
YouTube autoplay gave a lost Japanese classic new life (2017) - rwnspace
https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/35465/1/midori-takada-through-the-looking-glass-interview
======
JDiculous
The problem with Youtube autoplay is that at some point it just keeps
recommending the same 3-5 songs you've already listened to over and over
again. I was listening to music on Youtube just now and they just auto-played
the previous playing song. Because of this you can't rely on Youtube to play
music at say a party unless you make a playlist in advance (which Youtube
doesn't allow you to do while you're listening to music on desktop, which is
just negligently awful UX).

Why can't they fix this? It'd be extremely simple to implement basic logic to
prevent recommending you the same songs you've already listened to over and
over again - or even perhaps give you the option to prevent recommending you
songs you've already listened to altogether. But as it is right now, there is
no way to customize your recommendations other than selecting "not interested"
on individual videos/channels.

How is Youtube's recommendation engine this awful? How come you still can't
search for and queue up your next video while you're playing a video? It's not
exactly rocket science to fix these. Isn't Google supposed to have the "best"
engineers?

~~~
ouchjars
> How come you still can't search for and queue up your next video while
> you're playing a video?

I have actually gotten this feature about a week ago. I suppose it's slowly
and quietly rolling out.

But without that, you can add to the end of a playlist that's currently
playing, as long as there's a buffer after the current video. The tab that's
playing the playlist reloads the queue when proceeding to the next video.

~~~
asxd
As in you’re working on a YouTube team? Sounds like great forward progress!
Can you give any comment on the repeated autoplays? Seems like that would
indeed be a relatively simple feature that would add a lot of value.

------
jeffFrom18F
Somewhat related: The Youtube algorithm also recently lead me to this Japanese
musician I wasn't familiar with: (Ryo Fukui - A letter from slowboat)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVV_z1lBNLo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVV_z1lBNLo)

Sounds like it would go really well with winter.

~~~
krilly
Ryo Fukui has been very popular for a long time with the /mu/ sort of crowd.
There's a group of artists (ryo fukui, animal collective, neutral milk hotel,
the antlers, mount eerie, destroyer, the avalanches, gsybe, etc) which are
basically a clique in the music recommendations graph. Although they aren't
very close to each other genre wise, they are safe bets as a recommendation
for anyone who listens to any music in the /mu/core 'genre'.

~~~
CydeWeys
What's /mu/? Is it something related to 4chan?

~~~
YaxelPerez
Yeah. It's a board on 4chan.

------
yborg
Then there was the strange period where a stuck anode somewhere in the Youtube
recommendation engine seemed to be offering up Mariya Takeuchi's "Plastic
Love" to everyone...

~~~
2bitencryption
In general, whatever model Youtube uses seems to get really obsessed with
certain concepts every once in awhile.

A few years ago, for about a month it was obsessed with videos of red-hot
knives cutting through things. It was ridiculous. To the point where
"professional Youtubers" with no previous history of videos like that needed
to ride that wave just to be relevant.

Think about it: some person in their house heating up a kitchen knife over the
stove so they can cut through a bar of soap, simply because an algorithm
decided that's what people on some video site want to see.

Then it was Family Guy clips, which is still happening.

And "relaxing low-fi music to study/relax to", which I'm pretty sure at least
a billion people on planet Earth have seen recommended to them at some point.

I'm sure there are many other examples, those are the ones I remember.

~~~
empath75
YouTube kept offering me videos of lockpickinglawyer for months and months
despite having no interest in lockpicking or lawyers then one day I finally
gave in and watched a half dozen of them and now it’s my entire recommendation
feed.

~~~
smegger001
Oh you too? Youtube been shoving his videos at me for the last month or two.
The only thing I could think of is that Youtube started data mining a back log
of old google searches and got to the mild interest I had in lock picking from
like 10 years ago.

~~~
taejo
I don't think it's that specific... I got them and so did loads of my friends.
I think the algorithm just decided that everyone with vaguely nerdy interests
will now see lockpickinglawyer.

------
rideontime
Radicalization by Youtube recommendations is real, and I'm living proof. My
music library is nothing but Japanese jazz fusion and city pop now.

