++The main goal of this is to assess what has happened to my experience of listening to music. Research should tie back in here.

TYPED IN

Is the feeling when I’m scrolling and queuing

//

++Worrying about hearing

++If you shuffle RYM or Discogs, what’s the likelihood you can find that release on Apple Music?

++Music that’s easy to come by is seen as less-exclusive. Like alpha Maid- if you can find it easily, it cheapens it. Why should I listen to this it’s just like these other things…

++ the experience of doing other things while streaming music.

So I’m sitting here, listening to alpha maid, and watching joggers jog and coffee cart workers work. A cloud briefly subsumes the sunm like how it did in elementary school on the playground and things become less harsh. You can tell how good a street-broom is by how many fly-away bristles it has. Music, when consumed alongside other things, is still music. But I definitely think you pay less attention to it and it becomes sort of like the background. Yeah I divided to graze on alphamaid while reading the city of ember. It’s not nearly as beautiful in my opinion as JCCs work. JCCs is much more, abstract and distributed. So, it just came to me on my similar artists. I had just been listening to Tigray Funk and loved the beats on it and wanted to listen to DJ E but went for joshua instead. So anyway I was listening to that and I went to similar artists and I’ll be honest I was a little turned off to see shit that I wasn’t familair with. It made methink of JCC as a much more specialized, corny artist. Like his music was categorized under psychedelic and the other artists were like definitely not up to date on the metadata. But Jetty is there! Which is great. I guess I just worry about our tendency to discount music nowadays. I know based on some research that things we valued, physical or virtual, are important to how we view ourselves or something. So people can have multiple different experiences with alphamaid of course, but what is the majority kind of experience. Cameron told me he saw camille keller, which suddenly makes that real. And listening to it and rooster made it feel real, too. But I listened to rooster because Eric J had listened to it as well. What do you mean by cheapen? It’s just like alphamaid will come and go. And, what, to listen to their album I gave them, I don’t know, $.50? That may be generous. We’re bringing in capital to this but, really, our main concern is the experience of the music- does my ability create a new kind of music? I think it’s fair to argue that because of my ability to listen to music so, graziingly, that the music we get to hear has changed..?

++This kind of music i’ve been seeing online…

• Bad
• Good
• The feeling of discovering new music
• Streaming movies corollary- a majhor potion picture event for something that’s going straight to prime- John Kransinkski’s lates amazon prime flick. A new kind of movie is being made- one with big actors, big budgets, abd big distribution. But does anyone care? And why can’t similar critiques be pinned down to streaming? Because technically apple isn’t sponsoring a new band’s release like amazon prime is with some dumb movie with the guy from the offce. But Apple is distrubutiong their shit like, primarily. _____ doesn’t have any physical copies. That’s art just on the cloud. That’s art just on the internet. Is that relevant?

++ I’ve been actively not ever taking algorithmic recommendations from Apple Music, etc. because it’s bad at it or because I want them to not touch me? Perhaps they’re letting on that they know less than they actually do … My taste reflected back to me is a light blue crystal clear image when I look at playlists I’ve made. I get a real sense of dopamine admiring the songs I’ve arranged and the artwork I put for the playlist. I’m intentionally obtuse and try to expand the amount of music you can listen to back-to-back. That I think is the most beautiful thing about streaming… I guess. That whiplash you can give yourself. If you’re always going back and forth you get to hurt your neck. But how sre you supposed to improve your neck’s elasticity? I’d say typing random phrases into the search bar are helpful. I’ll type in gravel shinguard and see what comes up.- no results. How about vapor gravel? But these are less random… or like seemingly distant. I typed in rent the and venetian snares came up I wonder if that would work on another friends’ account. Shouldn’t all of our searches work the same? I’m going to call Apple Music about it.

