Internet-connected devices have fundamentally changed music itself: both its expression, and our engagement.
Music, in its current way, is consumed—at its best—as a session plate curated by a chef de cuisine familiar with his or her local edibles and dishes. At its worst, it is programmed and engineered like nuclear-holocaust-stable army food rations fabricated instead of cooked and served to us on driveby through a hole in the wall.
Our relentless lives persist, so we subsist on sustenance without nourishment and satisfaction without fulfillment.
Noticing he always put it on over the speakers in a coffee shop, I struck up a conversation with a young man who worked there about “lofi” music. He told me he leaves it on all the time, even once he’s gone, so that when he returns, “the vibe is already set.” Turns out, his favorite compilation was this one.
With over one million views, this compilation is something like a “lofi” standard.
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