~~~
mg74
hmm, can you share a good starting place for Japanese jazz fusion?

~~~
rideontime
The short answer: click any of the links below and let the algorithm guide
you.

The long answer:

Casiopea ([https://youtu.be/vKOekWuzk3o](https://youtu.be/vKOekWuzk3o)) and
T-Square ([https://youtu.be/3p9L7CV-HcI](https://youtu.be/3p9L7CV-HcI)) are
the standard bearers of the genre.

Masayoshi Takanaka's An Insatiable High
([https://youtu.be/9cuxrkZeai8](https://youtu.be/9cuxrkZeai8)) is one of those
albums that the algorithm pushes on everyone, and for good reason. Extremely
funky. The Rainbow Goblins
([https://youtu.be/MzYD56hKF-8](https://youtu.be/MzYD56hKF-8)) is also
impressive - a concept album based on a children's book. I'd recommend
anything 1985 or earlier from Takanaka - after that, he starts to get a little
cheesy.

Another personal favorite is Naoya Matsuoka. Everything that comes up when you
search his name is great, so here's a live video that won't (unless you search
the kanji): [https://youtu.be/-yQv7_tK3X8](https://youtu.be/-yQv7_tK3X8)

Other favorites:

Piper: [https://youtu.be/sopcI4vTsuU](https://youtu.be/sopcI4vTsuU)
[https://youtu.be/x8NgdjffLIY](https://youtu.be/x8NgdjffLIY)

Makoto Matsushita:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP6GoSnDKGw&list=OLAK5uy_mS3...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP6GoSnDKGw&list=OLAK5uy_mS3gdysbxM6a2Dqhdbr5Gz7Y8lNCGNITQ)

AB's: [https://youtu.be/bDaQw8Tw8Jg](https://youtu.be/bDaQw8Tw8Jg)

Noriki: [https://youtu.be/HdG-Xg2n108](https://youtu.be/HdG-Xg2n108)

Himiko Kikuchi: [https://youtu.be/l_4WcHNjjV0](https://youtu.be/l_4WcHNjjV0)

And some channels that post a lot of various j-fusion and city pop:

Xerf Xpec:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkfmbKrdAH3_NHkbAZhWqIw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkfmbKrdAH3_NHkbAZhWqIw)

Marcel the Drunkard:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMLGyzBt5zkPqCLrF5l10Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMLGyzBt5zkPqCLrF5l10Q)

~~~
loquor
I'm surprised you didn't shoehorn Tatsuro Yamashita in despite your username,
haha.

~~~
rideontime
finally someone noticed! but they asked for fusion.

------
dredmorbius
1\. Musical taste is very highly subjective. There is arguably "bad" music,
but there's a great deal of "good" music which fails to break through into
popularity. Or which, having once been popular, falls from grace. Johann
Sebastian Bach is a notable instance of this -- he'd languished into near
complete obscurity until "rediscovered" (IIRC by Mendelsohn). One consequence
is that a large portion of the Bach opus has been lost.

More recently there've been experiments in which multiple groups are exposed
to non-mainstream music, separately. Each group picks "hits", but what's
popular among one group isn't generally shared with others.

2\. The music industry itself acts as a gatekeeper to the genre, both in
selecting hits _and_ in blocking access to alternative productions (or of
alternative acts' and songwriters' access to the hit-making machine). Barry
Kerner has covered one response to this in his book _Pop Song Piracy:
Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929_ , covering among other elements,
fakebooks, songsheets, cassettes, and MP3s:

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-
music/articl...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-
music/article/pop-song-piracy-disobedient-music-distribution-since-1929-by-
barrykernfeld-2011-chicago-il-university-of-chicago-press-312-pp-
isbn-9780226431833/585836C307B79FD42768F57984F8ECCF)

The "New Books Network" podcast series has an extended interview:

[https://newbooksnetwork.com/barry-kernfeld-pop-song-
piracy-d...](https://newbooksnetwork.com/barry-kernfeld-pop-song-piracy-
disobedient-music-distribution-since-1929-university-of-chicago-press-2011-3/)

3\. The YouTube channel responsible for promoting the works in question ...
has seen them taken down due to copyright claims. Ironic irony is ironically
ironic.

