“In the late 1980s human beings were your YouTube algorithm. Flesh-and-blood people introduced you to the music that changed your life.” —Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and and Tod talk about Tod’s experience of being in the Jane’s Addiction “Stop!” video (3:00); Rolf reads his essay about discovering the album “Nothing’s Shocking” in 1989 (7:00); Rolf and Tod discuss what it was like to see Jane’s Addiction in the southern California music scene of the mid-late 1980s, versus what listening to AOR radio music was like in the middle of the country (19:30); how radio programming, independent record stores, and personal relationships dictated musical tastes in the 1980s, and how music enabled certain alternative lifestyles (30:00); how Jane’s Addiction influenced the sound of certain 1990s Seattle grunge bands, (38:00); what it’s like when you’re older to listen to music you loved when you were young, and how online algorithms and new technologies have changed the way people now listen to music (44:00); and the legacy of bands like Jane’s Addiction and how they changed the way we listen to music now.

Novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg) is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the novel Gangsterland, which is currently being developed into a television series for Amazon. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast.

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How music affects you when you’re young (or, the joys of Jane’s Addiction)

Deviate

How music affects you when you’re young (or, the joys of Jane’s Addiction)