobody used Stylus, sadly" \-- Adam...curious why you say that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Stylus is a CSS processor similar to SASS/Less, but without the punctuation. Last year one or two teams tried it, but this year it seems to have lost ground. :(</comment></comment>


Can You Affect Another Person's Behavior with Your Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/07/644530036/watch-can-you-affect-another-persons-behavior-with-your-thoughts <comment><USER2> Those interested in this topic should also watch some of Rupert Sheldrake's youtube videos and TED talks on morphic resonance.</comment>


Why Investors Won't Talk to Competitors - <AUTHOR> http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2012/08/why-investors-wont-talk-to-competitors/ <comment><AUTHOR> Great post. Just a thought to add to the reasons: at least some investment firms approach markets proactively and will work hard to identify emerging market opportunities and seek out the early innovators and strong teams -- especially in areas where there are first mover advantages. Their strategy is to identify the strongest team and earliest leader in the space and fund it to help it move fast. By definition if a company wasn't on their radar months ago, it is behind the curve.

<comment><USER2> On a related note, if an investor with a competitive investment comes a calling, their motives may be less than pure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you've disabled Javascript on your mobile device, this website will overlay an opaque black square over the content. A note to danshapiro.com -- when you are needlessly restricting your viewers from accessing your website for arbitrary reasons in this way, you should limit the size of the box holding the content, as I was still able to read the majority of your article.

<comment><USER2> That is crazy. It's apparently the default behavior of a WordPress plugin I'm using, ostensibly to make the site more readable on mobile. Thanks for telling me.

<comment><USER2> It's WPtouch - that behavior is inexcusable. I've disabled the plugin so you shouldn't see the problem any more (although it will also not look quite as nice on mobile, unfortunately).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for taking the complaint seriously :) I quite enjoyed the article but I have knee-jerk reactions when sites do this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Helpful to understand what the responses mean, but what should you do when you hear this? Do you say:

Can you introduce me to someone who would be better suited?

OR

Thanks for your time!

How should an entrepreneur handle this response?

<comment><USER2> Let's think through this conversation: "Bob, let me introduce you to footwear.me." "Are you an investor?" "No, I invested in shoes.tv because I thought they were the best company in this space."

It's going to be a really lame intro, probably worse than if you cold-called the person. So unless you're desperate, I wouldn't ask.

A better plan would be to pump _them_ for competitive information. "Oh, shoes.tv! They're really neat. What was it about them that made you pull the trigger on the investment? Do you think that footwear companies are hot right now? What other companies did you look at? What do you think of their product so far?" If you're friendly and open, you might get some useful (non- confidential) information about the space, and how investors in the space think about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This might be different for seed stage folks, accelerators, etc. YC, for example, would quickly run out of markets if they avoided potential competitors. Also, pivots happen a lot early, so you see early stage companies oftentimes _become_ competitive after the investment. There are good ways for investors to deal with this... See Andreessen Horowitz and Instagram/Picplz: [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/23/ben-horowitz-on- why...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/23/ben-horowitz-on-why- andreessen-horowitz-backed-picplz-and-still-stands-to-make-78m-from- instagram/)</comment>


Bubonic plague genome: The Black Death decoded - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111025/full/478444a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111027

<comment><USER2> Besides environmental and cultural factors, a variation of 100 nucleotides across Y. pestis strains is certainly enough to explain huge differences in its virulence and overall prognosis. Just a few nucleotides are enough to cause significant changes in the expression of its surface proteins (thus helping it overcome immunities).</comment>


Higher-level causation exists (but I wish it didn't) - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3294 <comment><USER2> Leaving aside the funny but flippant conclusion, I think this is still a bit harsh on the causal channel capacity argument of the paper discussed. The under-emphasised part is that _our brains and bodies_ do have an artificially imposed uniform distribution over microstates, and that is why macro-level causation is so useful (and often wrong) for us. Of course that might seem obvious, and doesn't mean reductionism is false, and it's not something a reductionist would disagree with, but I think it formalises and makes explicit an assumption that often conceals the root of the disagreement.

The channel capacity thing provides an explanation (an excuse) for having to settle for macrostates.

