YouTube's lo-fi music streams are all about the euphoria of less

[LearnedHand]

Dion Lewis was trying to make the best out of a difficult situation. Last August, when a storm left his Chicago neighborhood without electricity for a week, he improvised. Lewis had recently created a YouTube page for tutorials about the various aspects of computer programming called Code Pioneers, and that first night, unable to record, he decided to gather his wife and daughter for some quality time. Together in their living room surrounded by flickering candles, the three of them sat listening to songs Lewis “previously downloaded to use as background music” in his video tutorials. They included tracks like RalphReal’s “Mix It Up” and “Wallflowers” by the Portland experimentalist musician Bad Snacks.

Article: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/02/youtubes-lo-fi-music-streams-are-all-about-the-euphoria-of-less

I debated whether to post this in Music Appreciation, but put it here in GD because there may be others besides me who can’t listen to music with words while working. The compilations on YouTube are remarkable (like this one):

[tanyev]

1. Interesting.

I find myself fascinated by a lot of the background music in video tutorials. Sometimes it’s something I find annoying, but often it is music I would enjoy just having in the background. I do get too distracted by songs with lyrics to have that playing while I’m reading or working.

[LearnedHand]

5. I do as well

It’s not so bad right now, given I’m not in a noisy office. But it was hard to find non-distracting music when I was in my cube farm.

[cbdo2007]

2. Yeah there are many names for this music...another is "chill hop"

or chill step or just binaural beats. This is all the type of stuff I have going while I work.

If I want a little heavier without words I will search for buckethead mix and a ton of those come up too which are just great heavy background guitar music with no words.

[LearnedHand]

4. I tried listening to binaural beats a few times

But they amped up my nervous system (a truly bizarre reaction) instead of soothing. It was weird, almost like nervous system hyperventilation. Thanks for the other name for this type of music. I was searching Spotify for similar playlists and not having much luck.

[lunasun]

3. ++LoFi is what my teen has been listening to for about 2 years or more. We are in Chicago