8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Punching the Disinfo Machine

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This Spotify dust-up is fascinating, isn’t it? I spent much of the last 48 hours talking with people about it, explaining what’s going on, and mildly debating it (though please remember that I don’t argue on the internet). People have questions and there’s still a lot to understand about a situation that’s starting to feel like a runaway train. I thought it would be fun and helpful to do a self-Q&A to clear up some things and offer an opinion on why I believe this is a meaningful moment.


• Why pick on Spotify? There are awful content and disinformation podcasts distributed by Apple, Amazon, and more. Is it hypocritical to leave Spotify but remain with the others?

It’s hard not to argue that under late capitalism any large corporation will end up going down a dark path (just ask the folks who eventually removed “Don’t be evil” as their unofficial motto). Thus sole reliance on any corporation, especially for one’s artistic output, is something to avoid whenever possible. There’s also the messy perception of shared endorsement when the platform one relies on does nasty things.

While disinformation is undesirable on any platform (and the climate change denial stuff concerns me just as much as the pandemic stuff) there is a difference in how Spotify participates in its distribution. Spotify’s relationship with Joe Rogan’s podcast involves a layer that’s more complex than other negligent platforms that host disinformation podcasts.

Spotify paid Joe Rogan over 100 million dollars for exclusive rights to the podcast. That’s a lot. And artists and subscribers aren’t entirely wrong in feeling like they help pay for that by utilizing the platform. And, by paying this much for a single property, it’s in Spotify’s interest to relentlessly promote that property. In my experience, Rogan’s podcast is the top podcast recommendation on the Spotify dashboard a lot more often than it isn’t. I’ve never listened to a podcast through Spotify in my life but, almost without fail, there it is. Recommended for me and, I’m sure, recommended for you as well.

Those are the things that Neil Young et al. find most disturbing, which differ from, say, how Apple hosts toxic podcasts on its platform. This doesn’t excuse Apple or anyone else — pretty much every platform is guilty to some degree. Which I think is another reason why we’re picking on Spotify: there’s a sense of helplessness in the sea of disinformation and targeting Spotify feels slightly hopeful. It’s a message delivered to a company financially invested in the disinformation and a tangible loss (in invested money or share price) might make other platforms think twice.

Admittedly, this sounds quixotic. But I don’t think that’s a reason not to strive for a world we’d like to live in.

• Why are Neil Young and Joni Mitchell the ones pulling music off Spotify and not any current top artists?

The particulars of major label artist deals are varied and tricky and often put the artist at a disadvantage in distribution decisions with their catalog. (I released three albums through a major in the late ’90s and there is no way that I’m able to pull those off Spotify.) No matter how big newer artists are (and I’m talking ones who came up in the last 20 years) they are most likely still locked into contracts that last multiple releases and decades. So, it’s not surprising that ‘legacy’ artists are ones able to do this as they’ve gone through at least a few renegotiations, theoretically able to get better terms and more control each time.

But — many legacy artists also have their hands tied, thanks to those huge payout publishing acquisition deals that have been happening. Neil Young may have negotiated the final say over where his songs can appear in his recent deal (and Warner Bros is an accomodating partner) but it’s possible Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen didn’t. We don’t know. Related: this tweet from David Crosby.

• What about Taylor Swift? She kept her music off Spotify before. Wasn’t the whole point of leaving Big Machine Records to gain control of her music rights?

As for Taylor Swift, we can only guess at why she won’t (or will she) do anything. She did sign a new deal with Universal Music Group after her fights with Spotify and Apple, so her amount of control may have changed (and I assume she was aided in those fights by a label that was apparently sympathetic with her wishes, which would be ironic). Yes, her owning her masters was publicly a big part of the Universal deal, but I bet that ownership comes over time (10 years after the release date on a recording, for example) rather than right away — but different than the perpetuity of her Big Machine terms so better for her in the long run.

Plus, the fact that Swift has an antagonistic relationship with her former label which controls most of her recordings probably means she couldn’t remove everything even if Universal agreed.

• OK, if the artists can’t remove music from Spotify shouldn’t they at least all speak out?

Yes, a lot of these artists that don’t have control over their recordings could and probably should speak out — and some are! But there’s the danger everyone doing the “thoughts and prayers” thing could become performative overkill and fade with no real bite like tweeting a black box did. In my opinion, if an artist really wants to make an impact, don’t mention Spotify at all in posts, on the artist’s website, and in public (unless to occasionally remind listeners not to go there) — send fans to other platforms. Bandcamp’s a great choice.

• I can’t help but think that Neil Young and Joni Mitchell won’t have enough impact. Only older music fans care about them, not the demographic that Spotify wants to reach.

Hey, I’m a Gen X’er who likes Neil Young — I was converted after seeing him out-feedback Sonic Youth in the early ’90s. But, okay, Neil and Joni may mainly appeal to the ‘olds.’ You know what, though? Large and important parts of the music industry are still being run by the olds (including the journalistic side). The impact may be subtler and greater than you might think.

• Where do you think this is going?

My hope is that we’re another step closer to a split in the music industry and how music is consumed. That wouldn’t be anything new — until streaming came along, the independent label and artist ecosystem existed separately from the corporate one with some overlap. The introduction of streaming brought the promise that those sides could live peacefully under one roof (or platform). We’re starting to see the problems and ethical conflicts brought about by that notion. Here’s something from 2019 I wrote on this topic and, surprise, Neil Young plays a role in that post, too.