The 'normalization trick' is another important reminder that our brains are scale-invariant. [https://xkcd.com/915/](https://xkcd.com/915/)

<comment><USER3> I don't see why "having to settle for macrostates" is anything more than the observation that we use heuristics. Maybe because I don't understand your statement "our brains and bodies do have an artificially imposed uniform distribution over microstates"? The issue seems more due to the number of states than anything about their initial distribution.

Caveat that I have read the post but not the paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Maybe, as the physicist Yakir Aharonov has advocated, our universe has not only a special, low-entropy initial state at the Big Bang, but also a "postselected final state," toward which the outcomes of quantum measurements get mysteriously "pulled"

This sounds a lot like Terence McKenna's "Transcendental Object at the End of Time".

But on the whole... wow, you ever get so upset about a presidential election that you invent a new theory of metaphysics?

<comment><USER5> The remark on the Aharonov post-selection is weird coming from Aaronson's usual hard adherence to known physics - postselection is relevant in the quantum world only. For Aaronson to twist it into an argument of cosmology seems markedly out of character.

<comment><USER6> It is, of course, a joke. He's doing a reductio ad absurdem at the end of a tightly argued post about information theory.

It's the advantage of doing a blog post rather than a paper, I suppose.

<comment><USER5> Good point, I liked the work he's criticizing so I think I'm currently primed to take the post too seriously

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An interesting technicality from the post and paper is that the measure of causal information (mutual information between the initial and final state) bears some resemblence to the Lyapunov exponent as it is used to measure whether a system is on the edge of chaos. When the exponent is 1 (IIRC) the system does not diverge exponentially when the initial conditions are changed slightly and the system is said to be on the edge of chaos and to have good generalization ability. Anywhere else and the system is either damped or chaotic and you don't expect "interesting" stuff to happen there, such as higher-order "causal" effects. (seriously though, why are people so obsessed with causality when it's clear that there is almost never one "causal" description. let it go!)

<comment><USER6> Because sometimes there is, and when you know you can control or at least predict the process. Sometimes this makes you mad dosh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Reverse Hollywoodism: The forces of good have every possible advantage, from > money to expertise to knowledge to overwhelming numerical superiority. Yet > somehow good still fumbles. Somehow a string of improbable coincidences, or > a black swan or an orange Hitler, show up at the last moment to let > horribleness eke out a last-minute victory, as if the universe itself had > been rooting for horribleness all along. That's our world.

This is kind of like Murphy's Law. Let's quote Richard Dawkins and Richard Hand from the Wikipedia article: ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law))

> So-called laws like Murphy's law and Sod's law are nonsense because they > require inanimate objects to have desires of their own, or else to react > according to one's own desires. Dawkins points out that a certain class of > events may occur all the time, but are only noticed when they become a > nuisance. He gives as an example aircraft noise interfering with filming. > Aircraft are in the sky all the time, but are only taken note of when they > cause a problem. This is a form of confirmation bias whereby the > investigator seeks out evidence to confirm his already formed ideas, but > does not look for evidence that contradicts them.

> The law of truly large numbers should lead one to expect the kind of events > predicted by Murphy's law to occur occasionally. Selection bias will ensure > that those ones are remembered and the many times Murphy's law was not true > are forgotten.

So reverse hollywoodism is really a theory on the limitations of humans in their ability to be scientific: when humans go from the data to the trends (stories), they ignore/distort some of the information to fit the narrative. (See e.g. Trump's election; really not that unpredictable, given data like [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/09/23/tr...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/09/23/trump-is-headed-for-a-win-says-professor-whos- predicted-30-years-of-presidential-outcomes-correctly/), but easy to miss when reading the headlines)

</comment><comment><USER9> That took a sudden turn! Normally I just go to Slate Star Codex when I want a mixture of sparkling insight and teleological fiction -- though at least there the fiction is clearly labelled.

Back in 2010 I made the prediction that (regardless of the truth) climate change would look increasingly like religion by 2020. Looks like my prediction is right on track.

<comment><USER10> I strongly doubt that, even if we get a paper claiming the detection of god tomorrow, for some reasonable definition of god. Then it would take time to plan follow up experiments, include that into theory, work out the theological implications, nail down parameters, etc. You know, all the stuff that climate science did in the 80ies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is an atypical post from Scott Aaronson, no?

