59 Comments
Jul 14, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

I loved this long form interview ep! And also enjoyed last week's on airplane coffee. (I listened to that one in the car with my cheery mom who's in her 50's. She seemed to enjoy it) I'm so happy you're making a podcast again! I can't wait to see what search engine has in store.

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Jul 14, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

That play list is like if Kalefa just went through my most recently played songs and wrote them down - love it.

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Jul 14, 2023Liked by PJ Vogt

PJ! The timing of this is perfect! I was just thinking this week about a friend’s concept of a musical “death,” the point at your life in which you stop seeking and hearing new music. When I look at my iTunes, it was 2012 -- almost all the music I’ve acquired since then was from bands I knew before then.

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Jul 14, 2023Liked by PJ Vogt

This title speaks to me more than I’d like to admit...

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I'm sorry to be that guy, but (as an aging punk-adjacent lady) I was really excited to check it out, and then scrolled down the post, saw the playlist, and ... not one single girl on the thing? woof

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Jul 28, 2023Liked by PJ Vogt

100% agree! PJ - Some all female bands in the punk/post-punk space: punk/post-punk space: Big Joanie, Destroy Boys, Gully Girls, Bleached, Tacocat, bully, illuminati hotties; Wet Leg, Potty Mouth.

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Jul 14, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

My man, I'm even older than you, please make a big button with PAY TO SUBSCRIBE HERE somewhere so my dumb old ass can upgrade.

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Jul 14, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

I can't tell you how much I related to this. As a geriatric millennial (and dad of two) I've struggled to keep my love of finding new music alive. Thank you for the playlists, thanks for introducing me to Kelefa (whose book I just bought) and thanks for the show, as always. ✌️

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Aug 11, 2023Liked by PJ Vogt

Soma FM is great! Secret Agent, Groove Salad and Drone Zone are my favorites!

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Thank You PJ and Kelefa! this epsisode - Hard Core - struck me in so many crazy good ways. Hearing the Fugazi clip flung me back to 1994 and I sang along - rocking out like the 45 year old nerd music lover I am.

By the way the 'skinheads' mentioned were 'S. H. A. R. P. s' - Skin Heads Against Racial Predjudice.... common in the old punk and pop punk scene...

Growing up I was a skater girl who worked hard in school but was pretty quiet... However when it came to music I was the anti gate keeper... always bringing new people to shows... breaking down the gate.

You mentioned a coma scenerio - I was actually in a 3 month coma in 1995 - went into a coma - woke up to AOL and superman, Christopher Reeves being paralyzed... it was the strangest experience I've ever had.... My best friend Butch, the singer for a punk band called 30FootFall saved my life that day....

and like the awesome Playlist... Butch (who still plays and is now a Doctor)s email for decades has been

agingpunk@.....com

Just wanted to share this with you and say thanks for this episode. I consistently seek out new good music and my wish for you is that you find some new tunes that touch that good brain space that music does.

I truly Love Search Engine - it has earned a place in my top 3...keep up the wonderful work:)

Keep Learning and Stay Curious.

Thanks for your Time, Effort and Love you pour into the show!

Respectfully,

Deirdre

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author

What a great note. Thanks!

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Jul 16, 2023Liked by Sruthi Pinnamaneni

It would be so awesome if moving forward people talked about new episodes of Search Engine using the metric "how much would Scott's Teenager have enjoyed this episode?"

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As a 60 year old music fan, I'm constantly finding new music to love. Seems like the older I get the more open minded I get. As a kid I was a heavy metal/hard rock fan, but as the years rolled by I added more and more genre's. I don't care about "today's hits", but the beauty of today's music industry is that so many talented people can self publish and there is so much good stuff out there. Expand your horizons and find some new under the radar acts. Bandcamp is a good place to root around. KEXP has some great live sets online too.

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This episode resonated with me a lot. I'm also 37 and also love pop culture/arts/entertainment so much that I try very hard to stay current with whatever new artists arise, but it's hard because sometimes I just... don't like them? Or like you, would prefer to listen to older stuff?

But, at the risk of sounding like a middle school art teacher (not that there's anything wrong with that), something that's broken me out of my musical comfort zone is listening to various world music stations on Spotify. The Sahara playlist is my jam now, as are various Ethiopian jazz and Middle Eastern '70s disco playlists. They might not be "the culture", but they're new to me and they're f*cking awesome. They'll definitely break you out of a rut, even if they're not what's being played on TikTok.

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Exactly! Forget the dominant culture and follow your heart. There are dozens of genres and sub-genres of music from around the world with histories as deep and wide (if not deeper and wider) than the comparatively narrow lanes presented as accepted paradigms. Good for you for seeing past that myopia.

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Kelefa was a great guest but I very much want to know who Kelefa’s bleeped artist was. I’m assuming someone massive like Beyoncé or Drake.

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The length of the bleep (and the few sentences of conversation around it) sounded like Taylor Swift to me, but yeah, Beyoncé would fit too.

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I thought Taylor, too. Does Drake even have rabid fans, in the organized, Bey Hive/K-pop fashion?

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I totally went Beyoncé on the first bleep and Taylor Swift on the second longer one

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My guess was also Beyonce or Taylor Swift! But leaning toward the latter.

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I can’t tell if we’re all spot on or the kind of people who listen to Search Engine aren’t generally the kind of people who like Beyoncé or Taylor Swift

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I think the latter!

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I only listened to this podcast yesterday and absolutely thought Taylor Swift.

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BTS. What other artist/group can be so unconditionally dismissed while having a fanbase worthy of fear?

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Great episode, the guest was very interesting. If people are still looking for ways to find new music - for years I've listened to the BBC's 'Radio 6 music - New music fix'

It definitely leans more to British independently signed artist but there have been so many gems I've discovered through the years. It's not just one person either, they always have guests on representing different genres, highly recommend

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Any chance we could get some insight into those New York hip-hop revival suggestions? That's what I was most interested about.

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So, not necessarily NYC boom-bap (my personal favs are Gang Starr, Group Home, Jeru, Nas, Mobb Deep, etc.) but here are a few new rappers I really enjoy: Rome Streetz, Baby Keem, J Cole, JID, Westside Gunn.

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I find most of my stuff on niche subreddits and then look for the bands/artists that the bands/artists i find on reddit listen to.

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