User-Centric Dreaming

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User-Centric Dreaming → The user-centric streaming royalty model — explained and critiqued here — was the focus of a new study by the National Music Centre in France. Using data from Deezer (who are publicly open to exploring this model) and Spotify (who aren’t but might be shifting), the study determined a small advantage for niche artists, offset by the amount of major label back-catalog material that makes up the majority of streams. Here’s Stuart Dredge in Musically:

There is plenty more to parse from this new study, such as the likely increases for genres like classical music, jazz, metal and blues (and corresponding drops for streaming’s biggest genres: rap and hip-hop). Meanwhile, catalogue music is a beneficiary, which – again, as indicated in previous studies – is one reason why user-centric might not be the redistribution of revenues from major labels to independents that might have been expected.

The user-centric model dispenses of the system of pooled royalties that go out to artists streamed on platforms like Spotify. Instead, a listener’s subscription money only goes to the artists that a listener streams. So, if you listen to nothing but Merzbow1preferably at an ear-splitting volume on Spotify Premium for 30 days, then all of your $9.99 monthly subscription fee goes to Merzbow.

This model may not change the royalty pay-outs much, according to the study. But I’m still into the model for two reasons. First of all, I feel like it would give listeners more emotional investment in the artists they stream. I want to think we’d feel an additional connection with our listening choices, knowing that our streams contain direct support for our favorite artists. Though it’s worth noting, the much-maligned per-stream rate isn’t likely to change.2Though, as a Spotify Premium subscriber, if you only listened to one Merzbow song in a month, then that single stream is worth $9.99. Crazy, eh?

Second, and more significantly, the user-centric model would destroy the shadow industry of stream farms. These are the “pay X amount of dollars for ten thousand streams” folks who load songs into a wall of smartphones, playing a song on each repeatedly to increase stream counts. These plays also theoretically increase the royalties paid to the farmed songs, but it’s at the expense of other artists legitimately streamed on the platform because of royalty pooling. Under a user-centric model, if the stream farm pays $9.99 for a premium account, then the only potential royalty from that account comes out of that $9.99, even if the song is looped a kazillion times. And it won’t affect the royalties of valid artists.

As the Musically article points out, right now, this is all pie-in-the-sky thinking. That’s because for the adoption of the user-centric model, the major labels — many of whom are Spotify shareholders — would have to agree to it. As the model helps niche artists, even slightly, the majors are not going to let this happen.

Anyhoo … want to grok some more pros-and-cons on user-centric streaming? This analysis of how the model changes an artist’s digital marketing strategy, via Bas Grasmayer and his excellent MUSIC X newsletter, is an illuminating read.

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Daniel Lanois on WTF with Marc Maron + Rick Rubin on The Moment with Brian Koppelman → Possibly the best thing I did all week was listening to these two podcasts back-to-back. These conversations illustrate how a music producer’s role can overlap with some combination of philosopher, personal coach, and crisis manager. It’s not just about drum sounds and reverb. Lanois talks specifics about the process of wrangling great work from icons (and their giant egos), and Rubin expands on that with the big picture view. I recommend you listen in that order — a masterclass in the mindsets required to inspire others into action, not just applicable to inside a recording studio. Bonus: this interview with Trevor Horn conducted by Prince Charles Alexander (also a producer of renown) has a lot more ‘shop talk’ than the previous two but is still a fascinating listen. Horn is such an engaging interviewee. 

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Burdy – Satellite → Back in the ’90s, all of us downtempo-headz listened to lots of Fila Brazillia and the other artists inhabiting the Hull, UK, imprint Pork Recordings. One act that stood out was Baby Mammoth, a duo who shared Fila’s knack for melody and sly rhythmic constructions. An amicable gent named Burdy was one-half of Baby Mammoth. We ended up becoming friends thanks to his semi-frequent sojourns to the US, where we often DJ’ed the same club nights. After a couple of solo releases and a stint as an Australian, Burdy took a long break from music-making. Now he reaches out from his new base in chilly Canada, surprising us with a delightful album of fresh music. Satellite is out today on Filtered Deluxe Recordings and features ten tracks that won’t disappoint fans of the Mammoth or their Pork label-mates. The songs feature Burdy’s sense of melody, sense of humor (“Murder Hornets,” anyone?), and his sense of style. Meaning, this is stylish stuff — pleasantly sloping beats, a rush of organic and electronic instrumentation, and vibes for days (or daze) make me wistful for when we used to pack dance floors with 100 BPMs and below. Start with the second track, “Kananaskis,” with its road-movie guitar, watery bounce, and cryptic chants, immediately pulling you in for the long haul. 

Infect the Mainstream

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Spotify Song Purge → There’s something fishy going on in streaming-land, according to entertainment lawyer Wallace Collins:

It appears that on January 1, 2021, Spotify enacted a massive, global takedown of music from thousands of independent artists. Upon information and belief, some 750,000 songs were removed, the vast majority of which appear to have used Distrokid for distribution. This appears to be targeted at any independent artist who used a third party playlist or independent marketing service to promote their music – or any third party advertising outside of the Spotify platform … in the case of my particular clients, we are talking about legitimate third party advertising and promotional services as opposed to “bots” or other artificial means of generating increased streams.

It’s worth noting that Spotify has a financial stake in Distrokid, which was also named by the platform as one of its ‘preferred distributors.’ If Collins’s info is accurate, then this is an embarrassing moment for Distrokid. Hypebot spoke to a source within Spotify who claims the purge wasn’t as dramatic and didn’t favor Distrokid.

