I was reading You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song (McDonald, 2024) today while doing some initial research for an overview paper. I had high hopes for it, but found that it was very one dimensional. Questions about culture and algorithms are largely pushed to one side and limited to a few things with little reflection on the results. Creating playlists and recommendations still seems to focus on main players, which these algorithms may do, yet miss less popular artists. There is the challenge of bots “listening” and now creating sounds. The tirade about those who do the research to find a record or to know more about the artist / production did strike the wrong chord with me. I do not do it that often but have indulged to find out more about recordings. Or do we leave this to an algorithm?
I did dig out my copy of Spotify Teardown in response and thinking about the softwarisation of culture. Much more work needs to be done and to think about how one can work against the homogenisation of music.
McDonald, G. 2024. You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song. Canbury Press, Kingston upon Thames.
