Monday March 25: COLLECTING MUSIC MEDIA
What role do collectible music recording formats play in shaping the cultures and industries that form around them, and in informing the way we appreciate and consume music?
To Do Before Today’s Class:
- Watch Nate Budzinski, “A Visit to the British Library Sound Archive,” The Wire (September 2013) [video: 17:04] and “Exploring the British Library’s Sound Archive with AWATE,” British Library (March, 24, 2020) [video: 2:16]. Seeing the various historical sound media technologies used by the archivists might have reminded you of our “defunct” media lesson from last week!
- It’s also striking to think about these efforts to preserve analog sonic forms in light of the vulnerability of contemporary digital technologies. Read Harriet Sherwood, “British Library Begins Restoring Digital Services After Cyber-Attack,” The Guardian (January 15, 2024).
- Consider, too, the vast collections of music locked under copyright!
- Choose between these two documentaries 📺🎶: Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone, Directors, Vinyl Nation (2022) [video: 1:32; available on any of these platforms!] or Zack Taylor, et al, Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (Gravitas Documentaries, 2018) [video: 1:27:17]. Think about the role of the collectable media object within these social ecologies!
- Let’s consider how this phenomenon is playing out locally: Read Earl Hopkins and Dan DeLuca, “Philadelphia’s Growing Number of Listening Rooms and Record Bars Is Music to Vinyl Lovers’ Ears,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (March 7, 2024) [if you can’t access the website, here’s a pdf]. We’ll explore the value of social listening in our next class 🙂
Wednesday, March 27: CURATING MUSIC
How do we collect (or do we not?!), curate, and create music in the streaming age? If the artifact itself resists collection, what about its metadata and quantified measures of consumption? What are the implications — phenomenologically, culturally, socially, political-economically — of these shifts? How do these new (un)collectible formats change the way we listen?
🚨🚨 We’ll meet on Zoom today! I’ll send a link via email an hour before class, at 2:30pm!
In-Class Exercise: Exquisite Corpse Playlist (more instruction provided in class!)
To Do Before Today’s Class [a collection of short, accessible pieces!]:
- How do new music collection practices inform the making and marketing of music? Read Omar Garcia, “Melting Pot Music,” Dirt (November 2, 2023) and (optional) listen to Audie Cornish, et al, “TikTok Is Changing Music, One Song at a Time,” The Assignment with Audie Cornish (2023) [audio: 33min].
- What about how we listen? Read Eric Harvey, “Networked Listening,” Real Life (April 5, 2017) and, to prepare for today’s exercise, read Tim Davis, “Listening to Music Is Better When It’s a Conversation Among Friends,” The New York Times Magazine (February 13, 2024) [if you can’t access the Times’s website, here’s a pdf].
- Something to think about: what about rankings, scores, and the decline of music criticism? (RIP, Pitchfork!) If you’re curious, you’ll find a few relevant pieces in the Supplemental Resources below.
- Again, to prepare for today’s in-class exercise, familiarize yourself with the “exquisite corpse” exercise: Alethea Rockwell, “Make Your Own Exquisite Corpse,” MoMA (November 18, 2020). How might this method translate to sound? (In case you’re interested, here’s how it applies in musical composition, and on TikTok!)
Supplemental Resources:
- * Kiersten Adams, “Preparing the Archives: Sun Ra Comes to Kislak Center,” The Philadelphia Tribune (January 8, 2024).
- Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller, Directors, Other Music (Factory25, 2020) [video: 1hr:23min].
- * Kyle Chayke, “The Death of the Collector,” Kyle Chayka Industries (September 18, 2021).
- Michelle Santiago Cortés, “The State of Music Criticism,” Dirt (October 26, 2023).
- Israel Daramola, “Music Criticism Can’t Afford a Hollowed-Out Pitchfork,” Defectror (January 18, 2024).
- Kyle Devine, Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music (MIT Press, 2019).
- Eric Drott, Streaming Music, Streaming Capital (Duke University Press, 2024).
- * Marianne Eloise, “Inside the Facebook Group Dedicated to ‘Oddly Specific Playlists,’” Slate (April 20, 2021) [thanks to Carrie Pirmann!].
- Denise Lu, “Want to Enjoy Music More? Stop Streaming It,” The New York Times Magazine (September 19, 2023).
- Orlando Mediola, “How to Start a Cassette Collection in the 21st Century,” Wired (December 4, 2022).
- Brett Milano, Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting (St. Martins, 2003).
- John Morrison, “Two Collections of Rare Sun Ra Material Find a New Home at Penn Libraries,” WXPN (January 4, 2024).
- Casey Newton, “How Platforms Killed Pitchfork,” Platformer (January 18, 2024).
- Amanda Petrusich, “Genre Is Disappearing. What Comes Next?” The New Yorker (March 8, 2021).
- Matthew Ismael Ruiz, “The Obsessive World of Digital Music Collectors,” Pitchfork (May 26, 2022).
- Roy Shuker, Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures: Record Collecting as a Social Practice (Routledge, 2017).
- Nick Seaver, Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
- Stephanie Sy et al, “Cassette Tapes Make Unexpected Comeback in Era of Music Streaming,’ PBS News Hour (June 1, 2023) [video: 6:22].
- Vincent Vittorio, Record Safari (Goldenvoice, 2020) [video: 1hr:42min].
- Jack Webster, “The Promise of Personalization: Exploring How Music Streaming Platforms Are Shaping the Performance of Class Identities and Distinction,” New Media & Society 25:8 (2023).
- Claire Woodcock, “Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms,” Vice (November 14, 2022).