//

Who are the people who study how people listen to music today (radio consultants, etc)

It would be important to interview them. Here’s who i want to talk to and what I’d ask them:

How much of music is possible to know? Nick Seaver proposes that recommendation algorithms are not actually a solution to this feeling of overwhelming data. In fact, people who build recommendation algos want you to believe tgat’s what they’re doing and that this is a novel problem but feeling overwhelmed by choice is a sensation that’s been going on since the jukebox in the sky.

++Music streaming is like Napster + an iPod

Because what's the difference between the two? Streaming and an iPod? I think it could be worthwhile to look at the different “methods” of listening. The different environments one can find themslevs in and how that can impact the “experience” of listening to music.

But what is “listening”? Does it change if it’s a music video, single, playlist, or EP, or album?

How are people getting money from making music these days? I would argue some are just letting recommender systems do the work. Liek Oyster, for instance. I went on youtube looking for a very specific thing and I see oyster’s new album ahs come out. He’s verified- he has a small eight note next to his handle and he is sharing the (FULL ALBUM) called QUADRATA. I click it which cannot be undone. There is no ctrl +z key for recommender systems

I posit there's are listener who are empowered by streaming music. And some who are experiencing a disservice

Streaming has failed me, personally. The music we love can’t be discussed the same way.

Apple Music is great at listening to something clean file available produced and released within the last 70 years?

It's easy to look up something . It's still good if you know what you're looking for. But when you're trying to discover stuff, it's overwhelming.

Is soul seek relevant? Why or why not? Because it’s not streaming mobile? Or

I’ve resorted to an intentional way of listening

52 week deep dive

++Guy from ergot doesn’t measure his listening nor use streaming services. Is he gonna get swept up? Is it useful to put a goal on listening? I’m not trying to criticisize streaming services I just want to do some comparing and contrasting.

Liz Pelly talks about the playslitification of music. Nick Seaver talks about recommendation algorithms. Eric Droitt talks about … well I forgot what he talks about but I’m just attempting here to give different arguments, which I’m seeing present themselves againa d again, structure. Well, what an interesting question. Let’s define the word doing a lot of work here- “know”. What does it mean to “know” music? It’s really quite an obtuse question- are there other verbs that may better satisfy this train of thought? Instead of “know”, what if we said “enjoy”. Part of me believes that’s instantly easier to wrap a head around. But what does it mean to “enjoy” music? Other verbs, still, don’t get at the root of the issue so let’s try reframing the question with a little bit of context. Streaming music has allowed us to listen to more music than ever before in our lives. Well, is this true? If so, how, specifically, has it enabled us to do this? Additionally, what are the drawbacks related to increased consumption? How are they changing the listening experience? When consumption becomes easier, what happens to music communities? What’s the largest record collection in the world? When you hear something on the radio or at a dj set, should you shazam it?

How exactly is streaming music different than putting on a cd or record? Can you define apple music and if possible.

Maybe! Maybe there’s something about paying specific people for music recommendations ie deep voices, herb sundays, futurism restated, first floor, burning ambulance, etc. Screenshotting marg.mp3 spotify albums?

++A breakdown of key features I want to analyze on apple music to see how it has impacted my music consumption…

• Followers
• The arrow
• Profile photos
• Username
• Listening To
• Shuffle is insane
• Attention is fractured and visually, we’re overstimulated. We latch on to these to demonstrate our tastes while we’re separated.
• Starring a song
• Playlisting
• DaBaby & Kanye at top of heavy hitters playlist (less design choice more how $ rules over editorial choices)
• Artist Pages
• Top songs
• SHuffle
• Opens paths to creativity! Betty Hammerschlag FGL and other pop songs…
• You Might Also Like
• Friends Accounts

Can you fragment your perspectives on apple music aka on streaming services at lare. What different perspectives can you analyze it? It exists in many ways and impacts users practice of listening in many ways- its design (features), editorializing, bugs, algorithms, playlists. Meaning if youre to understand what it’s impact on listening is, broadly, you should organize your research process so that you craft an airtight view on it’s current impact on music while also concerning personal perspective.