I also wonder, outside of Collins’s clients (who surely make up only a tiny percentage of that 750k), if these removals are mostly due to bootlegs and identical track schemes. Spotify has received recent bad press about podcasts filled with unlicensed songs and the proliferation of ‘white noise scammers.’ Knowledge of these issues has floated around for a while, but a featured article in Variety might be the thing to inspire this sudden action.

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The Toxic Music Svengali → Phil Spector’s death is renewing uncomfortable — but necessary — conversations about the artist’s separation from the art. Generally, it’s okay to appreciate the beautiful art of horrible people. But the artist doesn’t get a pass when the art is brilliant and influential. BBC News’s flubbing of Spector’s obituary headline illustrates the outrage of not understanding this nuance. Laura Snapes addresses this eloquently today in The Guardian:

Spector is known as the innovator of the “wall of sound” recording technique and countless moments of pop sublimity. They are inextricable from his everyday barbarism, waving guns around and holding them to musicians’ heads to enforce his will. The combination created a pernicious infamy: if the songs are so majestic, then the behaviour must be justifiable. Where Spector’s famous “boom-cha-boom-cha” drum sound on Be My Baby (played by Hal Blaine) instantly summons a pristine moment in pop history, Spector’s living legacy is that of music industry abuse going unchecked because the art is perceived as worth it – or worse, considered “proof” of wild and untameable genius.

The whole piece is worth reading, addressing a history of behind-the-scenes producers (all men) using aloofness and supposed genius to excuse terrible behavior. As Snapes notes, “Not all producers are violent predators, but the role offers ample cover for anyone who chooses to exploit it.”

It’s fine to continue enjoying the cavernous qualities of Spector’s production, but not without remembering (and discussing) the man’s cruelty. One simple part in punishment for abuse and awful deeds is linking the work to the context of the monster who had a hand in creating it. That doesn’t necessarily make the work any less brilliant, but can serve to instruct others of their responsibilities as artists and mentors. 

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Hyperpop Redux → A tip of the hat to Joe Muggs for turning me on to this educational video about the emergent genre of hyperpop. I previously gave hyperpop some ink in my examination of genres here on the blog, and I remain fascinated. In a clickbaity way, the video title asks if hyperpop is “the future of pop.” The short answer is “no,” but hyperpop is undoubtedly influencing the future of popular music. I believe Simon Reynolds once pointed out that one can look to the extremes in genres for oncoming trends that will infect the mainstream. 100 Gecs might not become pop, but dialing back their excesses creates a blueprint for an edgier top 40. And, as you sample recent work of some of the artists named in the video, you’ll hear moves away from some of hyperpop’s defining characteristics. It’s a genre in flux, which is evidence of its potential longevity and influence. 

Embrace the Genre

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Like end-of-the-year best-of lists, new genre names are something that music fans love to hate. There’s a mixture of disdain for perceived pigeonholing and a failure to keep up with the latest trends — nothing makes a music lover feel older than a new, incomprehensible genre. Then there’s the sub-genre and the micro-genre. Seriously, it never ends. It’s genres all the way down.

Instead of feeling intimidated, I say embrace the genre and all its fancifully named layers. Genre is an identifier, important in pointing the way and gluing together scenes. There was a time that you could walk into an indie record store, look at the clientele, and guess what genres they listened to by how they looked. It’s harder now that genres are less-defined and blur together — which I’ll argue is a good thing. But it’s also why genres are reaching beyond sonic vibes and sounds, increasingly representative of technological innovation, communities, and desired lifestyles. 

If you’re a musician, there’s nothing worse than the question, “What do you sound like?” We shuffle our postures and avoid answering, or vaguely go for something broad like “rock music.” If you look up old artist interviews with me, you’ll see I often responded with “funk,” which was unfortunate. Why can’t we just own our genre — or create our own? Consider the genre as an elevator pitch. It’s a chance to claim a plot of land and plant a flag. 

Here’s how Seth Godin thinks about genre, as explained in his recent appearance on The Moment with Brian Koppelman:

“People who are creatives bristle at the idea of genre because they think it has something to do with generic. It has nothing to do with generic. It’s the opposite of generic. Genre means that you understand your part in the chain — [and] in the process, in the market — well enough to make something magical that still rhymes with what came before. You’ve done the reading. You respect the audience enough that you can’t just show up and say, ‘This is like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before.’ It actually is where it belongs.”

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It’s fun to look at the birth of genres. The sounds predate the descriptive monikers, often by many years. Traditionally, genres are christened through these sources:

  • An artist or band name. Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys is where we get bluegrass.
  • Song or album titles. Ornette Coleman’s 1960 album Free Jazz and The Maytals’ 1968 single “Do the Reggay” popularized those terms.
  • Compilation album titles. A ‘scene’ is pre-built into the curated collection of artists, such as the now-legendary producers assembled on 1988’s Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit.
  • Lyrics. “I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip, hip-hop and you don’t stop …”
  • Record labels. In the late ’80s, you would’ve called Skinny Puppy something else if Throbbing Gristle didn’t start Industrial Records.
  • Music Journalists. Simon Reynolds is the ninja of the genre name and is still at it. But even before, there was ‘heavy metal,’ applied to music for the first time in 1970 by Mike Saunders, future vocalist of punk band Angry Samoans. Writing for Rolling Stone, he referred to Humble Pie as “27th-rate heavy metal crap.” Ironically, Sauders did not come up with ‘punk rock,’ which was coined the same year in Creem Magazine.
  • Music Executives. Seymour Stein of Sire Records came up with ‘new wave’ to market all these bands he was signing fresh off the stage of CBGBs.
  • The technology. Dub comes from ‘dubplate,’ which is technically a music-delivery format. But dub is hardly ever heard on a dubplate these days.
  • Territory. We can call music from Guatemala Guatamalen music even though the locals undoubtedly have a more specific name. And the ‘western’ in country & western refers to the western US where many rural workers migrated and settled, especially during the Dust Bowl.
  • Radio. Famously, Alan Freed named his radio show The Moondog Rock’n’Roll House Party. Like in many of the examples above, Freed didn’t use the phrase first, but he popularized it.

