A Year of Listening Beyond the Algorithm

My habit of seeking out new music began with a few strokes of good luck. I grew up in a college town in the early to mid-nineties, during one of the golden eras of college radio. I spent a significant portion of my time with my ear pressed against a cheap hand-me-down AM/FM boom box, dialling through forests of static until I found a coherent tune from one of the stations broadcasting out of Ohio State University or a smaller school nearby. My older siblings were already in college, and they would return home with mixtapes ripped from their own campus radio stations, adding fresh sounds to my sonic universe. It wasn’t uncommon for me to hear new music and sense that it was altering my brain chemistry, in a way that I could palpably feel. I still remember hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the first time, huddled in the back seat of my oldest brother’s car and looking out of the window in joyful disbelief.