What does it mean to “stream music” Which i believe is a question to at least attempt to answer. I think analyzing those … is important as they consist of methods of listening that we may discover may or may not be markedly different than apple music/ spotify/ youtube music? And why that matters I don’t know? I really don’t want this to turn into a super detailed comparison between different music streaming companies. I’m reading technical stuff but I hope it has as much character in the writing as Greg Tate or some other luminary. Maybe this dude named Sacha Jenkins or the guy who wrote the Dilla book. Or as humorous as a bit you could hear on the simpsons.

++No, i’m not worried about undermining my ideas/ claims. Instead, I think the way listening has been flipped upside down in front of my eyes is comically insane and i’m really attempting to understand how I can continue to listen… The real portion of it is that spotify and apple music caused a lover of music to be careful.

++Aside from the social components I’d like to explore the sense of degradation that occurs when you stream music. Some examples - oblong/abstrct is ok- feel this one out-

• “Powerful” comment during maybe being on the brink of tears while listening to a closing track of an incredible album and then being assaulted with a 5 gum ad.
• Woops, wrong song. On Hody Beats’ soundcloud song Wicked.

Degradation was initial word because i’m assuming mike doesn’t want all that next to something he put a lot of work into. Neither does hodgy. When an artist sees in real time feedback, they can createmusic that tends to the algorithm. We can explore the power of in-real-time feedback so that our stats are dialed in. To be a successful streaming artist means you have to be numbers guy. Meaning here’s a din of music cluttering noise and if your career relies on people paying attention to your music, you have to remember what people pay attention to. The pay attention to is slightly different than listening.

++These things I do/ that happen to me when I’m listening…a degradation of attention and a degradation of the music. assembling a narrative that is supported by a feeling that the way we listen now to music is peculiar and opens us up to many different ways of engaging with the art. Yeah it’s a legit claim but by being really specific with examples we can flesh out why it’s interesting. It’s true that paying attention to art is hard. We can turn our phone off when we watch a movie, but not when we stream music- it’s tied directly to the internet.

Notes on streaming music, streaming capital 4/30/26

Chapter 1

• Distraction is baked-in to streaming services. It is the selling point. “Cast in this role, music exhibits the same ambivalence as other interfaces, simultaneously connecting and separating.”
• Defines friction- i feel friction with the limit of albums I can add to my library and also when I can’t pause and album in the middle of my listening
• Is music unending? “Streaming is a technology for collapsing time-- the time separating file request from file use, desire from gratification.”
• “Streaming doesn’t transform music from a good into a service. Rather, it makes certain goods (namely, audio files) so short-lived, so disposable, that they effecivetly mimic the characteristics of services: impermanence, conicidence of production and consumption, and so on.”

Further research:

• Abbing, why are artists poor?
• Aegidius, “music streaming metaphor”
• Devine, Decomposed
• Fleischer, if the song has no price
• Daughtry, did music cause?
• Steingo “sound and circulation”
• Craig Havighurst, “The Devaluation of Music is worse than we think”
• “How Musical Taste”, Simkus and peterson
• https://www.reddit.com/r/musicology/comments/1iibx1a/what_do_you_think_about_the_cultural/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/17klr2t/is_music_taste_purely_subjective_or_is_there_such/
• Morris, Selling Digital Music

Notes on Ubiquitous Listening 5/4/26

• Ubiquitous Musics (UM), these musics that fill our days, are listened to without the primary attention assumed by most scholarship to date. That listening, and more generally input of the senses, however, still produces affective responses, bodily events that ultimately lead in part to what we call emotion. And it is through this listening and these responses that a nonindividual, not simply human, distributed subjectivity takes place across a network of music media.
• Music is everywhere now- but what are these UM doing?
• Reason and Resonance: A history of Modern Aurality (2010) by Veit Erlmann
• We need to find the dynamic nonhuman subjectivity
• Shift from narrative thinking about music to something more… apt for UM.
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/25595866
• Chu Chung and reich 2004
• Chong kastner treisman 2004
• Overall, this book was impressive but the main point was sort-of lost on me. Maybe I read too many books about business so despite it being primarily “theory” I didn’t really know what the take away was or what the impact was.
• I think at the time bridging attention to the forefront of music listening was novel.