There’s one more traditional method of genre creation, which I hinted at in the beginning. The artist comes up with it herself. There’s a lot of power in naming your genre as, if you’re successful and others catch on, you become the forebear. Fela Kuti did this with Afrobeat. And Brian Eno did this with ambient music:

“All the signs were in the air all around with ambient music in the mid-1970s, and other people were doing a similar thing. I just gave it a name. Which is exactly what it needed. A name. Giving something a name can be just the same as inventing it. By naming something you create a difference. You say that this is now real.”

Quick side story: in the late-90s, a friend and I often DJ’ed trip-hop records and hip-hop instrumentals with the turntables pitched up near +8. Speed garage was the genre du jour at the time, so we jokingly named our genre ‘speed downtempo.’ It didn’t take off.

But, yes — sometimes a joke or off-handed comment will spawn a genre name. NYC’s DJ Olive came up with ‘illbient’ as a sarcastic response when a journalist asked if he played ambient. And Gilles Peterson famously once joked that his side room at an acid house party was the ‘acid jazz’ area, birthing a repackaged jazz revival. 

Genre is intrinsically tied to the music it denotes but spreads out to other qualities of the genre’s followers. Goth is as identifiable for its fashion as its sound, and close-knit genres like nerdcore are increasingly identified by membership in their communities. 

What’s interesting — with technological developments inseparable from how we interact with music — is the emergence of genres outside of a musical style. That is, the communities or the platforms define the genre, and the music comes later. 

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I want to look at a few recent arrivals in the pantheon of genres to see how defining our music ends up describing so much more. Be warned — many of these sub-genres contain references to other sub-genres. You might get genre whiplash.

Hyperpop

On the excellent Jaymo Technologies blog, Jay Springett writes about the daunting proliferation of genres and how streaming platforms affect genre creation: 

The world is now dominated by microgenres and subcultures, shaping perception of reality via niche hashtags and network effects. For better or worse someone at Spotify finds or makes up a genre name and then populates a playlist with content. The idea that people would be mad about an online genre having a name and coming from nowhere now seems quaint.

Jay is possibly hinting at hyperpop, a genre name popularized by Spotify via the in-house playlist of the same name. The actual sound of hyperpop is debatable and evasive, with many of its elements drawn from vaporwave, an older genre (by a few years) but somewhat more explainable. There’s a Gen Z do-it-yourself aesthetic, and many of hyperpop’s ephemeral stars are in their early teens. Lizzy Szabo, who helps curate the playlist, understands that hyperpop is “an artist and listening community” as much as it’s a musical genre. One thing to notice about that quote: the listeners are included in the definition, powering hyperpop alongside the creators. To participate, throw aside any reservations about a movement dreamed up by a big corporation. 

Glitchcore

Glitchcore shares many of the artists found on the Hyperpop playlist. Its defining sonic trait is the ‘glitch’ — quick edits, stuttering vocals and syllables, things that would have once made us check our compact discs for scratches. Some even take hyperpop songs and add these ‘defects’ for glitchcore remixes. But glitchcore’s difference is in its inspiration and intention. TikTok videos, with visual glitches matching the audio ones, along with bright colors and flashes, are the reason and original platform for most glitchcore tracks. Like how a TV signal popping in-and-out changes the quality of a show’s dialogue, it’s a visual aesthetic influencing the sound. Glitchcore is a genre given shape by a video editing technique mixed with a nostalgia for digital’s early days of jarring imperfection.  

Lo-Fi Hip-Hop

Like hyperpop, lo-fi hip-hop (or lo-fi beats, chill-hop, or, sometimes, ‘music for studying’) gets its name from a curated spot on a streaming platform. In lo-fi hip-hop’s case, these are streaming channels on YouTube playing an endless selection of music usually accompanied by a looping anime scene. A Gen Z variant of ambient music, lo-fi hip-hop is meant to accompany studying, video-gaming, or zoning out. This is another genre that’s expanded its popularity in COVID-times, with the studying girl of the ‘lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to’ channel serving as a lockdown work-from-home companion. The music itself draws directly from boom-bap hip-hop and — for those in the know — the mellow side of ’90s trip-hop, but is more basic, often constructed from interchangeable sample libraries and beat kits. Lo-fi hip-hop is a diluted version of its predecessors, which is why it’s so effective as in-the-background focus music.

Bedroom Pop

Bedroom pop started as ‘what it says on the tin:’ pop music made in the bedroom. Its unexpected ancestor is the lo-fi indie movement of the ’90s, with bands like Sebadoh and Guided By Voices recording albums on four-track cassette recorders. Nothing kept those bands from visiting a studio, but the constraints inherited through four-track recording were integral to their sounds (and brands). 

