Recommendation systems for music are very popular, and I've used a few of them. But, as with seemingly everything, I don't like a lot of the culture surrounding it: it appears so flippant. There seems to be a constant, blinding desire to find new music to listen to rather than acquiring deep appreciation of any single piece of music. While there's no doubt that there is probably more great music than we can listen to in a normal lifetime, an obsessive quest to devour it all seems against the very spirit of the music. There should be time interjected between major discoveries, so that we can take pause and really think about what we have already experienced. Otherwise, even if you end up liking everything along the way, it really starts to become a game of keeping up with the rest of the world, which is quite devaluing to all involved.

(I accept some guilt in this state of music-as-a-game, by the way: I get into this mode when I sometimes try to plow through my backlog of unheard CDs. So this is really directed as much at myself than this (possibly imaginary?) community of recommendation over-users.)