Notes on Psychological Ownership & Music Streaming Consumption (2016) 4/13/26

• Further research
• The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

Notes on Pathways to music exploration in a digital Age (2009) 4/13/26

• “New inventions in the way sounds, images and texts are produced and captured have changed the way that artists and writers work… But perhaps even more far reaching, new technologies have dramatically changed the market for art and culture, typically leading to expanded audiences having access to more diverse options.” (Tepper & Hargittai, 2009, p. 227)
• This paper is exploring “the pathways” to music exploration and attempting to understand the new “processes people use to expand their repertoire of cultural consumption.”
• Technology has shifted inventories of music from physical space to virtual space (re: how music got free)
• Article seeks to answer how college students find new music… pretty quotidian but hopefully interesting behavioral pathways reveal themselves.
• Why is discovery important in art? (This section was really cool/ dense can underpin the larger question I have at the top- what does it mean to know all of music and is it possible?)
• Innovation and creativity require churn
• Law of variety says that stimulating choice within limits and discovering something new
• Plus learning things and sharing them is how we relate to each other in culture
• Gotta look up this bordieu fellow
• Cultural capital should rely less on "cultural content and more on consumption practice” quoted in Sullivan and Katz-Gerro, 2007, p.124
• There are so many “opinion leaders” on apple music- streaming has enabled those to proliferate.
• The omnivore thesis… it’s based a bit on consumption for a purpose But I just really love listening to music and learning more about good music because I like the way it makes me feel!
• Activity vs. Identity
• Mavens, etc. collapse (fail to exist) in streaming
• Neumann (1991) found audiences are quite passive when it comes to cultural consumption- they do not want to work hard for their entertainment.
• Information technologies offer tools for users to navigate ever-expanding cultural catalogues (Anderson, 2006)-- remember this was written in 2009 so… streaming music wasn’t really a thing then. Spotify started in 2008.
• Doctorow 2003 said “risk-free grazing” is the “whole point” of digital music.-- What is the actual risk?
• These omnivorous “opinion leaders” seek new music and recommend new music that will be useful to others and facilitate future social exchange (Atkin 1972) but I wonder, now, I don’t know any of these people that I follow on Apple Music but yet I love them…
• “For these individuals, new technology is not used for browsing as much as it is for retrieving music more expeditiously.”
• I love but don't know if i agree with their final take that the use of technology for discovering new music and culture will be used to reinforce existing social patterns and relationships rather than transform them

You have Not Yet Heard Your Favorite Song Notes

Dealing with the unfortunate reality that it is not possible to know all music, what must one do? Solodyn? 52 week deep dive?

• Napster ITunes & the iPod were three transformative technologies at the dawn of 2004.
• No longer is curiosity expensive
• Who said this?
• Music exploration went from searching to browsing

Notes on Money 4 Nothing w/ Nick Seaver (4/14/26)

• What does Glenn Mcdonald think about Nick’s take that these listeners who are subject to algorithms on streaming services might not actually need them. Is it a problem that there’s too much music? A person who listens only to the beatles white album 1x per week doesn’t have a problem. Information overload is a myth- we believe this story that people are subject to a historical change that there is now too much music. Early recommender systems imagine a thwarted fan who doesn’t have enough “time” to pursue the intrinsic goal of finding new music.
• Taste definition- arbitrary set of presrences distributed unevenly across a population. Taste becomes something you do.
• Do recommenders contribute to a degraded listening experience by making passive, background music? The history says passive listening is bad and feminized. We want to avoid this bias! The people who make recommender systems are big music nerds… like wehn I give keegand a song. He still defies me.
• Click-shaped recommender systems…
• Further Research

