Reflecting on the relevance of music genres today more than ever requires a circular relationship between theoretical thinking, corporate strategies and empirical inquiry. For the latter, digital tools like the APIs released by platforms, the metadata they provide, and the tools used to analyse and aggregate them, become key resources for research. In our paper, we present some findings and perspectives on the genres classification of popular music on Spotify, starting from empirical research on “made-up genres” carried out by employing available digital resources like Every Noise at Once, Spotify Artist Network, Organize Your Music, and SpotiGeM Hub – a tool for exploring links between genre metadata and playlists, specifically designed by a multidisciplinary team at the University of Milan. Data gathered this way is confronted with musicological theories of genre and used to answer some research questions on the relationship these pseudo-genres establish with better-known pre-streaming categories, on what kind of agency they perform on current communities of listeners and musicians, and on how streaming services and listeners use and think of music genres today. Then, our hypotheses are understood under the light of information gained from a relevant Spotify insider, thus highlighting how much of our comprehension of the phenomenon is bound to be limited by our outsider perspective. This presentation describes an approach to the platform that utilises digital methods to enable research and reinterpretation of music-related metadata within the field of digital humanities. Finally – after noticing mutations in the previous genre system following recent changes in Spotify’s staff – we reflect on the fluidity of the concept of “genre” and the power streaming services have in redefining the socio-technical imaginaries (“collectively held, institutionally stabilised, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures”; Jasanoff and Kim 2015) behind it.

Spotify, Genres and the Illusion of Categorisation / M. Merlini, M. Zanotti. ((Intervento presentato al 6. convegno IASPM D-A-CH Biennial Conference – Metadaten|Metainformationen: Populäre Musik und ihre Metamorphosen : 07-09 November tenutosi a Zürich nel 2024.

Spotify, Genres and the Illusion of Categorisation

M. Merlini;M. Zanotti
2024

Abstract

Reflecting on the relevance of music genres today more than ever requires a circular relationship between theoretical thinking, corporate strategies and empirical inquiry. For the latter, digital tools like the APIs released by platforms, the metadata they provide, and the tools used to analyse and aggregate them, become key resources for research. In our paper, we present some findings and perspectives on the genres classification of popular music on Spotify, starting from empirical research on “made-up genres” carried out by employing available digital resources like Every Noise at Once, Spotify Artist Network, Organize Your Music, and SpotiGeM Hub – a tool for exploring links between genre metadata and playlists, specifically designed by a multidisciplinary team at the University of Milan. Data gathered this way is confronted with musicological theories of genre and used to answer some research questions on the relationship these pseudo-genres establish with better-known pre-streaming categories, on what kind of agency they perform on current communities of listeners and musicians, and on how streaming services and listeners use and think of music genres today. Then, our hypotheses are understood under the light of information gained from a relevant Spotify insider, thus highlighting how much of our comprehension of the phenomenon is bound to be limited by our outsider perspective. This presentation describes an approach to the platform that utilises digital methods to enable research and reinterpretation of music-related metadata within the field of digital humanities. Finally – after noticing mutations in the previous genre system following recent changes in Spotify’s staff – we reflect on the fluidity of the concept of “genre” and the power streaming services have in redefining the socio-technical imaginaries (“collectively held, institutionally stabilised, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures”; Jasanoff and Kim 2015) behind it.
7-nov-2024
Settore PEMM-01/C - Musicologia e storia della musica
https://www.iaspm-dach.net/blog/2024/8/12/metadaten-i-metainformationen-6-iaspm-d-a-ch-konferenz-universitt-zrich-07-09-november-2024-anmeldung
Spotify, Genres and the Illusion of Categorisation / M. Merlini, M. Zanotti. ((Intervento presentato al 6. convegno IASPM D-A-CH Biennial Conference – Metadaten|Metainformationen: Populäre Musik und ihre Metamorphosen : 07-09 November tenutosi a Zürich nel 2024.
Conference Object
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
(Paper IASPM-DACH2024) Spotify, Genres and the Illusion of Categorisation.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: testo dell'intervento
Tipologia: Altro
Dimensione 81.93 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
81.93 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/1118864
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact