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Emma Peters / LomaBeat.com / End of April 2023
“Sad Girl Starter Pack”
“My life is a movie”
“Chill Vibes”
No, these aren’t phrases that ChatGPT bots try to come up with vague Internet-ish phrases to assimilate to young people, but they might be.
These expressions, which are essentially meaningless without a social media context, are now permeating the popular streaming service Spotify. It’s a marketing genius that’s ruining the way we listen to music.
According to my Spotify Wrapped (a feature that allows users to view a compilation of listening data for a year), I listened to 150 genres in the app. We need to investigate why Spotify creates and promotes genres based on these aesthetics.
Every Monday, Spotify users look forward to ‘Discover Weekly’. This is a playlist of new songs, where you can see the algorithms put together based on your recent listening. Every Friday, Spotify users will be updated with “Release Radar”. This is a weekly song playlist of new releases from the artists you listen to and follow. There are countless ‘Daily Mix’ playlists created daily based on era, mood, artist or general listening. Choose what you like! If it is an algorithm-approved choice.
As many of you have analyzed with other social media apps, you might think that the app and its features are the product, but really you are the one being sold. How are you listening today? Based on all the great songs you’ve listened to over the past year and the results of tracking everything you listen to, here are all the great songs you might love this week. Artist you ask? you are an artist Create your online music profile and become another fake version of your marketable online self.
The illusion of choice relies on our assumption that we are the ones making the creation, curation, and listening decisions. Yet Spotify’s algorithm is constantly choosing which music you should listen to and which keeps you on the app.
Before I pretend to be any better, I have to admit that I am an avid and active Spotify user. I’ve spent countless hours streaming and creating playlists on the service, and the moment Spotify panicked over the overwhelming number of music choices it offered me, I was able to find my music. I’ve come to realize that it may interfere with viewing. To consume media more thoughtfully, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to listen to more albums.
Lately I’ve been listening to “Blue” by Joni Mitchell. It has been hailed by many critics as a musical and lyrical masterpiece for the emotional rawness that Joni expertly weaves from top to bottom throughout each song. An album dedicated to the subtle and complex feelings of heartbreak, it can be heard as an emotional diary of the ups and downs of the state of “blue” and inside and out.
Listeners are invited to journey through the incoherent movement of grief rather than curate the aesthetics of grief. Especially when heard in the intro to her track “All I Want,” Mitchell sets the tone that her state of blue is defined by the fact that she can’t decide what she wants. Road and/I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling/looking for something, what is it?”
Joni’s albums dedicated to the feeling of grief will always surprise you. Just when you think you’ve settled into the overwhelming melancholy of the song “Blue,” she quickly shifts to the optimistic “California,” heading home. Deal with that hopeful feeling. From a song dedicated to the vague melancholy and the way it dyes every moment blue, to a song dedicated to the place she loves and the longing for the hope of finally being accepted and whole. the selected song. “Accept me as I am.”
There’s a reason this album is titled ‘Blue’ instead of ‘Sad Atmosphere’ or ‘Melancholy Music’. Yes, Mitchell’s album explores feelings of heartbreak and depression, but she also highlights the bright shades of “blue” that might color one’s world.
On “A Case of You,” hailed as one of the greatest love songs ever dedicated to songwriter James Taylor, Joni’s voice echoes metaphorically likening their love to a case of wine. increase. Like holy wine in my blood/It tastes so bitter and so sweet/I could drink your case/And I’m still on my feet. It provides an emotional landscape of sadness when you should be happy because you found it, but there is still loneliness left.
These songs stand out on their own, but there’s something about hearing them all together in the intended order that more fully emotionally portrays what Joni could have been trying to convey. Not only that, but we are forced to sit, concentrate and listen during uncomfortable moments.
Spotify’s algorithm has eliminated the process of listening to albums. After listening to “Blue,” you don’t necessarily want to consume a lot of other music. Perhaps you want to listen again, or simply sit in silence and process the emotional moves you yourself witnessed and experienced.
In all our quest to listen to music that perfectly fits any mood, we may actually be sacrificing the meditative and rich emotional experience that listening to an album provides. Algorithms and user-centric streaming services may try to convince you otherwise, but try listening to an album you’ve never heard before.?
Don’t skip the song if it doesn’t suit your mood. just listen. Get caught up in the movement of the album and follow its journey, even if it’s uncomfortable. Then listen again. Fight algorithms and fake music genres.
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