The bedroom pop aesthetic predates the pandemic but has unsurprisingly grown during months of lockdown. The songs are generally sparser and have an air of intimacy not found in your usual pop. Vocals are often delivered at an ASMR volume instead of belted out. 

Billie Eilish is the patron saint of bedroom pop. She does record most of her music in a bedroom with her brother, though these raw tracks are then mixed in multi-million dollar studios. As you might have guessed, unlike the four-track to the lo-fi bands, the ‘bedroom’ part is no longer essential to this genre. As the bedroom pop artist Girl in Red says, “Pop bangers are being made in bedrooms and bedroom pop-ish songs in studios. It’s more about how it sounds than where it’s made.”

Slowed & Reverb

Slowed & reverb is one of the oddest new genres, its name a play on the seemingly ancient (a decade+ old) hip-hop sub-genre chopped & screwed. Slowed & reverb appropriates other songs, but instead of ‘glitching’ or ‘remixing’ them, the music is slowed down (‘screwed’) and then doused in reverb. Recent hip-hop tracks mostly receive the slowed & reverb treatment but, as an offshoot of vaporwave, cheesy ’80s AOR songs are frequent targets, too. This genre is all about the feelings evoked — listening is like being lost in a fog that’s hazy, nostalgic, dream-like, and druggy. It also tends to turn upbeat songs into melancholic sobfests. 

Because slowed & reverb uses pre-existing songs, you can only find its ‘hits’ on YouTube, SoundCloud, and (sometimes) Bandcamp. The other platforms have copyright barriers, though some producers have gotten away with compiling slowed & reverb mixes and servicing them to Spotify as podcasts. In a recent development, a few artists are now commissioning official slowed & reverb remixes of their singles, so perhaps there’s growth potential after all.

(Are you interested in creating your own slowed & reverb track? There’s an app for that.)

Ambient Television

This is the newest genre on the list, coined by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker last month. I’m fudging a little as ambient television is not a music genre but a television aesthetic that draws influence from the same well as lo-fi hip-hop. This example shows how, as with glitchcore, different mediums are interacting to create new genres. 

Ambient television follows Eno’s maxim of “as ignorable as it is interesting,” or as Chayka explains, “something you don’t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so momentarily.” These are the new breed of Netflix design shows or, as Chayka pinpoints, Emily In Paris — TV shows you can look away from to read that iPhone notification without feeling like you’re missing anything. 

There are more intriguing ramifications here when thinking about how streaming influences the ways we absorb digital media. Here’s Chayka again: 

Whereas the Internet once promised to provide on-demand access to limitless information and media to anyone willing to make use of a Google search, lately it has encouraged a more passive kind of engagement, a state of slack-jawed consumption only intensified by this past year’s quarantine ennui. Streaming companies once pitched themselves as innovators for offering the possibility to watch anything at any time, but do we really want to choose? The prevalence of ambient media suggests that we don’t.

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Genre-chasing can seem ridiculous. But, as you see, the names we use to bond music together says everything about how we listen. New genres are a commentary on the present culture. And old ones are an archeological dig. As Seth Godin said at the top of this essay, genres help us understand our “part in the chain.” That goes for the fans as well as the musicians. Genres decode the links formed through technology, platforms, fashion, and community. Embrace the genre.

Here’s a music genre list to scroll through. And here’s an interactive genre chart provided by Every Noise at Once. The latter offers audio samples but keep in mind the music is only part of the story. Chances are both lists are seriously behind on all of the new genres, even if they were up-to-date a week or two ago.

Autoplay’s Algorithmic Hit-Maker

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Spotify’s infamous recommendation algorithm is a hot topic on this blog, under fire for pay-to-play schemes and encouraging saccharine content. Stereogum’s Nate Rogers touches on both aspects while exploring how an obscure Pavement b-side became the band’s most popular song on the streaming platform. No one is certain of the reason for this — fucking algorithms, how do they work? But the song did start collecting massive play counts in early 2017 when Spotify switched Autoplay ‘on’ for everyone by default. 

The Autoplay feature on Spotify plays a stream of songs automatically once you’ve finished listening to an album, its selection based on that album’s sound. Autoplay also is enacted when you launch Spotify’s ‘radio’ function. That function is also based on a band or a song’s sound — you could specify ‘LCD Soundsystem Radio,’ for example. I’ve written before about how Spotify uses Autoplay to keep you listening to the platform in a way that pays fewer royalties. 

The theory goes that, for whatever mysterious reason, Spotify’s algorithm loves Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes.” Whenever, in Autoplay mode, the algorithm selects a song from Pavement, that’s the one it picks. 

Damon Krukowski has noticed something similar. The Galaxie 500 song “Strange” is similarly the most popular song on Spotify from the band by a wide margin. Damon was puzzled as the song was never a single and “not particularly popular in the past” (which I’ll dispute as I’ve always loved that song). But its rise on Spotify coincided with the ascendance of “Harness Your Hopes” — January 2017. That pesky Autoplay algorithm.

It’s nice that these deep cuts get thrust in the Spotify spotlight, even though Autoplay streams pay much lower royalties than intentional streams. But why are these songs sticking out? It’s argued that “Harness Your Hopes” is a quintessential Pavement song — not as crazy or weird or (and I don’t mean this disparagingly) memorable as other titles in their catalog. I’m sure the band agrees. Krukowski wonders about this, too, with regards to “Strange”:

“‘Strange’ is a touch faster, louder, with a more regular backbeat and a more predictable song structure than most Galaxie 500 songs,” he pointed out on his blog. “Might an unintended result of Autoplay, then, be the separating out and rewarding of the most ‘normal’ songs in each band’s catalog…? … As albums are increasingly supplanted by playlists, and intentional listening of all kinds is increasingly replaced by algorithmic recommendations, ‘Play Galaxie 500’ may really come to mean, ‘Play the song by Galaxie 500 that most resembles songs by others.'”