I feel like things kind went off the deep end in the last section there.

</comment><comment><USER12> How can this reach the first page of HN. This is not science, nor it is sound logic.

<comment><USER13> Then you should be trivially able to provide a simple explanation of why, or a reference to something that rebuts it.

<comment><USER14> Not necessarily. Some articles of this sort are so skew to reason that they defy refutation by virtue of how far out of bounds they are.

<comment><USER8> They're "not even wrong" ([http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong)), just a waste of time

<comment><USER13> Can you say why this article is not even wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Scott seems upset.

<comment><USER16> Bad case of the Mondays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like I understood 30% of what he said. Any chance at a quick refresher?

<comment><USER17> From what I understand, the blogger says he agrees that scientific reductionism is false, or specifically that details abt microstates of a system (like say, states of quantum objects in countless atoms in a system) don't really have a say in the system's macrostates.

The blogger also argues against an experimentation (to prove reductionism false) introduced by the paper he is discussing in the article quite convincingly, I must say.

Here's a couple of extracts from the article that should clear the premise up for you:

"For here is the argument from the Entropy paper, for the existence of macroscopic causality that's not reducible to causality in the underlying components." <the argument follows>

"...scientific reductionism is false. There is higher-level causation in our universe, and it's 100% genuine, not just a verbal sleight-of-hand. In particular, there are causal forces that can only be understood in terms of human desires and goals, and not in terms of subatomic particles blindly bouncing around."

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure the second part of the blog is tongue-in-cheek.</comment></comment></comment>


How It Feels to Learn Data Science in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-data-science-in-2019-6ee688498029 <comment><USER2> I found this very difficult to read. The content might have been great but I couldn't stand the style.

<comment><USER3> I honestly hope HN would ban this website. With all respect to the writers the content is never on par with the rest of the content published on here.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it harsh to take on an entire site with a small sample of articles? Are you saying that TDS never publishes good piece?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Plus, academia tends to lag behind industries and are notorious for teaching dated technologies." and then preaches about alternative degrees, language choice, ...

I fail to see the point, the Data Science degree programs I know about are mostly about teaching fundamentals, with technology and courses on state-of- the-art stuff in whatever subfield might interest you potentially. You have better or worse degree programs in every field. Academia might lag behind the industry in terms of technology stacks but certainly not when it comes to techniques. Apart from the few top players hardly any foundational research comes out of the industry these days.

</comment><comment><USER6> Absolutely definitely learn Linux!!1</comment>


Foreign Accent Syndrome - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/nov-23-psychedelics-and-waking-dreams-adding-feeling-to-virtual-reality-the-greatest-ape-and-more-1.5369357/now-i-have-a-lovely-scottish-brogue-the-science-behind-foreign-accent-syndrome-1.5369364 <comment><USER2> Scot here - there's undoubtedly a Scots feel to the accent of Sharon Campbell- Rayment, but it's more like that of an originally non-native-English speaker who moved to Scotland and then lived there for >20 years. There's a couple of things I noticed in her first clip which might interest folks here:

1\. the way she says "Scotteesh or Ireesh" in the first 2 seconds doesn't fit 100%. That way of pronouncing "-ish" as "-eesh" exists but for a more raw working class accent than what she has. So my dad is from Govan, a pretty working class area of Glasgow, and he'd say it like that. I grew up in Northeast Scotland and have an accent closer to hers and I wouldn't pronounce it this way.

2\. The way she says "... we've since known that it is a ..." makes me think of a Northern Irish accent

3\. Her "Inverness" has the emphasis backwards which is common in for Americans and Canadians when pronouncing Inver- and Aber- placenames. We would emphasise the second half - InverNESS, AberDEEN - whereas she's saying INVERness (or INverness). So she's picked up the general pronunciation, but some of the Canadian quirks are still present.

In any case it's super interesting!

<comment><USER3> Fellow Invernesian here — you still local or escaped for different pastures?

