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Ben Clarke

02 Jan 2026 — 1 min read

This is F*ck the Algorithm, a weekly music discovery newsletter for people who grew up on punk, metal and noise - and are bored of hearing the same records forever.

Algorithms are very good at feeding you your past, or serving you tunes that sound almost the same as the records you love.

If like me your playlists are dusty museums filled with 20-year-old favourites, this is your chance to break out of the loop - without pretending those songs never mattered.

Each week, F*ck the Algorithm delivers:

One hand-curated playlist
New music with a clear lineage
Brief context, not essays
No feeds, rankings or optimisation

Just music selected by a human, that's it. I can't promise you'll like it all, but at least you'll have been given the opportunity to decide for yourself.

Get notified when F*ck the Algorithm launches

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 005

I started this blog because things have changed. My own taste has shifted. The way we find music has been turned inside out. It used to be easy to tell who was 'mainstream' and who was 'underground’, but those lines have blurred - and it’s made

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 004

In last week’s issue, I shared some tracks that my younger self would have hated - thanks to that guy’s pig-headed stubbornness and blinkered world view. This week I’m switching gears and choosing a list of songs I’d have loved… if they had existed at the

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 003

When I was 20, quite a big part of my self-image hinged on the music I listened to and the fact I could rattle off long lists of bands I liked that few other people I met had heard of. Isn’t that fucking ridiculous? But as a music production

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 002

Once, in my early thirties, I was invited to a party full of kids in their very early twenties. 10-ish years isn’t much of an age difference when you’re talking 80-90, 60-70 or even 30-40, but the decade between 20 and 30 may as well be a century.

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F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 005

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 004

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 003

F*ck the Algorithm - Issue 002