Shawn Reynaldo taste research

Capturing sound 6/12/2026

Further research

• “on being tasteless”, William Brooks

Streamin’s Effects on Music Culture: Old Anxieties and New Simplifications 4/25/26

5 themes

• Streaming encourages ‘functional’ rather than meaningful, aesthetic musical experience
• It is a leap to say when someone puts on a wake up to good vibes playlist “neoliberal or radical individualist ideologies are at work”-- we don’t know whether or not this is indeed functional/ how this playlist makes people feel. When they listen to it.
• Streaming encourages bland, unchallenging music
• This kind of music I’ve been seeing… is fine. A lot of critics like caraminca and pelly and Chris Richards say vanilla music is proliferating because of spotify. People are incentivized to make bland music bc the algorithm likes it
• Makes me think of lauren voigt’s spotify playlist- I didn’t recognize a single artist and it was always on shuffle at her place.
• Keir Keightly says we’ve always had easy-listening music or middle of road (MOR) music… but my thought is that it’s not right next to beyonce, or the dead c. It’s availability is new.
• Streaming makes music experience passive and distracted, and music recedes into the background
• Define music experience lol
• Hard agree that “foreground good, background bad” is way too simple. Would be interested in what Ruth Herbert has to say about listening and I think of MBDTF drifting in and out of sleep as an incredibly powerful listening experience. Same with that song that I sent to my mom the other day.
• Streaming makes music tracks and songs shorter, and musical experience more fragmented
• Define fragmented!!!
• Tiktok of it all… doesn’t mean actually that we have shorter attention spans and who says that’s a bad thing?
• Streaming discourages and /or limits musical discovery and adventurousness
• So not true

In general this researcher, Hesmondhalgh, thinks a lot of critique are overblown, not new, and need follow-up.

“Serious attention to the complexity of people’s musical lives is a potentially important contribution of critical social science to debates about the effects of platforms on contemporary culture.”

Further Research:

• Rekret, 2019
• Mark Mulligan, 2019
• Bainbridge, 2019
• Sterne, 2003
• David Suisman, 2009
• Stoller 2018
• Theodor Adorno (1976[1962])
• Leppert 2002
• Anahid Kassabian (2013)
• Rasmus Pederson 2020
• Nicholas Cook 1990
• Rose Subotnik 1995
• Gabrielsson, 2011
• Ruth Herbert 2011
• Kopf 2019
• Bagal 2019
• Baade 2018
• Ingham 2018
• Judy Wajcman 2015
• Ben Ratliff 2016
• Rekret 2019
• Bainbridge 2019
• Nylund Hagen 2015
• Sofia Johansson et. al. 2019
• Marika Luders 2019
• Datta et al 2018
• Hesmondhalgh 2013
• Nancy Hanrahan 2018,2019

//

The sooner we see that music is infinite and unites us all… that’s what this is all about

Rollie Pemberton’s Ways of Listening

• Digging
• I worry about the impact algorithmic playlists can have on young music lovers… who might not go beyond what’s served up to them? I like the first point and detest the second.
• Bugs do really suck… and erode the feeling of music. We use listening now as a tool.

The Psychology Behind Music Streaming Playlists and Listener Behavior

Discover, Consume, Interact

They offer convenience

Do they also “feature playlists”? Apple Music uses my playlists bro…

The convenience and personalized experience provided by these playlists have fundamentally changed music consumption patterns, steering listeners toward an era of musical abundance and discovery.-- more like they have steered users toward “passive consumption”

//

Passive consumption is not easy to define. When i’m typing this and listening to Junior H… Is there a pure consumption? And active consumption? Lol, important not to forget that people just listened to music and that’s all they did.