~~~
dragandj
> Johann Sebastian Bach is a notable instance of this -- he'd languished into
> near complete obscurity until "rediscovered" (IIRC by Mendelsohn).

I believe that was Beethoven, not JS Bach.

~~~
dredmorbius
Not according to my sources.

As an example of the lost Bach works, he composed a full five liturgical years
of works: a cantata for each Sunday, and for each Holy Day (ten or fifteen per
year), a Passion for each of Christmas and Easter. Of the five years, we have
two and a fraction -- that's well over 100 works that are lost to all time.

By contrast, Beethoven never lost popularity or awareness. So far as we're
aware, _none_ of his works are lost, and there are in fact numerous
"juvenalia" \-- immature works, not included in the standard opus catalog,
which survive.

------
briga
Never would have expected this to make it to the front of HN, but I'm glad it
did. This album is well worth listening to, especially the closing track
Catastrophe Σ. Even though it's something of an ambient classic today there's
not a lot of music that sounds like it outside of the Steve Reich school of
minimalism. It captures a little of the explosion of creativity that took
place in Japanese culture in the 80s and 90s, and it's great to see that it's
managed to break through to Western audiences.

For the record I also discovered this album through YouTube. Through
discussions with my colleagues I get the feeling that a lot of what gets
recommended to me on YouTube isn't unique to me. Millions of hours of content
uploaded a day and somehow we all end up watching the same stuff. Funny how
that works.

------
Pils
An article that sheds more light on the Japanese reissue scene:
[https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3446](https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3446).

------
semiotagonal
Ironically, for all the discussion of YouTube in the article, it links to the
music on SoundCloud.

~~~
smoyer
And if you follow the YouTube link in the article, you'll find that the
"video" was taken down due to a copyright claim.

~~~
zxyc
Since that YouTube buzz, the album as been remastered and re-released. (And
the artist went on tour after years of inactivity!!)

------
resheku
not bad but also not quite as good as Hiroshi Yoshimura Green is just amazing
for this kind of ambient sounds
[https://youtu.be/D7aYjRl_6Zw](https://youtu.be/D7aYjRl_6Zw)

~~~
welanes
Came here to post exactly this.

 _Music For Nine Post Cards_ is also a real gem:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyY7NU4cbtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyY7NU4cbtY).

Much respect to the uploaders giving these albums a digital rebirth.

~~~
thirdsun
It is a true gem.

However Yoshimura has been a legend among collectors and in ambient circles
long before Youtube was around and I think we should give greater credit to
the countless labels that work on re-issuing these long lost gems and making
them widely available. In this particular case it's Empire of Signs and Light
In The Attic: [https://lightintheattic.net/releases/3538-music-for-nine-
pos...](https://lightintheattic.net/releases/3538-music-for-nine-post-cards)

------
ginko
Youtube used to be excellent for discovering new music. A while ago I was
really into Baroque music and kept finding new and interesting composers I've
never heard of.

This seems to have completely dried up by now. These days autoplay seems to
always end in a rather short loop of the same songs and the breadth of obscure
stuff, especially for classical music seems to have gone in general.

I find that Spotify is way better for discovery these days, even though it's
quite useless for classical music for various reasons(mainly because there's
no single 'artist' with classical music).

------
pryelluw
If you enjoy this or want to venture further go look for An Insatiable High Lp
and Casipea (Mint Jams). Suuuuper smooth fusion.

~~~
dEnigma
Funnily enough both of those were recommended to me by the YouTube algorithm.

------
glax
And I'm learning to make my own Micro Turbine Engine. Few months ago my feed
was full of Synthwave Music. Youtube sometimes work s in mysterious ways.

By the way check this crazy russian's channel. He made a turbo shaft BMW.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb9_Bhv37NXN1m8Bmrm9x9w/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb9_Bhv37NXN1m8Bmrm9x9w/videos)

------
corey_moncure
The first track is very reminiscent of Geoff Knorr's work on the Civilization
V soundtrack. Maybe they have a common inspiration somewhere.

------
djohnston
Obligatory plastic love link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bNITQR4Uso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bNITQR4Uso)

a japanese funk classic i'm very glad i was introduced to via autoplay