<comment><USER2> Aberdeen originally but I'm over in Czech Republic now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably this proves the point of the article. I'm Italian and the accent of the lady labelled as French/Italian sounds somewhat German to me: no Italian would stop between syllables like that. On the other side I can imagine why that could sound Italian to English speakers. Italian has very few vowel sounds compared to English and for us is hard to learn all the intermediate vowels, for example between a and e. The lady seems to have lost them too. I wonder if she can learn them back.

<comment><USER5> Native German speaker here. I listened to the clip -- the accent sounds like a mix between Scottish and Swedish to me.

<comment><USER6> As a native Swedish speaker, it sounded more like a latvian or lithuanian person trying to speak British English.

<comment><USER7> Native swedish/english speaker here. I agree that it sounds like she's trying to speak with some unidentified British accent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > In fact, according to linguist Sheila Blumstein, it's not really a foreign > accent at all. Rather, it's a change in speech patterns that listeners > interpret as an accent — though sometimes a bad one.

Well, that's much more plausible than suddenly being able to imitate a specific different accent perfectly. I wonder whether any Scots were involved in identifying her speech patterns as Scottish.

<comment><USER9> There is a sound clip in the article. I'm not a Scot and not even a native English speaker but I can recognize some Scottish "artefacts" in her speech. Nevertheless, she definitely didn't go full Braveheart and is nowhere near having a "perfect" accent.

<comment><USER10> There are many Scottish accents, and Braveheart isn't one of them.

To me it sounds very much like Inverness, or maybe a native Gaelic speaker from the outer Hebrides. They have an interesting accent which sounds somewhat foreign, despite debatably being more native than English

<comment><USER11> I think "Go full Braveheart" was used for humorous effect. Would "go full Trainspotting" have passed your correctness meter? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting, and the suspected actual effect (structural changes in how the words are formed that are _interpreted_ as a bad foreign accent), seem consistent with some physical techniques to mimic others.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am French and had to read the text below the audio a few times to make sure that what I am hearing is indeed labeled as French.

There is nothing French in how she is speaking. Some weird German-like vibe maybe.

</comment><comment><USER14> > In fact, according to linguist Sheila Blumstein, it's not really a foreign > accent at all. Rather, it's a change in speech patterns that listeners > interpret as an accent — though sometimes a bad one.

Well, accents _are_ just that, differences in speech patterns.

<comment><USER15> The difference is that an accent is a speech pattern associated with a specific locality or people. Whereas a speech pattern just means the way someone speaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think this points to a specific amount of accent "modes" for languages in the human brain. There's a small finite amount and the human brain can only operate within the bounds of a single accent "mode."

When you damage one accent "mode" in your brain, it has to switch to the next available one. Since the amount of accent "modes" are small and finite you get people who switch to a mode that is recognize-able and used in another part of the world that speaks the same language with a different accent.</comment>


Augmented Reality Simulated Water Flow in Sandbox with Kinect  - <AUTHOR> http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/

<comment><USER2> That is really amazing. I'd love to try building one.</comment>


Hobbes – A Language and an Embedded JIT Compiler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Morgan-Stanley/hobbes <comment><USER2> Nice to see this here again. :)

I made this project several years back, it's been very fun and interesting. I've been meaning to write about some parts of it that haven't had much attention.

<comment><USER3> I'd be interested in hearing about it. From a quick look, it seems like there's a focus on interactively making sense of unstructured data and then cleaning it up? And doing that quickly?

That part sort of overlaps with R, i.e. the "comprehensions" part, although R is pretty weak at parsing and dealing with strings in general. And it's pretty slow for unstructured data, although for structured data it's pretty good with data.table.

<comment><USER2> Well one way we deal with typical unstructured data is to prevent the unstructuring in the first place. The low-latency logging method (for example) uses something like a printf-style interface but stores all of the source data with exactly the types you intended to print -- you can always erase the structure by printing when you want to, but having the structure when you need it is very useful.

What "structure" means and how it works can have a lot of nuance. With hobbes we basically start with algebraic data types (which map to most C-style data structures and so can be shared without conversion with C/C++ code). It's been a while since I looked at R, but IIRC it's a lot like Scheme (e.g. maybe the data sharing/translation story is more complicated?).

