Comment by quesera

> There was a tiny amount of it played on college radio, but it would be something like one show a week from 2 AM to 3 AM on Sunday morning

> We found things. ... No one curated it for us.

I think you're getting to the essence of good curation.

That college radio show is exactly curation. The record label that put out the hardcore 7"s is curation. The record store is curation. The kid who bought a record and made copies for friends is a curator.

Word of mouth is the strongest curation.

What's missing today is the human. The college radio DJ is a human curator, and is much more idiosyncratic and humanely engaging than an optimized-for-content-or-cost algorithmic curator.

Algorithms might work for very mainstream (or nonspecific) tastes -- and actually it is self-reinforcing on that level. But it fails badly for nichier stuff. And it is in direct opposition to those of us for whom "different" is/was part of our personal or group identity. :)