That sounds worrying, but keep in mind that Autoplay is a passive listening mode. It’s playing in the background for most listeners. So keeping the crazy or weird or memorable at bay is desirable. The music shouldn’t linger or provoke by design.

The problem is the list of ‘top songs’ on an act’s Spotify artist page. These Autoplay ‘passive’ listens are treated the same as intentional listens. Though purposefully selecting to listen to a song or album holds more weight for the artist — both in royalty and fan-building — it’s treated the same as a passive, in-the-background listen. One hundred passive Autoplay streams are identical to one hundred intentional plays when determining a band’s top songs. So, when you go to Galaxie 500’s Spotify page, you’ll see “Strange” as the top song at 11,680,597 plays. 

“When Will You Come Home” is probably a song more beloved by fans, and it’s certainly more indicative of Galaxie 500’s sound, but it’s stuck at 1,439,734 streams. That seems measly compared to the top song’s count. But, assuming those million-and-a-half streams are intentional plays as opposed to Autoplay-ed, that song has a lot more relevance than an algorithm’s inscrutable choice.

🔗→ Why Is The Obscure B-Side “Harness Your Hopes” Pavement’s Top Song On Spotify? It’s Complicated.

Update: Damon Krukowski got in a spirited discussion with Spotify’s Glenn McDonald over the issues raised in the Stereogum article Check out the thread on Twitter.

Enthusiastic About the Fringe

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Liz Pelly’s Podcast Overlords → Pelly delivers another scathing, must-read broadside for The Baffler, this time focusing on the potential fall-out of Spotify’s love affair with the podcasting world. She sees musicians as the “canaries in the coalmine,” foretelling that only the biggest podcasting names will find success on the platform. The others will face diminished identities and fanbases in favor of Spotify’s platform branding and emphasis on ‘star’ playlists. And, unlike the music content, most exclusive podcast IP becomes the property of Spotify. 

Many Spotify-focused musicians tailor their music to accommodate the platform, and Pelly sees podcasts similarly affected. She believes we already see shortened podcasts, such as Parcast’s three-minute Daily Quote, intended to fit automated personalized playlists like The Daily Drive and Daily Wellness. There’s also a real danger of producers optimizing their podcasts — a positive reframing of appeasing algorithms that encourage milquetoast and unchallenging content. 

Writes Pelly:

… as much as Daniel Ek wants to continue doing interviews pushing the same talking points about the democratizing force that streaming has been, it ultimately just reproduces and exacerbates the exploitative status quo, where those without the numbers are treated as disposable. The fact that podcasting staff are unionizing is of particular importance in this regard. Solidarity amongst podcasters and musicians could be useful in imagining new systems and practices that work for everyone. 

As I’ve said re: music on Spotify, it’s not a game anyone has to play. Think of this as an opportunity to create (and strengthen) communities for podcasts existing outside of Spotify’s ecosystem. My often repeated analogy of ’80s commercial radio vs. college radio applies — there were many listeners satisfied with hearing the top 40. But there were also plenty of people enthusiastic about the fringe offered on college stations. What’s important is to embrace your lane. Let Spotify be Spotify (i.e., commercial radio) and instead reach out to the communities of listeners that reject ‘optimized’ content. [LINK]

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A Documentary Called Eno → What’s this? It’s Brian Eno in 1973’s flamboyant “I wear make-up because I look better” glory. A 24-minute documentary called Eno popped up online this week, filmed during the recording of Here Come The Warm Jets. The opening scene sums up Brian’s modus operandi — he’s playing the piano well enough that for a second, you think, “he can actually play the piano.” But then you realize he’s not that good at all. It’s his enthusiasm and concentration that’s making it work. And, unless it’s buried in the mix, that piano part never makes it into “The Paw-Paw Negro Blowtorch” anyway (kind of like the sitar solo we hear seconds later — huh, what?). Says Eno, “I have attempted to replace the element of skill considered necessary in music with the element of judgment.” What a find, what a gem. Hat tip to Jon Curtis at Poke In The Ear. [LINK]

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Chicha Libre & La Sonora Mazurén – “Caminito de mi Pueblo” → I’m in love with this song, a collaboration between NYC’s Chicha Libre and Colombia’s La Sonora Mazurén. Translated as “Little Paths of My Town,” it’s a cover of a tune originally recorded in 1976 by Ecuadorian accordionist, poet, and Moog pioneer Polibio Mayorga. This rousing single is a tribute to indigenous leader Cristina Bautista, heard speaking on the track, and was released on October 29, 2020, the first anniversary of her assassination. “Caminito de mi Pueblo” has an uplifting, rebellious feel that we can all appreciate — proof that resistance doesn’t have to feel angry. It also features some cool synth riffs amidst the layers of traditional instrumentation and bouncing percussion. Read more about this single here. [LINK]

This Space For Rent: Showing Up on Spotify’s Endcap

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Spotify is floating a tool (reportedly called Discovery Mode) that would allow users — labels, artists, and marketing teams — to influence its mysterious streaming algorithm. Importantly, this applies to the algorithm that recommends the music played in Spotify’s non-interactive autoplay functions. Rather than affecting placements in algorithmically determined playlists, the program pushes songs played in ‘radio’ streams. These are the streams of music that automatically play once an album or playlist ends (if you haven’t turned off this feature in your settings) or while using Spotify’s radio functions. It’s like how we usually think of Pandora — an endless stream of songs inspired by a particular artist, album, or algorithmic choices based on a user profile.

