I keep ending up with AI music in my playlist when exploring for me music. What is your workflow to avoid it? Searching DDG for me has been more bandwidth intensive than I like…
Some background. My favorite song is a song I haven’t heard yet. And my appetite sways wildly. One month it’s old school urban rap, the next it’s kpop, and then Nordic death metal and so on.
I never know what I’ll be in the mood for but I’ll find a thread with a song I don’t know and use it to build play lists to see what I find and sometimes I find trash gems that way.
This last time our friend group watched Eurovision 2026 together and some of those songs are bangers. One of them led to adding a few artists built off of playlists from that song I really liked, and they all ended up being AI… damnit!
I listen to DJs on Twitch. I look up stuff on bandcamp.
Related bands are less likely to be AI than cold searches. You can also check to see if they have any social media influence, AI bands are unlikely to have any live clips
I’m doing those and they’re still getting in. But I don’t look to see if they have a presence until I’ve decided I want to know more about the band…
Definitely research them! Don’t just stop at a single song, find out what country they came from and who their influences are. You’ll start to piece together a mental map of the various bands you know, as well as discovering new bands that way.
I feel like I’ll need to do this every time I discover someone new…
I usually add new songs to one of my many themed playlists (platform of choice) then research more once I start to recognize them. Sometimes I get tired of them before then and just remove them.
If your kick is new music than you should just switch languages and listen to stuff pre 2022.
I listen to a ton of foreign language music. The 2022 piece would help but it won’t last for me. Young people are always coming up with new sounds and I love that!
Yeah and many of them are using AI to do it.
Given your genre flexibility, there is nearly infinite music out there from well before the was any question about it being human-made. You could easily listen to songs you’ve never heard back to back for the rest of your life without coming close to running out of old music.
For modern stuff you’ve basically got to see video of them performing live to be sure.
The video might be AI too.
Sadly that’s what it feels like it’s coming too. But I don’t just want to support artists of a given age…
I know. I want my cake and eat it too.
By checking out the Ukrainian metal band IGNEA.
Thank you! Listening to Dreams of Lands Unseen right now. Instant add to my playlist.
Pretty sure I’m adding everything they’ve published to my playlist! Currently listening to Incurable Disease at an unhealthy level and cannot get enough.
Thank you again!
By not updating my music taste for the last 15 years
Music peaked right around the time I was 20.
That may be when you stopped actively seeking new music. There are loads of amazing new artists in every genre. There is so much good new stuff coming out its hard to keep up.
Yeah, same.
Pretty much what every one of my friends have done. My kids were a great source in their late teens / early twenties. But as they’ve gotten older now they pretty much listen to the same stuff.
No, I’m not going to have more kids.
Be warned that all styles of music are getting AI inserted into them.
Your method works as long as you never use an algorithm to mix your playlist, but as soon as you do, you’re likely to get an AI track inserted into your ears.
I only sub to Deezer, a French streaming service that actively filters AI music and blocks it from their algorithms and search results.
What platform are you on? I haven’t experienced this in Apple Music but I often listen to the same stuff rather than going down discovery holes.
YouTube music…
I’ve tried to leave them before but I haven’t found a single platform that has more than 60% of the content I like that isn’t worse (Spotify for example).
I like the odd music so much from small creators I’d hate to lose it.
Seems like there are a few threads like this from 2025 where they just tell users to submit feedback but no way to block it yet it seems.
Probably more effective to cancel your account and tell them why you’re cancelling rather than sending feedback though 🤷♂️
I’m looking for another service right now that has enough of the music in my playlist to swap and do just this.
Plus it’s a family plan so a little extra sting.
But then I have to teach my mom the new service… I love her. But maybe not that much 😂♥️
I’d second this question - I use a lot of bancamp and so far it seems pretty ai-free
Listen to artists I know are human, if the artist doesn’t show up in a web search sorry but they gotta go its too risky
I personally would never listen to a song recommended by a machine. Gave pandora a real good shot but it always seems to recommend things I hate, along with Spotify, Apple, etc. so I just let the music find me. You are very lucky it has worked for you! I’ll bet there is a service out there for you that works. I’m also super not picky when it comes to music- don’t care what the lyrics are, as long as it’s a bop I’ll listen to it. In that regard, I would definitely listen to an AI song if I couldn’t tell. Never heard one like that but is the fact that it’s ai the only hangup? I refuse ai at work, web search, almost every aspect of my life, but I don’t think I would care if music was ai.
It’s my biggest hangup. As someone who thinks of themselves as an artist I hate thinking I’m helping crowd out artists and reward music plays from people who didn’t go through the effort to master music like that.
Just like I’ve never been able to pirate media (I’m old enough to have been around when MP3s killed music stores). I want the artist to be rewarded.
Maybe I’m being silly? But it’s important to me.
Nah I get that, dude! I guess I need to think about it more cuz I’m sure eventually I’ll have that moral conundrum. I’ll keep an eye out on my Apple Music, I think they stated they would have a watermark of some sort. If you’re using Spotify, definitely ditch that, Apple is so much more respectful to artists and the interface isn’t trash.
Look at that, Apple music has an android app. Silly me for not knowing. I’m gonna check my library against their stuff. It’s a provider I hadn’t considered!
Thank you.
I’m an android guy. But I was also an iPod guy. So I’m into it.
By listening to music from before AI slop existed.
I don’t stream music, I buy albums on Bandcamp pretty much exclusively for lack of better options. Then I play them to death, and buy another handful. Some piracy. Some vinyl purchases.
I haven’t come across any AI slop in my favourite genres top of the month lists on Bandcamp yet.
By not letting an AI choose what you hear.
Seems pretty obvious, really.
I used to only rely on people making recommendations but there just isn’t enough of that with the people I know unfortunately. Though you’re not wrong…
Using Bandcamp
https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/01/13/keeping-bandcamp-human/
The only time I hear AI music is when someone sends it to me. And since they usually tell me “they made it with AI,” I don’t actually listen to it. I haven’t used Spotify’s recommendation system for a while, since it became garbage long before AI was around, and I don’t listen to random music like on a radio or live podcast type thing. Occasionally it might be in a meme video, but it’s incredibly rare not least of which is because all the creators I tend to follow and watch also hate AI.
Never stumbled upon AI generated music ever.
I have my local library with ripped CDs and pirated music mostly from the 2010s and below.
When I feel like discovering new music, I
- browse forums to find arists similar to those I already listen to
- I search for artists that have been featured in a collab in songs I already listen to
- Or, I use ListenBrainz’s Weekly Exploration tab when I’m feeling bored.
No streaming bullshit, AI algorithms made to keep me hooked, and definetly no AI music to be seen or heard.
♥️♥️♥️
Also +1 to the guy that mentioned to listen to your local music scene! I have as many smaller local artists as I possibly can in my library. I’m always looking for random stickers on the streets or festival posters, and then I get home and look all of them up to see if they’re my jam.
I’ll need to do that. I don’t today. I will.
My answer is - buy music. Not only because that way you’ll get actual human works of art by real musicians who you like, but also because that way they stand a chance of actually being able to make a living so they can, y’know, make more music.
