Jonathan Coulton and the challenge of finding new good music

I only recently found out that the Portal credits song (Still Alive) and the old-but-funny Re: Your Brains are actually written by the same person, that’s Jonathan Coulton.

Here, do give them a listen if you haven’t (the former is admittedly much more funny if you’ve played Portal):

The good news is that Coulton’s got a lot more great music to rummage through, which is what I’m planning to be doing over the next few weeks.

On that note, it’s been talked about a bunch but I’m experiencing it as well: the older you get, the harder it becomes to discover new music I’d really like. I used to add new songs to my ‘master playlist’ (on Spotify, and now on Google Music) multiple times a week — and now it hardly happens once a month.

It also doesn’t help that the recommendation algorithms seem to be at a loss with the mess that is the music I play daily. Between a lot of instrumental music and movie and videogame soundtracks I play in the background when I work, the actual music I like to listen to, and a bunch of Dutch songs for kids (Juf Roos FTW), I’m not surprised most of the suggestions I get in the music apps make no sense.

That’s all to say, check out Jonathan Coulton if that sounds like your thing, and feel free to suggest what I should listen to in any way known to you.