Here’s the clincher: To participate, the song selected for algorithmic spotlighting will receive reduced royalties on streams resulting from the program. In other words, on-demand streams from fans intentionally listening to the song on Spotify or hearing it in a playlist are unaffected. Spotify only increases its take on non-interactive (radio) streams of the music that has opted in.

The optics are bad, and Twitter is not amused. It’s no secret that Spotify (and, to be fair, other streaming services) pays out at miserably low rates. Reducing this rate further appears insulting. If we give Spotify the benefit of the doubt, this future fee in exchange for participation is meant as a filter to keep labels and artists from opting in every song in their catalogs. And we could consider the lack of an upfront fee as egalitarian outreach. But less benevolent speculation is more worrying.

First, I must point out that non-interactive streaming — ‘personalized radio’ like the Pandora example — pays out at the lowest royalty rate of all. Without going into the weeds1Here’s a quick explainer., this is a legally mandated difference, and it’s true for every service that has a somewhat unpredictable radio-like component. It’s also why US listeners can’t skip around on Mixcloud — that ability would make the stream ‘interactive’ and the royalties owed would jump significantly. Thus the rate that Spotify pays for personalized radio is already tiny. 

In my view, the reduction in the low non-interactive rate for artists won’t make much difference, both in what Spotify gains and the artists lose. That supports the ‘benefit of the doubt’ view. Despite the tone-deaf appearance, Spotify’s decision-makers may feel like this is a gift to artists.

What’s worrying is the possible (and, frankly, probable) expansion of this tool. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing an artist opts-in to this program via Spotify’s much-lauded playlist pitching tool in the Spotify For Artists dashboard. When an artist presents a song to Spotify for playlist consideration, I bet we’ll find a box to check for participation and rate-reduction. As this pitching tool is primarily geared toward playlist inclusion, it’s not a stretch to see algorithmic playlists — with their higher per-play rates — becoming a part of the program. Discovery Weekly and Release Radar are obvious candidates, as these are two popular Spotify playlists that are wholly determined by an algorithm. But other popular ‘non-algorithmic’ playlists — think RapCaviar and Your Favorite CoffeeHouse, among others — are starting to mix algorithmic selections within the human curation. Could these playlists become a mix of tastemaker choices sprinkled with paid-for insertions?

Some have pointed out that this isn’t that far removed from traditional record store practices. Labels would often pay stores to feature new releases on the endcaps of CD bins prominently. Of course, others say Spotify’s recommendation-influencing tool is closer to payola. That fits when the program is influencing selections on personalized radio. But once this program starts placing songs in playlists, it’s similar to a new release incentively displayed for discovery in a record store.

It’s easy to see nothing wrong with this. Listening habits and user profiles are recommendation factors, and the algorithms will probably remain weighted to those specs. A paid-for promotion is only another point of influence. If you listen to EDM all day, you’re not going to find death metal in your playlist just because someone paid for it. 

But I worry about normalization, not only on Spotify but across all streaming platforms once the genie is set free. And history shows how commerce’s manipulation of art (as loosely defined here) often ends up poisoning the well. If the program’s demand increases, it’s realistic to imagine the ‘paid-for’ metric of the algorithm edging out the other user-defined factors. 

Here’s another observation. This program is a new and experimental feature focused solely on music, but it requires little investment from Spotify. There’s not much relative cost in adding the technology to manage this. Correspondingly, the return won’t be enough to make a difference in Spotify’s finances. The contrast is Spotify’s increased investment in podcasts and podcast technology. Of note, just today, Variety announced Spotify’s $235 million purchase of podcast ad-tech firm Megaphone.

Follow those millions. If we believe that Spotify intended this algorithm-influencing feature as a helpful tool for artists, it’s still obvious where the company sees its future. And they’re probably right — I’ve no doubt Spotify will find profit and success as a Netflix-hybrid mixing original ‘audio’ content with a side of music offerings. In that case, that new release endcap display you’re paying for isn’t in a record store — it’s in the music section at Best Buy.

🔗→ Spotify’s new artist tool could boost streams (with a discounted royalty rate)
🔗→ Spotify to offer artists and labels the option to promote their music in your recommendations
🔗→ Promotion or ‘payola’? Spotify faces backlash over new personalised recommendations feature
🔗→ Could Spotify’s New Discovery Mode Be Considered Payola?

Anchor Drop: Add Music To Your Spotify Shows

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I’m usually critical of Spotify, as I was yesterday, but I’m also happy to give credit when it’s due. Utilizing the company’s 2019 purchase of Anchor and its podcast-creation tools, Spotify now allows users to create podcast-like audio programs around the streaming music available on the platform. I say “podcast-like” because these aren’t what we know as podcasts — these aren’t stand-alone shows that play outside of the Spotify ecosystem, nor can one talk over the music or only include music snippets. The new feature, accessible through the Anchor app, allows users to insert their own audio content — assumed, in most cases, to be spoken commentary or conversations — within their shows (i.e., playlists). In other words, you can create a ‘podcast-like’ playlist that contains your song selections with the sound of you chatting about the songs in-between. These playlists are published to Spotify as a ‘show.’

