Full Description
From Spotify's 'Data Alchemist' comes a comprehensive guide to music's digital revolution.
Starting with the 1990s days of vinyl and CDs and moving quickly to the explosion of new technology in the 2000s, and then onto the rapidly changing soundscape of the 2020s, YOU HAVE NOT YET HEARD YOUR FAVOURITE SONG is a fast-paced, factual look at:
• How streaming has changed the musical landscape for all global music genres, from rap to punk to jazz
• How people worldwide listen differently and what type of songs and artists are popular in each country
• How music gets onto the streaming platforms, and what platforms like Spotify know about you as a listener
• How Spotify and rivals reward artists and the record companies and the lengths some musicians go to to game the algorithm
• How to exploit the fact that pretty much every song ever recorded is available now, at the touch of the button - and discover new music. (Statistically, you have not yet heard your favourite song...).
With 10 free exploratory playlists downloadable by QR code
Contents
Introduction 1
PART 1: THE DISCONNECTED AGE
1. Precious Jukeboxes. Music Consumption as a Shopping Experience 9
2. The Panic and the Crash. The Internet, Napster, iTunes, iPods and the Downloading Interregnum 13
PART 2: HOW STREAMING WORKS
3. Better Than Free. How Streaming Got People to Spend Money on Music Again 19
4. All the World's Music (sort of). How Music Gets Online 25
5. A Zillion Ambiguous Clicks. What Streaming Services Know About You 29
6. The Robots Have No Plan. What Algorithms Do
and Don't Do 35
PART 3: NEW FEARS
7. The New Gatekeepers. Major Labels, Playlists, More Playlists, Algorithmic Playlists and the Playlists Your Friends Make 43
8. "Ed Sheeran Is Taking My Money". How Streaming Pays Artists 51
9. Mercenaries and Fan Armies. Cheating and Devotion vs Math, and the Casual War Against Hilariously Implausible Fraud 67
10. Our Inertia Exposed. "Organic" Listening and Social Equity 79
11. Chill Is the New Muzak. The Borders Between Background and Foreground Sounds 87
12. Constant Engagement. The Death and Survival of The Album 95
13. Undemanded Music in an On- Demand World. The Uncertain Fate of Jazz, Classical, Experimental and Other Quiet, Noble Arts 107
14. Renting the Things You Love Most. Fluctuating Availability and the Impermanent Record of the Streaming Catalog 117
15. The Best Bad Answers. How Algorithms Fail 127
PART 4: NEW JOYS
16. All the World's Listening (sort of). Streaming as a Global Collective- Wisdom Collector 145
17. No Walls Without Doors. What Music Tells Us About Each Other and the World 159
18. Cities In and Out of Hyperspace. Genres as Distributed Communities of Interest 175
19. Borrowed Nostalgia. Other People's No-Longer-Secret Music 191
20. Text as Texture. Hip Hop Literally Everywhere, and How to Listen to Rap You Can't Understand 199
21. New Punks. Weird and/ or Scary Music that Sounds Normal to the Kids, or Vice Versa 209
22. Every Noise at Once. Music as an Infinite Resource 223
PART 5: NEW QUESTIONS
23. What Is Art Worth? How Should the New Economy Work? 243
24. What Is Your Love Worth? How Do You Listen Morally? 251
25. Algorithmic Responsibility. How Do You Encode Conscience? 259
26. What Now? We Have All the World's Music. What Do We Do Next? 269
AFTERWORDS
Acknowledgements 275
10 Playlists of Somebody's Favorite Songs 277