We do have some things that are helpful for dealing with unstructured text data, like a built-in LALR parser generator and regex matching (integrated with general pattern matching), but it's not one of the main use-cases we've been focused on.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I read a little more of the site after commenting. At first I thought it was about analytics (hence thinking of R), but it's also about embedding in an application to take action (make trades) as well.

It definitely sounds like an interesting language!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has been here a few times. Here's a link to a discussion a couple of years ago. I've found it to be an interesting project, though well outside my field of expertise.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14783539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14783539)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The language is quite interesting [https://github.com/Morgan- Stanley/hobbes#evaluation](https://github.com/Morgan- Stanley/hobbes#evaluation): e. g. anonymous variants, isorecursive types.</comment>


Ask HN: How creepy are Google and Facebook wireless? - <AUTHOR> I've recently noticed "Google wireless" at various Starbucks, which has a click-through accepting Google's usual "we own you" ToS, and also an even creepier "Facebook wireless" at a couple of coffee shops.  Any idea how much data they're harvesting if I don't use a VPN? <comment><USER2> Yikes. I would use a VPN, preferably one configured to use UDP over port 53.

<comment><USER3> I've never heard of this. What is the advantage over just using https via a VPN verified to do no logging?

<comment><USER4> With VPN all the traffic is encrypted, not just https... Plus , https might work for you, but your DNS requests are still plain text. You could use DNSCrypt and DNSSEC (combined).

A VPN though, makes your life so much easier, you just open the connection and router everything through it.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but that wasn't the question. The question was what does UDP over port 53 get you?

<comment><USER5> That's the port and protocol DNS queries used, therefore it is usually never blocked.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DOJ officials say labeling antifa as a terrorist group is 'highly problematic' - <AUTHOR> https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-vows-designate-antifa-terrorist-group-heres-doj/story?id=70999186 <comment><USER2> Antifa would have to become more organized and commit significant violence to earn a terrorist organization designation. I mean, if the far more organized and violent hate groups in the us haven't earned it, antifa isn't even in the running!</comment>


Crypto Vulnerabilities in AWS S3 SDK - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SchmiegSophie/status/1292930639772004352 <comment><AUTHOR> The last vulnerability [1] is super cool, as it allows to decrypt AES-GCM ciphertexts using an AES-CBC padding oracle!

The exploit is very efficient and fits in a tweet:

1\. Take C = E(K, IV) \xor P from GCM encryption

2\. Make a guess of P, send (IV \ xor PADDING) || (C \xor P_guess) to the CBC oracle where PADDING is a fixed constant. If the oracle returns that the padding is correct, P_guess is correct. Otherwise make another guess.

The root cause of the issue runs pretty deep. It's a class of crypto vulnerabilities we called "in-band protocol negotiation". That is, the ciphertext contains protocol-related parameters that determine how it should be decrypted. The JWT standard has this issue, which has led to countless "alg": "none" vulnerabilities. JWT is not alone, this mistake is presented in many other libraries or standards.

I wrote about how we avoid this issue in Tink [2] [3]:

>2/ A key in Tink contains not only the raw key material, but also all necessary parameters. It is equivalent to the result of a handshake. Before any data encryption can take place, both sides have to reach an agreement not only on a raw key, but also how to use that key to encrypt data. Since a key in Tink contains all parameters, Tink does not require in-band ciphersuite negotiation. That is no ciphertext in Tink contains any other metadata aside from a key ID.

>This design sounds so simple but I've seen people get this wrong all the time. For example, the root cause of many embarrassing vulnerabilities in JWT [1] is in-band ciphersuite negotiation. That is, a JWT contains an alg field that dictates how the receiver should process it. This alg field should rather be included as part of the key.

>JWT is not the only standard making this mistake. Many crypto libraries only ask users for the raw key material. This means the parameters are either implicitly assumed or under specified. Aside from the aforementioned vulnerabilities, this can also lead to key confusion, cross-protocol key reuse and make it hard to rotate keys or change algorithms.

>To the best of my knowledge, Tink is the only high-level library that gets this right.

[1] [https://github.com/google/security- research/security/advisor...](https://github.com/google/security- research/security/advisories/GHSA-7f33-f4f5-xwgw)

[2] [https://github.com/google/tink](https://github.com/google/tink)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23215652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23215652)</comment>