I’ve spoken about the frustrating issues with licensing music for podcasts before. Those problems persist for podcasts, but Spotify’s work-around is a smart option for those who don’t mind their content getting locked to the platform. The pre-existing music licenses already in place with Spotify apply since users are merely adding music to ‘playlists.’ Technically and legally, it’s nothing new for the platform.

This tool opens up many possibilities for music-oriented programs such as Song Exploder-style dissections or celebrity ‘desert island disc’ spotlights. Anchor’s feature has launched with some interesting examples of it in action, such as this program on murder ballads and The Ringer-associated 60 Songs That Explain The ’90s. 

Of course, artists will have no control over where their songs appear, so thick skins are necessary for the inevitable ‘These Songs Suck’ shows. Spotify may also have to deal with commentary of its platform, as I’d like to see the tool used to highlight and explain ‘fake artists‘ and other efforts by labels and production studios that exploit the streamer for quick bucks. 

Here’s a Twitter thread where Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano announces and describes the new tool: 

🔗→ Introducing a brand new way to create in Anchor, with all the music you love
🔗→ Spotify Now Lets You Add Music Tracks to Podcast Shows

Anti-Social Recording Artists

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I’m thinking about what Darren Hemmings had to say in a recent Motive Unknown newsletter. It’s not a secret that I’m no fan of social media (esp. Zuckbook). You might not know that I’m presently doing a lot of research into how a label or artist can effectively promote music without social media. I’m convinced it’s possible, but not without a fair amount of legwork and reconsidering music marketing traditions. So it was with great interest to see Darren, who runs a marketing consultancy representing the likes of Run The Jewels and Moby, state the following:

… there may be quite a fundamental shift starting here – albeit in very, very early form. It strikes me that some artists are increasingly tiring of existing on other people’s platforms where their relationship to fans is always compromised. Instead, platforms like Bandcamp and community hubs like Discord allow them to sell directly and build a home for those fans that is not subject to algorithmic control over who see their message. They are tiring of social media and tiring of other platforms controlling who they can reach. […] Where I think this could get interesting is when we see the first artists really break through with little support or presence across both DSPs and social media in general. I think many would see that as an impossible notion right now, but to my mind that is something that may happen sooner than we all realise.

I agree. And I would love for some of these breakout ‘first artists’ to be emerging rather than established (I mean, if Bruce Springsteen decided to do a Bandcamp-only release, it would obviously do well).

I also think the anti-platform sentiment that’s loudly brewing isn’t only about lack of direct fan access. There are also political concerns, especially among a younger crop of tuned-in artists. In Spotify’s case, there are problems with the platform’s unsupportive moves against musicians. And issues with Facebook (which, remember, owns Instagram) are so plentiful that the platform’s contributions to things like, uh, genocide are now old news. 

It isn’t easy to find optimism right now, but I’m optimistic about this. Artists and labels are starting to take control. They’re learning that the tools exist, for the first time in history, to reach new levels of independence (and interdependence). You know that thing I like to say: It’s the punk rock dream come true … if you want it.

Bandcamp’s Roots in Fandom

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Bandcamp’s Ethan Diamond doesn’t do a lot of podcast interviews. So his conversation with Andrew Dubber on the MTF Podcast is a good find. Recorded sometime last April, the Bandcamp CEO gives personal insight into the platform and its philosophy. He also talks about the introduction of Bandcamp Fridays to help artists struggling without tour income. The interview happened after the first one took place. 

Bandcamp

And it’s fun to hear of Diamond’s music fandom, including a story about ordering an obscure vinyl LP from a Norwegian band called Koppen — “one of my favorite records.” The creation story of Bandcamp comes out of fandom, too. Diamond was inspired when he bought a digital download directly from the site of a band he liked. The profound technical issues he experienced — this was the web of the mid-00s — put him on a mission to serve the music community by making something better. In other words, Bandcamp is a platform sparked by fandom and in service to musicians. Compare that with whatever inspired Daniel Ek’s recent remarks about Spotify’s artist community — he seems to feel artists should serve him.

But there’s no animosity or sense of competition. Diamond explains that Bandcamp can coexist with Spotify. He rightly believes the two platforms each appeal to different tiers of listeners:

The way I think about it is when I was growing up — so listening to music in the late ’70s and the early ’80s — there were lots of people who exclusively interacted with music through the radio. And then there were the people who bought tapes and bought vinyl records. Not everybody needed to do that. There were a lot of people who were totally happy listening to stuff on the radio. They like music so they turn on the radio. They have this channel that’s kind of the style of music they like. I feel like that’s exactly what’s happening now. The streaming services are a lot like radio. And playlists are a lot like radio. And then there’s this different kind of person who wants to go deep and interact with the artist and own the music. That’s a subset and I’m happy to cater to that subset.

This is spot on. We forget that, in the pre-digital era, the vast majority of people didn’t buy music. The radio or background listening in stores or on TV was sufficient.

Spotify — or any mass audience streaming service — has the goal of monetizing casual listeners’ listening habits. That’s great — there are many paying $9.99 per year who would never buy music otherwise — and the more prominent labels are certainly profiting. But the danger is in pushing listeners who qualify as ‘fans’ to passive listening habits. Labels and artists need to do the opposite: motivate listeners away from radio (Spotify) and into fandom (Bandcamp and their own websites).