6 Must-Hear Web Radio Shows That Beat The Algorithm

In recent days, music consumption has gleefully lent itself to the internet’s automated impulse. Even listening to songs on YouTube—like 42% of people aged 18 to 24—is becoming an uninvited game of chess, as auto-playing suggestions bookend every stream and almost always fuck up the vibe. Still, human music selectors—or DJs, as they were known in an earlier time—are working online as if nothing has changed. Web radio stations operate in peaceful opposition to the Internet’s commercial forces, choosing simply not to participate in it. Much like the pirate radio stations of previous generations, online channels are finding ways to disturb the consumer-friendly model for music, replacing it with something human and unpredictable.

It’s easy to imagine the world slipping into some dystopia where decisions belong to an all-seeing algorithm. Listening to a real person over the internet has a way of calming that anxiety, so here are some of the best online radio shows for when those "next" recommendations are too off, or worse, too on.