About — Jamwise

I'm Dave, a writer and photographer with an obsession for human-made things. Jamwise is my project focused on learning about music from before computers learned to "create" it on their own in 2016.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with human music from after 2016. But there's an element of trust to focusing on a time period when you know everything is human made. From the vinyl years to the CD years to the streaming years, we'll cover it all. Because even though AI has given people the power to change all kinds of things that don't need to be changed, the one thing it can't change is history. Not on our watch.

Music fans of all ages are at a unique point in history. It's hard enough being old enough to remember when you didn't have to worry about whether you were listening to a plagiarized soulless mockery of real music. But I especially feel for the younger generations growing up with such a devalued musical experience. How are they supposed to embrace the music of their generation when so much of it is fabricated nonsense? How do we balance the respect for the current generation's need to express themselves with the skepticism we should have for fake music? It's an impossible problem.

So the least we can do is share the music we know to be real, made by humans, for humans.

[ Portrait ]

The house rules

Albums by humans

We focus on albums made by humans. That's pretty much the only rule. We'll try to avoid music that sucks, but hey, that's unavoidable when you're dealing with humans.

Forget the algorithm

We get our recommendations from people.

The album is the unit

We love albums, and although we may do playlists here and there, the majority of the writing at Jamwise is focused on the album, the musical unit the artist wanted us to have.

No ratings

Music is too personal and complicated to reduce to a single number. Nuance is a good thing, black and white is not.

Humans only, everywhere

All writing is by humans, period. In the very unlikely event we use a quote from an AI tool to make a joke or something, you'll know. Same goes for photography and any sick beats we release from Dave's Garageband folder.

Future Vision

Jamwise.org started as a personal project, but we're hoping to grow into something much more. As we grow, we're looking for ways to give back to the music community through education and charity. For now, the best way you can support Jamwise is by liking, commenting, and subscribing to our newsletter. We'll keep you posted on our causes and other ways to support when the time comes, but feel free to reach out to Dave in the meantime if you're part of any music-related charitable organization or cause, and we'll get you on the list.

Music from the time before AI