Music Discoverability Requires Active Participation
Convenience has eliminated our agency, our power to choose and removed the humanity from music listening experiences.
This past week I returned to thinking about, and listening to, music.
I listened to podcast interviews with Australian music business leaders, read long form writing and research papers, attended the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and had several IRL conversations . Invariably, everything I heard led to the significant challenge for Australian music and culture in 2024, discoverability.
I reflected on what I was hearing as I walked the bitumen atop Gadigal Country between cultural institutions. I asked the music fandom part of me — how am I discovering music in 2024?
Like so many others, I have become lazy. I queue up DJ Spotify in the office or select a Made for You list in the car or exercising. My previous passion for active participation in making playlists has waned.
Back in October 2018 I published a blog, here on Medium, titled “Discover New AUSTRALIAN Music.” At the time, I was still working in the business of music and my friends would often ask me how I found, and organised, music on Spotify. I researched the cultural importance of Australian music and documented my personal process. Assorted folks still follow my lists as a ‘trusted music recommender’ (music is a broad church!)
Recently, Spotify (somewhat helpfully) analysed my listening habits. This aged 50+ GenX Australian woman was identified as a Millenial with strong GenZ listening habits LOL.
Curious. I queued up my Release Radar playlist on Friday 23 August, 2024.
I was blown away.
“The future is the product of the choices you make today.” Toby Walsh (Professor of Artificial Intelligence UNSW)
How we respond to what matters in our lives invokes free will — the magic of human life is that we can choose to co-curate our cultural lives with what we love. Humans are not passive animals idly waiting to receive whatever falls into our laps, ears and eyes. When we allow that, the robots will have won.
Earlier in August Tiffany Ngarchive wrote a fantastic deep dive article “How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm” for MIT Technology Review. She argues that we have lost our curiosity and now rely on the convenience of cheap, unlimited streaming access to Spotify’s 6,291 microgenres of databased music. Convenience has eliminated our agency, our power to choose and removed the humanity from music listening experiences.
Like magic, my own active participation in music curation has trained the artificial intelligence to understand my music taste.
Inspired by the joy and breadth of incredible new music I discovered in one listen of an algorithmically created playlist for me by Spotify — I doubled down and have curated a playlist for my friends and readers.*
In one week alone Australian artists have released a slew of new tracks.
Thelma Plum ; Emily Wurramara with Arringarri ; Sarah Blasko ; Mallrat ; Sycco ; Alex the Astronaut ; Angie McMahon ; Jordie Lane and Amyl and the Sniffers all released new music in ONE WEEK!
New tracks from Laura Marling ; Mark Lanegan with Beck and Father John Misty also made the cut and all these fresh releases are now added to my 2024 Solar Year playlist and in high rotation. Enjoy!
Leanne de Souza is a well-respected leader with 30+ years managing creative projects, people & processes in the national cultural sector.
Currently enrolled in a Masters (Museum Studies) building upon a 2021 Bachelor of Arts (Media and Digital Cultures, Gender and Indigenous Studies) at the University of Queensland.
Leanne is widely respected as an independent contractor across the cultural industries. She is a strategist, program designer, facilitator, curator and producer.
Currently, I have capacity for new projects.
My super-power is bespoke facilitation of creative leaders minds.
Scoping a new curatorial or creative project ?
Lead a small to medium sized cultural organisation and want to work your astounding brain through an analogue process before taking it to your artists, teams, funding bodies ?
Reach out if interested in working together.
Substack is the place for my infrequent writing from midlife and beyond. I write there about music, travel, books, conversation, alchemy, adoption, feminism, justice and genealogy. I’m in transition to a creative life > writer ; I live on unceded Turrbul country. https://leannedesouza.substack.com/
