The Verge runs a living recommendations column covering music, film, and books that algorithmic surfaces won't show you. The current list spans 17 entries: Mabe Fratti's experimental cello pop, Laurie Spiegel's 1980 ambient landmark 'The Expanding Universe', Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 cult horror film 'Possession', Mandy Indiana's 'URGH', M83's 'Dead Cities Red Seas and Lost Ghosts', Billy Woods' horrorcore record, Victor LaValle's novella 'The Ballad of Black Tom', Sudan Archives' violin-driven club music, the 2020 Netflix horror film 'His House', Manoush Zomorodi's 'Bored and Brilliant', the found-footage film 'Lake Mungo', The Body's 'I've Seen All I Need to See', Mariana Enriquez's Argentinian horror novel 'Our Share of Night', and the 1977 Japanese film 'House'.
The column's premise is direct: human curation beats recommendation engines. The Verge has covered this explicitly in a separate report on discovering music without algorithms. This list skews toward the obscure and old rather than new releases, which is the actual editorial choice worth noting. The individual entries are the real product here, each a short critical piece arguing why a specific work deserves your time.
The list updates regularly and accepts reader submissions via comments. If you follow one link, start with either the Laurie Spiegel or Billy Woods entries, where the writing makes the strongest case for works most readers will not have encountered.
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